Obama's Legacy

[Mogget]

He was a good present. One of the best.

His biggest achievement was navigating us through the worst financial crisis since the great depression. Decisions taken during his regime are responsible for the current economic upturn. We were in whole lot of shit back in '08.

Passage of Dodd-Frank

ACA was another wonderful achievement that will eventually lead us to a single player/Universal health care system.

He was the first president who openly championed for Gay rights. He signed an executive order giving gay partners of federal employees limited benefits. DOJ under him announced not to defend DOMA. Repealed Don't ask, don't tell.

Cuba was a good step. Iran deal was another positive step he took.

Got Bin Laden.

There are many more things that I can add to the list when I am more coherent.

Being the first black president he was supposed to be a revolutionary & a messiah combined who was going to change the world. The expectation from him were too high & he was never going to live up to them. Eight 8 years is too less a time to turn the world upside down (On the good side. It's enough to destroy everything). He wasn't a benevolent dictator. He was a democratically elected leader who had to do everything within the confines of his presidency, working with an increasingly hostile majority opposition party.

We expect from too much from our presidents. It is not easy to please everyone and get stuff done in a democracy. Go work for your local council, or heck become a part of your local home owner association and see how fecking frustrating and impossible it is to get everyone on the same page and get things done. There are limitations to what one can do under a democracy. Four or Eight years are nearly not enough to fully implement your vision. That is why it is important to have a continuity of leadership.

This is insane. They don't just fall into the job by accident, they spend thousands of dollars and hours campaigning to hold probably the most powerful position in the world.

Anyone doing that should be held to the highest of standards.

 

[Il Prete Rosso]

There are no good presidents. This country is rotten to the core. But that doesnt make Obama good.

If we're going by your standards, Reagan was worse than Obama.

 

[Il Prete Rosso]

This topic has been discussed at length by Berniebro's. I don't think he was a good president, his foreign policy will be remembered as very poor, obviously.. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya & Syria and as Eboue said before me, a significant reason why we have Trump now is down to his government not registering the growing discontent of the public towards it's elected officials I mean.. his message was "Change" which in and of itself was an anti-establishment, populist slogan of sorts, right? It's probably a 2 hour discussion if you start listing what voters wanted and what little they actually got.

Really? It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Trump started his campaign stoking racial undertones in America by saying the first black president wasn't American. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Republicans stymied his every move on the very first day. It also has nothing to do with the fact that for 8 years, conservatives rallied against every single thing Obama did just because they hated him as a person. Anyone who tells you that they hated Obama but loves Trump needs their moral compass and head examined; that's the clear and present truth. You could say that some of his policies were not in line with conservatives but let's be honest here, Obama stretched his hand towards them for many compromises and they simply didn't want to work with him for fear of the extreme right wing. THIS is why you have Trump. The GOP caused Trump...not Obama.

 

[Morpheus 7]

Terrible comment

You mean a true one, explain why you disagree or pipe down.

 

[altodevil]

You mean a true one, explain why you disagree or pipe down.

You would have preferred a prolonged and deadlier war, with unchecked Communist expansion, then?

 

[Morpheus 7]

You would have preferred a prolonged and deadlier war, with unchecked Communist expansion, then?

Typical justification for a despicable act, the US have a history of this behaviour. There is no spinning the killing of innocent civilians on saving lives of people in the US military, that prolonged war theory is fine when it involves army's not murdering women and children. The kids that did survive it, drinking the black rain days after dying an even more painful death. The cnut should have been taken up for war crimes, just like the Nazi's hanged in the Nuremberg trials.

Unchecked communism expansion, what are you on about. The cold war didn't start to after ww2 and arguably under Einsenhowers reign. AKA Vietnam.. That place the United States shouldn't haven't been interfering as usual.

 

[Eboue]

If we're going by your standards, Reagan was worse than Obama.

Well obviously

 

[altodevil]

Typical justification for a despicable act, the US have a history of this behaviour. There is no spinning the killing of innocent civilians on saving lives of people in the US military, that prolonged war theory is fine when it involves army's not murdering women and children. The kids that did survive it, drinking the black rain days after dying an even more painful death. The cnut should have been taken up for war crimes, just like the Nazi's hanged in the Nuremberg trials.

Unchecked communism expansion, what are you on about. The cold war didn't start to after ww2 and arguably under Einsenhowers reign. AKA Vietnam.. That place the United States shouldn't haven't been interfering as usual.

You are talking like the US military was a band of war-mongering expendables. The reality is that these men were civilians who were drafted. You start attaching different values to lives, it is a dangerous game. Different story if they were all volunteers. Besides, civilian deaths were Japan's speciality. You ask China if they would have been ok with the US dropping nukes on Japan before the War started, given what we know now.

Soviet gains in the east would have been far greater had they gone ahead with an invasion of Japan. Furthermore, they funnelled a lot of cash into their military, which could have easily have been spent elsewhere. Stalin couldn't just promote communist parties/uprisings willynilly.

 

[oneniltothearsenal]

When you list things out like this it becomes very clear he did the absolute bare minimum that was humanly possible to stay elected within his base

His biggest achievement was navigating us through the worst financial crisis since the great depression. Decisions taken during his regime are responsible for the current economic upturn. We were in whole lot of shit back in '08.

Passage of Dodd-Frank

Bare minimum possible to re-establish a semblance of sane regulations. Bailed out the entire banking industry and culprits of the crisis while letting tens of thousands lose their homes and savings, couldn't figure out a way to punish any of the culprits like the horrible human beings at countrywide led by scum Angelo Mozilo. We still don't have financial sector regulations as strong as we did before Clinton de-regulated the sector with the FSMA and CFMA deregulations. I remember following the crisis in real time and writing letters on it from a behavioral economics perspective and Obama's response here was as tepid, submissive to Wall Street as it could possible be.

The bailout was completely top-down with an emphasis on helping the richest institutions first and most.
The bailout should have been bottom-up. By that instead of bailing out the banks directly and letting people get fecked, Obama Admin should have bailed out all the people who couldn't afford their shite ARM. By then saving hundreds of thousands homes, those people can make their payments to the banks which has the effect of bolstering the banks, but the strain would have been on the financial sector as it should have been for causing the mess instead of Obama Admin allowing the negative effects to mostly affect the poorest and middle class.

I can break this down further but this should suffice for now.

ACA was another wonderful achievement that will eventually lead us to a single player/Universal health care system.

If wonderful to you is installing a nation wide mandatory privatized health insurance system invented by the ultra conservative Heritage Foundation, the details of which conceived by for-profit HMOs and Big Pharma in the room as "stakeholders" writing the rules they wanted and intentionally killing the public option that had over 65% public support then I have some things to sell you.

Admittedly convincing even a fraction of people that a single provision demanding coverage of pre-existing conditions is so amazing and revolutionary that thousands of pages of HMO/Big Pharma approved regulations and design should be ignored by everyone was quite a sleight of hand marketing trick so I guess props for that?

Another absolute minimum for the people.

He was the first president who openly championed for Gay rights. He signed an executive order giving gay partners of federal employees limited benefits. DOJ under him announced not to defend DOMA. Repealed Don't ask, don't tell.

Only after he campaigned on the line "marriage is between a man and a woman" and then he noticed the overwhelming support from his own base. Good on him for changing his mind but lets not pretend he was a pace setter here and not just following from the back of the pack.

Got Bin Laden.

But he didn't stop all the Iraq farce and didn't pull shut down the unConstitutional detention centers such as Guantanamo bay as he campaigned on.

I'll agree with you on Cuba and Iran to a degree tbf.

Being the first black president he was supposed to be a revolutionary & a messiah combined who was going to change the world. The expectation from him were too high & he was never going to live up to them. Eight 8 years is too less a time to turn the world upside down (On the good side. It's enough to destroy everything). He wasn't a benevolent dictator. He was a democratically elected leader who had to do everything within the confines of his presidency, working with an increasingly hostile majority opposition party.

Naw. He was only really expected to deliver on some of his campaign promise like public option for healthcare and actually doing something about the root causes of the financial crisis that motivated the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Trump has delivered for the right far more than Obama delivered for the left.

We expect from too much from our presidents. It is not easy to please everyone and get stuff done in a democracy. Go work for your local council, or heck become a part of your local home owner association and see how fecking frustrating and impossible it is to get everyone on the same page and get things done. There are limitations to what one can do under a democracy. Four or Eight years are nearly not enough to fully implement your vision. That is why it is important to have a continuity of leadership.

I'd argue we expect too little and settle for the lowest standards all too often.

It would be nice if the system tried to please anyone except the richest 10%

And I have been around local politics and again the problem is the same - the richest wheel gets all the grease.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Really? It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Trump started his campaign stoking racial undertones in America by saying the first black president wasn't American. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Republicans stymied his every move on the very first day. It also has nothing to do with the fact that for 8 years, conservatives rallied against every single thing Obama did just because they hated him as a person. Anyone who tells you that they hated Obama but loves Trump needs their moral compass and head examined; that's the clear and present truth. You could say that some of his policies were not in line with conservatives but let's be honest here, Obama stretched his hand towards them for many compromises and they simply didn't want to work with him for fear of the extreme right wing. THIS is why you have Trump. The GOP caused Trump...not Obama.

Did you even read my comment, I said "a" significant issue, not "the" issue or "the only" issue. Anyhow... we could talk about the increasing unrest of the whole western population at maintaining the status quo. Examples being Brexit in the UK, Hungary gone full far right, Poland, YellowVests in France, Merkel stepping down in Germany/Chemnitz, Salvini and co. in Italy and obviously the glaring expample being the US electing an Orangeman instead of an establishment figure etc etc but I get the feeling we'd be here for about 2-10 hours discussing it and I can't be bothered.
But yes, the Democrats with Obama's 2 terms (others have discussed his failures over the last 4 pages so I won't revisit here), then standing most transparent corporate shill last election with Clinton instead of a Sanders figure has played a large role in us getting Trump.

 

[CA_vampire]

He was a bad president.

He did nothing for the middle class and the real financial problems most people face. He just said a lot of nice things, all of them empty and meaningless (yes we can, audacity of hope). He sided with the banks and the wall street executives and made a lot of money for himself and for his billionaire friends. He received the peace nobel prize for nothing, and then he made a worse mess in the middle east. He excelled in nothing, except as an orator... he should be an actor in the theater. All this bullshit helped bring us Trump, who is definitely the worst president ever. But Trump would have never become a president if it wasn't for Obama and Hillary.

 

[Eboue]

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[Eboue]

there's a good couple of paragraphs that outline some of the main arguments in the piece but i cant quote it because text speak dragnet is broken

 

[adexkola]

there's a good couple of paragraphs that outline some of the main arguments in the piece but i cant quote it because text speak dragnet is broken

Most of the article is fair however not even Bernie could get a FDR sized stimulus to pass today.

 

[Eboue]

Most of the article is fair however not even Bernie could get a FDR sized stimulus to pass today.

He didnt try. He had a supermajority and he didn't even try.

 

[kidbob]

Another corporate shill who was just better at speaking than Trump is. All politicians are bad people and those who aren't right now will be corrupted sooner rather than later. Obama is probably a nice guy at heart but you can't get to that level in politics without being a giant corrupt piece of shit. Ain't no way to rise in a corrupt system without being corrupt yourself.

Edit: drinking the water in font of the people of Flint was a true crowning moment of where his true loyalties laid.

 

[Henrik Larsson]

When I saw the thread title my first thought was that there's really not that much of a legacy to begin with.

To me as an outsider who's only been following American politics superficially with the occasional neurotic in-depth fixation on a particular subject (like for example I've always wondered how the hell Larry Summers of all people ended up being one of the masterminds behind the ecomic recovery policies back in 2008) an article like this makes a lot of sense to me:

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/04/06/the-fragile-legacy-of-barack-obama/

 

[MTF]

Radicals dislike a moderate. Oldest story in the book.

 

[Morpheus 7]

You are talking like the US military was a band of war-mongering expendables. The reality is that these men were civilians who were drafted. You start attaching different values to lives, it is a dangerous game. Different story if they were all volunteers. Besides, civilian deaths were Japan's speciality. You ask China if they would have been ok with the US dropping nukes on Japan before the War started, given what we know now.

Soviet gains in the east would have been far greater had they gone ahead with an invasion of Japan. Furthermore, they funnelled a lot of cash into their military, which could have easily have been spent elsewhere. Stalin couldn't just promote communist parties/uprisings willynilly.

Attaching different values to human lives? You mentioned Truman as being good, I said he dropped two indiscriminate weapons on civilian's. I'm not comparing attrocious, two wrongs do not make a right. I assume you are from the US, maybe they are not the good guy's? Self interest and power shift was the reasons they entered ww2 .They made weapons and artillery for both sides before entering, never forget that. The imperial nature to the United States is frightening. The Soviet Union are as bad but I'm focused on your Truman comment.

 

[oneniltothearsenal]

Typical justification for a despicable act, the US have a history of this behaviour. There is no spinning the killing of innocent civilians on saving lives of people in the US military, that prolonged war theory is fine when it involves army's not murdering women and children. The kids that did survive it, drinking the black rain days after dying an even more painful death. The cnut should have been taken up for war crimes, just like the Nazi's hanged in the Nuremberg trials.

Unchecked communism expansion, what are you on about. The cold war didn't start to after ww2 and arguably under Einsenhowers reign. AKA Vietnam.. That place the United States shouldn't haven't been interfering as usual.

The Cold War started much earlier than Vietnam. At least as early as the division of Korea into North and South by the USA and USSR in 1945. That division directly led to the Korean War (started 1950) which was 100% a Cold War phenomenon.

 

[CA_vampire]

He didnt try. He had a supermajority and he didn't even try.

This is the core of the problem. For two full years he had a majority and he did not even try.

People say he was trying to find "consensus". But why try to find consensus with the republicans in core policies like health care, when the polls clearly indicate that the majority of Americans want coverage for all? That's bullshit! Obama was trying to find "consensus" with the CEOs of the large companies, so that the corporate america will be happy. He was making friends with the billionaires. That's why he did so little during his 8 years. He was trying to keep the CEOs happy.

 

[Buster15]

Then fair enough.

My history pre-FDR is weaker. But presidents I'd consider to be clearly better:

Washington
Jefferson
Lincoln
T. Roosevelt
F.D.R.
Truman
Eisenhower

The next tier where Obama falls IMO, would contain

Madison
Monroe
Polk
Coolidge
Johnson
Reagan
Clinton

There are 2 tiers below that. Trump so far is with Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan in the bottom tier. Nixon is in the 3rd tier, with Andrew Jackson. I'm not sure whether Kennedy falls in 2 or 3.

As a British person l am a bit surprised that Kennedy isn't in you top tier.
I am thinking primarily of how he handled the Cuban Missile crisis and the drive for the space programme.
He was far from perfect but IMHO a terrific leader.

 

[adexkola]

As a British person l am a bit surprised that Kennedy isn't in you top tier.
I am thinking primarily of how he handled the Cuban Missile crisis and the drive for the space programme.
He was far from perfect but IMHO a terrific leader.

Partly because of recent articles that say he nearly bungled the Cuban Missile crisis. Below is one of them. If true that would take one of his accomplishments off the list.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-real-cuban-missile-crisis/309190/

Also he had (not his fault) a relatively short presidency (less than 3 years), compared to others in the top tier, most of who served 2 full terms. Only Lincoln has less (5 years), and he did enough in 4 years to be considered the greatest by some, including me.

Now that I think about it, Kennedy is a good fit in tier 2. Where exactly would you rank him?

 

[The Firestarter]

Partly because of recent articles that say he nearly bungled the Cuban Missile crisis. Below is one of them. If true that would take one of his accomplishments off the list.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-real-cuban-missile-crisis/309190/

Also he had (not his fault) a relatively short presidency (less than 3 years), compared to others in the top tier, most of who served 2 full terms. Only Lincoln has less (5 years), and he did enough in 4 years to be considered the greatest by some, including me.

Now that I think about it, Kennedy is a good fit in tier 2. Where exactly would you rank him?

Sobering read. I've always wondered what was the big fuss over a dozen surface bases MRBMs which took several hours to prepare and could easily be taken out with conventional ordnance. When SLBMs were already a thing by that time.

Otherwise, the secret deal for the Jupiter system in Turkey is widely reported today , basically every documentary that I've watched on the subject has mentioned it.

 

[adexkola]

Sobering read. I've always wondered what was the big fuss over a dozen surface bases MRBMs which took several hours to prepare and could easily be taken out with conventional ordnance. When SLBMs were already a thing by that time.

Otherwise, the secret deal for the Jupiter system in Turkey is widely reported today , basically every documentary that I've watched on the subject has mentioned it.

I didn't know about that until I read that article when it came out. In hindsight it makes more sense than Kennedy blustering Khrushchev into giving up such a strategic advantage.

 

[Buster15]

Partly because of recent articles that say he nearly bungled the Cuban Missile crisis. Below is one of them. If true that would take one of his accomplishments off the list.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-real-cuban-missile-crisis/309190/

Also he had (not his fault) a relatively short presidency (less than 3 years), compared to others in the top tier, most of who served 2 full terms. Only Lincoln has less (5 years), and he did enough in 4 years to be considered the greatest by some, including me.

Now that I think about it, Kennedy is a good fit in tier 2. Where exactly would you rank him?

Yes I agree with you on that. We remember his charisma particularly compared to Nixon.

I have read a very good book which outlines the events surrounding the Cuban Missile crisis.

It was an incredibly stressful period and as you will know, he was getting highly conflicting information from those close to him.

It is quite difficult to imagine how critical decisions had to be given the communication systems at that time and the link you gave shows that.

The outcome is the most important thing and fortunately for us all it ended up without further escalation.

Appreciate your input.

 

[adexkola]

Yes I agree with you on that. We remember his charisma particularly compared to Nixon.

I have read a very good book which outlines the events surrounding the Cuban Missile crisis.

It was an incredibly stressful period and as you will know, he was getting highly conflicting information from those close to him.

It is quite difficult to imagine how critical decisions had to be given the communication systems at that time and the link you gave shows that.

The outcome is the most important thing and fortunately for us all it ended up without further escalation.

Appreciate your input.

I agree that it is a hard job. I can't imagine the pressure.

 

[Eboue]

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[matherto]

He'll be remembered for guiding America and thus the world through the financial crisis.

He'll be remembered for being a well spoken man with a great, resounding voice that made him perfect for giving the right speeches.

But he'll also be remembered for ultimately not delivering any change and for failing on multiple fronts and I suspect as time goes by, the image will fade and his accomplishments will be looked upon with more scrutiny and his stock will fall massively. He may have guided us through the financial crisis but he let everyone who created it off the hook massively instead of destroying them which would've given us the change we desperately needed in the world.

He wasn't a bad President in the sense that he wasn't the typical American type on the surface, trying to police the world and launching all of us into wars that we don't need to be fighting but at the same time he drone striked the hell out of a bunch of people and he's got Syria and Lybia to answer for. Plus he kept the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ongoing plus the rise of ISIS that he failed to control, in part because he was trying to appear like he wasn't policing the world. Catch 22 in that sense.

He was ultimately a letdown for all the hype.

 

[Nucks]

You would have preferred a prolonged and deadlier war, with unchecked Communist expansion, then?

Stalin wasn't interested in expansion.

Of either the USSR, or of communism. Please read an actual history book on the subject. He was the anti-Lenin. He disbanded the international. He killed all the internationalist leaders. He could have actually absorbed Eastern Europe into the USSR. He didn't. He imposed a harder version of what the US, UK, and France imposed on Germany, and the US imposed on Japan. He refused direct intervention in communist uprisings around the world. He blanked the Greeks when communist greeks had an actual shot to win their uprising.

Stalin was a lot of things, but he certainly wasn't an internationalist, and I dare say, he wasn't even really a true believer of communism. It was a means to an ends for him. It's why he abandoned the communist international movement, or rather had it murdered in Mexico City via ice pick.

All Soviet expansion under Stalin, was disputed territory that Russia had owned at one point or another, and the underlying point of taking the territory, was to create a larger buffer with the west. Baltics. Bits of Poland, bits of Finland, etc.

 

[Eboue]

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/the-obama-boys

damning article. just incredible how bad these people were

 

[Cockney Phil]

A dreadful president who styled himself on Kennedy and in the end his charisma crumbled.
I was in Berlin when he visited and the bright young things were full of hope and actually believed his sound bites.
History will judge him to be a disaster and a major cause of Trump’s triumph.

 

[forevrared]

After a term of Trump, Obama is probably going to look much worse than he did the day he left office, unfortunately. It won't be entirely fair, because no one in the preceding 8 years could have imagined the shit show to come when one man's entire presidency was aimed at undoing the previous one. I don't think Obama was perfect by any means. I hated his foreign policy and drone strikes, I hated his cozy relationship with Wall Street and the bail outs, I didn't like that he didn't fight harder for Merrick Garland and let lower court seats go unfilled (since he assumed Hilary would win and it wouldn't matter).

However, when we look back decades from now, we may well have to give him a load of credit for inspiring the next generation (the ever hated 'Millennials') who helped to spark the real change we were promised in 2008. Lest we forget, Trump lost the popular vote by millions and Democrats, instead of licking their wounds, doubled down and went on to dominate the 2018 midterms by almost 10,000,000 votes to flip the House - the largest margin of victory ever in a midterm election. We've got a more diverse Congress than ever before and a more progressive one than ever before, too. While many will continue to espouse Obama's leadership and Presidency, they have also made clear that they've learned from his mistakes.

 

[George Owen]

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[Eboue]

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[Sweet Square]

Stuart Hall was brilliant

 

[DJ Jeff]

So what though? All Republicans are racist. If Obama didnt realize this then hes even more the fool. It's pointless to guess what might have happened if they didnt run a racist campaign. Conservatism is an inherently racist ideology. Fighting it requires recognizing and defeating that. Obama failed.

Just out of interest, how is conservatism inherently racist? I don't consider myself to know much about politics

 

[Eboue]

Just out of interest, how is conservatism inherently racist? I don't consider myself to know much about politics

Their policies harm non white people. Their entire ideology is built on protecting the status quo, which not coincidentally is dominated by whites and supported by generations of racist policies.

 

[Siorac]

Their policies harm non white people. Their entire ideology is built on protecting the status quo, which not coincidentally is dominated by whites and supported by generations of racist policies.

Not even the status quo: most conservatives are reactionaries, they hark back to some imaginary golden age when those "other people" knew their place.

 

[freeurmind]

My views on this have done a complete 180. Maybe theres an inherent want or need to defend Obama on mine and id dare say other peoples part because he was so strongly criticized by the right and because he's black. But if you look at it objectively and take emotion out of it then you have to conclude that he was intact a bad president.

The current primary season puts it into perspective. Imagine listening to Bernie or Warrens policies and promises, see them get elected and see then see them proceed to not follow through on most and in some cases do the opposite. That would be crushing. It's not good enough just to be better than the Republicans.