Will it be former president Trump versus President Biden in 2024? Or will it be former First Lady Michelle Obama versus former President Trump? These questions and the instability of our times make for much handwringing and prayer here in the early days of 2024.

If you take a deep breath and break this down, it gets simpler. The election of 2024 sets Trump’s “Make America Great Again” against Obama’s “Transform America” mantra. If you want it down to bare bones, the election of 2024 pits Obama against Trump.

Some of you might doubt me, citing the fact that Obama has already served eight years as POTUS and that the Constitution forbids him from a Putin-like endless rule. I might be tempted to ask you what other former President moved less than two miles from the White House to continue forcibly engraving his ego on American politics?

Obama, like Putin, does not want to leave the stage. He is willing, however, to let surrogates or the “right people” do his bidding as long as he retains control.

During President Trump’s first term, it was obvious that outsider Trump was having difficulty getting the attention and cooperation of a federal workforce ideologically and sentimentally attached to the Great Community Organizer.

Did Obama shed any tears over his successor’s difficulty? No, he made sure that the “right people” sabotaged Trump’s every move. The federal workforce, aka “the Swamp,” slow-walked everything President Trump tried to do.

I argue that Obama began his presidency during the last months of George W. Bush’s administration and that he has been in some level of control ever since. I further argue that BHO has been calling the shots for President Biden since he took the oath in early 2021. If Biden is reelected, Obama’s reign will eclipse that of FDR.

If, however, former president Trump manages to do a Grover Cleveland in 2024, President Trump will return to the White House a different man. He will be changed, not in any sense that Obama would welcome, but refined into a lean, mean, swamp-busting machine.

Painful as the election of 2020 was for all, the aftermath has given us a terrifying peek at what Obama means by transforming America. Pigs will fly before my vote for Trump will be meaningful because I live in deep blue Maryland. What I have seen of Biden/Obama leadership, however, will give me wings on Election Day to vote against them. What I have seen of Obama’s vision for America terrifies me, and I admit I don’t know all he means when he says he wants to transform America. I want none of it, and I will vote to make America great again!

Ned Cosby, a prolific contributor to American Thinker, is a former pastor, veteran Coast Guard officer, and a retired career public high school teacher. His newest novel Outcry is a love story exposing the refusal of Christian leaders to report and discipline clergy who sexually abuse our young people. This work of fiction addresses crimes that are all too real. Cosby has also written Recollections from My Father's House, tracing his own odyssey from 1954 to the present. For more info, visit Ned Cosby.

Image: Nicu Buculei