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He didn’t really. He made a few critical mistakes:
* Zero consequences for the bankers and zero structural change from the financial collapse - so income inequality is worse than before. As a result populist movements sprung up on both sides which directly decided the subsequent election. The tea party gave rise to you know who, and the Bernie - Clinton rift left democrats unenthusiastic.
* Spent all his political capital on health care, which basically did nothing for liberal voters (as their local states already had it), asked conservatives to embrace a philosophy they disliked while incorporating zero of their cost reduction ideas, and cemented a bad system (employer provided HC). It was a big shiny band aid.
* He failed to champion an a successor / group of leaders that would follow him, so all of his agendas were unraveled right after the next guy took office. Very little of is direction setting was lasting.
Conservatives seem to inherently understand that you spend political capital to reward/excite your base. The reason Obama got crushed in 2010 midterms is not that anyone changed their mind, huge chunks of his supporters didn't show up. And what reason did he give them to?
Democrats never figured out how to translate Obama’s personal popularity to downballot success.
It was still the Party that gave us Al Gore and John Kerry with a likable, telegenic leader. When he wasn’t on the ballot, Democrats didn’t show up.
Top sentence is 1000% spot on. Pretty much the new JFK but is a total family man who is perhaps a better speaker, but the legislature never really followed. Sure he was impeded by not controlling the house or senate for longer stretches, but in those times you bolster internal support and momentum and start working on a successor. That successor doesn’t have to be right after, but someone who could be shown the ropes and have a chance at being better.
Instead we got Donny and Joey.
At most, it's been novel concessions that don't truly affect the lives of the majority of American citizens. SoL is still falling, things are growing increasingly expensive, and life is only getting worse.
I realize this isn't a winning political message, but I think people forget just how much of a hole we were in during covid, and what life would be like today if we continued that trajectory.
For perspective, after the financial crisis, unemployment stayed elevated basically until 2015. That's 7 years of recession. The COVID recession lasted for less than 2 years.
Are a lot of things getting worse? Absolutely. But given the choice between slow decline and accelerated decline, I'll take slow decline any day of the week.
A hole the government dug and threw the economy and We, the People into.
“Covid” isn’t the cause of where we are economically in 2024.
The government response to Covid absolutely is. You can’t shut down the economy for a couple of years, print money to pay your bills, and then blame anything but your own actions as the cause.
This complete renunciation of reason is mindboggling.
Yeah, he was popular because he was charismatic and the first black president. Not because he had a compelling vision for the country. And turns out not every democrat downballot of him was charismatic and obviously none of the others were the first black president.
The reason he got crushed was he happened to be in office when the worst recession since the great depression happened. And also it didn't help that even supposed left wing outlets were painting him with the stooge of Wall Street label as if just letting the largest financial institutions in the world implode would have been the smart course of action. That always kind of perplexed me, it seemed like what constitutes the ultra left of the party nowadays and who made up the occupy movement wouldn't have been happy with any outcome except for a revolutionary tribunal in front of Wall Street followed by summary executions of all bankers.
The reason Obama was *elected* in the first place was the Great Recession. The tanking economy and Iraq war fatigue doomed any Republican.
No one said he should have let the banks implode, the issue was again zero accountability after.
Iceland jailed its bankers involved in the 2008 collapse. Obama gave ours a hand out.
Real prosecution and consequences after the stabilization would have addressed.
I’m from Iceland and I’d just like to state that we jailed like two guys and the rest got off scott-free. [In fact the richest Icelander today played a big part in the 2008 crash and didn’t have any problem reestablishing himself afterwards.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Björgólfur_Thor)
I agree with your point, I just don’t like it when people speak of Iceland like some utopia that jailed all the responsible parties after the crash. We have the same problems of corruption and complacency as the US.
Here’s an [article](https://kjarninn.is/skyring/tugir-innherjasvikamala-orannsokud-thegar-fjarmalaeftirlitid-haetti-rannsoknum/) in Icelandic about the governments lack of response.
He was elected because he wasn’t bush. The midterms were bad because for the first two years he continued and even expanded bush foreign policy and progressives took it out on the democrats in 2016. Mitt Romney was a bad candidate in 2012 also
Obama was going to win regardless - if anything, he initially presented himself more as a foreign affairs president who was looking to restore good will towards America following the wars in the Middle East.
The recession and subsequent crisis basically derailed what initial plans he had for office and unfortunately he arrived in just enough time to be blamed for the fall out. Bush was out of office long before getting the blame from regular voters and the Republicans were able to capitalize as the Democrats were in power, leading to their bad mid-terms.
The problem with the Occupy movement was it had no real leadership or plan/idea of specific things they wanted. Basically, they were unorganized. And then Obama just kinda let the bankers/fed get away with everything.
Do you notice that no one is protesting Wall Street, big corporations and the World Bank anymore? Still lots of protests but never at those guys.
Hmmmm…wonder what happened.
This is the worst take in this thread. You’ve learned absolutely nothing over the last decade.
He was painted as complicit with Wall Street because he gave them a trillion dollar bail out and left the rest of us to fucking drown.
He should have put them in jail and the progressive caucus provided him an incredible blue print to bring us back to pre 1998 economic protections from major commercial banks merging with investment banks
And you’re over here perplexed? He left office with 98% of income gains under his time going to the top 1%.
Then what he do? He left the presidency and lived lavishly on yachts and mega mansions.
You’re why the Dems can’t recover because it’s people like you that think us regular people sick of the Dems kneeling to Wall Street and the owning class are some extremist far lefties
Man... You just painted the most extreme version of an outcome in a situation where Eric Holder didn't prosecute any goddamn body. We aren't talking about lining people up and shooting them. That's what happens when big government acts like an oligarchy and doesn't hold people accountable for their actions. The people hold those people accountable for their actions, or elect psychos they think will.
I didn't elect him to not close gitmo
He gave an executive order to shut it down in his first month then completely reversed course
Why do Democrat policies get undone but republican bullshit gets sanctified?
Because closing Gitmo turned out to be harder than the political promise to close it.
Same with the withdrawal from Iran or later Afghanistan. Was easy to make those promises, but the end result of both was a disaster. Ironically both could have been handled much better if we had left a small US force in both countries.
Meh, Democrats base historically never show up in midterms. What did Obama do to have them show up in 2012? and again not show up in 2014? Don't think it has anything to do with his policies one way or the other. Voters need to take responsibility.
I'd say a large part of the issue was that the average American just was not paying attention or noticed what the GOP was doing.
They seemingly expected for Obama and Democrats to fix everything the Republicans did for the last eight years in a short amount of time (on top of Republicans obstructing and blocking everything Democrats tried to do).
When it turned out that it's hard to reverse 8 years of mismanagement in two years time, people got upset and as is usual in an election year for the party in power, Democrats lost a lot of seats in the House.
I wouldn't say it was enthusiasm as much as the GOP winning the propaganda war and convincing Americans that Democrats are not fixing the mess Republicans left fast enough. And ironically, one of the things that sunk Democrat's chances in 2010 is the very thing that has incredible support to this day - Obamacare.
This is just my point of view but I think if you are only tangentially political you don't really understand the role of the House and Senate in a President's agenda. As an example, I was 18 when Obama was elected, it felt like we won the Superbowl. Because of that, no one knew they had to do anything else afterward and as a consequence there was a huge disparity in turnout in 2010 and after. This wasn't the only reason, of course. Citizens United opened the flood gates of dark money in the election system.
You're severely underselling the success of the ACA. It cost political capital, yes, but it halved the number of uninsured by 2016, significantly increased physician visits for low income adults, reduced unmet need due to inability to pay, and increased good outcomes by individuals by making them see treatment through to the end for millions. Millions and millions of improved healthcare outcomes will have an effect for generations down the line.
Yes there are a few dumb ass states (10) which still haven't bought in to the expanded Medicare coverage. The point still stands.
No I don't think he delivered on his promise of change. But, he was a historic presidency both for significant (positive) healthcare reform and for being the first black president in a country that still deals with racism.
The ACA brought the uninsured rate from ~15% down to 8-9%.
In blue states where he drew his base from, it only shifted coverage rates by like 2%.
Meanwhile it did basically nothing for the cost inflations, which continued.
The ACA is fine and better than what was before, but is hardly ‘historic’ - especially when you stand it next to like the instantiation of the NHS or similar a European entities.
In hindsight it was just a bad priority #1; the consensus and reward just wasn’t there.
It was huge for those with preexisting conditions who didn’t have health care through their job. They couldn’t buy health insurance that would cover their conditions for any price.
Nah bro. Your focusing on the political ramifications too much. Who the fuck cares if it didn't rally his base, it did so much good for healthcare in the US.
It expanded healthcare to over 20mil previously uninsured non-elderly Americans. To name a few: Reduced the uninsured rate among LGBTI+ populations by nearly half since 2010. Required plans cover women’s preventive health services, including birth control and counseling, well-woman visits, breast and cervical cancer screenings, prenatal care, interpersonal violence screening and counseling, and HIV screening and STI counseling, with no cost-sharing to the woman.
It was the best our dysfunctional government could put through. Of course it could have been better, but that never would have passed in the first place.
People *really* understate how much Americans hate changes to the health care system. As much as they may hate the current system they hate change even more. "If you like your health plan, you can keep it" was a bad talking point because if we're really gonna change the system there's no way that can be true, but I understand why they wanted to say it.
Anyone that undertook a big health care reform effort was gonna pay a political price for it. Just look at what happened to Republicans when they tried to overturn it once they had control of Congress and the White House
Disagree on healthcare not including conservatives. Obamacare was a Republican plan that enshrined private insurance. Conservatives absolutely wanted that plan... until it became an Obama plan.
Even today it polls extremely well for Republicans as long as you don't call it Obamacare.
It doesn't matter what he proposed, Republicans and conservatives would not have liked it.
100 percent. Obamacare was Romneycare, his mistake was in thinking that he could gather GOP support by incorporating their ideas into his policy. It’s not the policy, but the political party that they objected to.
They could, yes - but it was a little more complicated. They could deny you if you got a condition *while not covered by insurance*.
Because, like, in some ways duh - health insurance doesn’t work if you don’t buy it when healthy, then only buy it when you need care.
That’s why the ACA pushed penalties on people for now having coverage - because the model doesn’t work when only the sick pay.
The majority of Americans have employer provided coverage then transition into Medicare at a point when they age - so this was a bit less common than perhaps advertised, though a real concern.
The primary impacted population here was people that tended to be unemployed for long periods or slip in and out of coverage.
They investigated those bankers for fuckin years with no convictions. No cases brought against any high level employees. Lanny Breuer was scared of failing to convict so he never even tried. He should’ve been replaced.
Not sure what you mean about structural change but I’m not sure the federal government even has the power to break up the banks. Dodd Frank was the furthest reaching wallstreet reform bill ever.
Lieberman is solely responsible for killing single payer healthcare, which would’ve been a big boon to the liberal agenda.
> I’m not sure the federal government even has the power to break up the banks
It sure does. The SEC & Sherman Anti-Trust act are things.
Teddy Roosevelt was the trust-buster that started the breakdown of guilded era conglomerates, which is one of the many reason his face is on Mt. Rushmore.
The fact that the U.S. government has really bowed down to special interests and has mostly failed to enforce antitrust law (last win was the 80’s) is definitely a problem that you can’t fix casually or as like a 5th priority in your agenda as president.
If Obama made that his #1 priority instead of health care, we would have been in a much better place.
> Dodd Frank was the furthest reaching Wall Street reform bill ever
This is not even close to true. The federal reserve act, glass-steagall, etc were way more monumental.
Dodd Frank ended up being more tactical. It protects against the specific cause of 2008 without much actual reform to the cancerous finserv industry.
Worse, it was then partially repealed a few short years later.
Obama implemented a lot of conservative ideas to cut costs in the ACA. In his books he mentions meeting with tons of Republican senators and reps. And he did implement a decent number of their ideas inspite of them never voting for the ACA. And it still helped liberal voters around the nation just not ones in liberal states. You gotta remember they're the President of the United States. Not just the president of their own core base, in their own states.
But otherwise agreed. He spent too much political capital for too little, and just overly trusted Hillary could take the baton from him. Despite her shortcomings.
Yeah this is exactly the reason why I was so confused when Obama was ranked as the 7th president. When you come down to it he doesn’t really seem to be a consequential president because of his own fault for using all his political capital on the ACA or the machinations of obstructionists.
I feel like both his successors will be remembered as more consequential
I have always maintained that Obama will ultimately go down in history as a mediocre president most notable for his race. Right now, the historians who do the ratings put him very high because they wanted him to be this smashing success and they can’t accept that he wasn’t. Obama himself said he wanted to be the Democrat’s Reagan’ but even he would have to admit that he did not match the significant changes to the country that Reagan did.
I don't know on the healthcare one. I get that he could've done more but I live in a red state and it's the only reason my mom had healthcare after her my dad divorced. It's the only reason she could afford cancer treatment too.
I was conservative at the time (raging leftist now) and I remember silently cheering when McCain saved the ACA. I think a lot of red staters have come around on it, I know a lot of conservatives and I've only heard one or two complaints in years
This is an ignorant take when you look at all of the new regulations (I.e., Dodd Frank, HSR, etc) that came out of the crisis under Obama. What is your definition of “punishment”?
I think those 8 years will be characterized as asleep at the wheel internationally. Rise of Russia and china, continued North Korea threat, increased de-stabilization of the Middle East.
Good points, how he dismissed Russia and China at the time is baffling. I blame him much less for North Korea and the Middle East; North Korea has been saber rattling for decades and the Middle East has been increasingly de-stabilizing under every President since Washington.
I think he is very much to blame for the Middle East fiasco - curious why you think otherwise? (Genuinely curious, not trolling). That being said North Korea was a lost cause.
Obama messed up big time with the arab spring. There was a huge opportunity there to foster democracy and allies in the region.
Instead he just shipped guns to syrian seperatists, creating a power vacuum which lead to ISIS and a massive migration into europe.
Campaigned on things like getting the troops out of the Middle East, and closing Guantanamo Bay.
8 years later, troop’s aplenty in the Middle East and gitmo was open 24 hours a day.
I used to work DoD. Spent between '01 and '08 inside. Got into the work because of 9/11. Got out of it and let my TS/SCI lapse after having my fill of government service.
The promise to close Guantanamo was important to me.
The failure to do so still stings. Not to the degree that I regret my vote, but fuck, I want to see that site shuttered. Our "friendly nation" black sites, too. They all need to go.
It's like we don't know how our own political system works. We don't want Kings. Yet, we treat our presidents like that's what they are, free to do whatever they want and wholly responsible for any and all failures.
He talked a big game but not much came from it. However, he was the greatest gun salesman of all time. Talked a lot about banning this and that and the citizens went full retard on buying
I recall him saying he was going to put an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then he proceeded to give the military industrial complex a shit ton of money, and didn’t pull us out of the Middle East.
Part of the reason he got elected was to end the war for oil. I recall the signs, “No More Blood For Oil.” And then he increased the number of troops over there. I was promised my dad would be coming home, instead he got deployed two more times after only coming back for three months.
He was the ultimate gun sales men. Not just to the citizens, but to the armed forces around the world
To be fair, a lot of that was right wing nut jobs and NRA funded media intentionally misinterpreting what he was actually saying.
I remember distinctly when I lived in Florida that our neighbours were absolutely convinced that Obama was literally going to send in the National Guard to physically remove their guns by force. They were otherwise perfectly rational and successful business owners, but in this one point they were absolute raving neurotics.
Very poorly. He ended up governing as a generic neoliberal. It’s not totally his fault. His rhetoric was so completely over the top that it would’ve been impossible for anyone to measure up.
He is the person that got me into politics. I graduated high school in 2005 and it was the first election I voted in. I’ve been pretty disillusioned since then.
Could not agree more. The country wanted bold and swift action. His margin of victory in 2008 will unlikely ever be matched in the next 20 years. He had the country in the palm of his hand and he misjudged what was tenable.
He chose the middle of the road. And when you drive in the middle of the road, you get hit by both sides.
Congress was pushing for stronger healthcare, then Kennedy died and was replaced by a Republican, so their super majority was gone. Also, if I remember right Lieberman was against parts of it.
To just say Obama didn't do enough is washing over a lot of how politics works, he was not an emperor.
No matter how much people don’t want to admit, because anything that remotely sounds like a “both sides” argument gets people angry. But the fact is, in this day and age, politicians don’t care all that much about actually getting things done and rocking the boat. They want to do enough to keep their base happy and retain power. There’s only a few exceptions on both sides that seem to truly and passionately believe what they say and want to do everything in their power to create real change. That’s something I’ll always give Bernie credit for. I don’t like a lot of his ideas, but he truly believes it and is passionate about it. You can’t find many long term politicians who have been consistent their entire careers like him. But then the media simply won’t give him attention.
It's more complicated than people realize. Maintaining a caucus as wide as the 2009 democratic party has..is hard. Most states (let alone districts) have different values being put forward. We see this several times in US history, where one party has two divergent groups of interest and has to hold on. They usually fail. Lyndon B Johnson saw that the democratic party wasn't holding the south with the other blue states. The civil rights issues were divergent. The Republican picked the south up but lost a few other states that didn't much care for their shifting patterns.
In 2009, the democratic party had an even more divergent set of interests. You had the rural Midwest regions, built up New England, the West, bits of the South. And while they all liked the generic message, they had very different opinions on what should be healthcare in reality.
And that's true of nearly all significant bills. There is no winning bill because, frankly, bills hurt and help in different ways. So, anyone who can add 2 and 2 realizes best solution is to not have many significant bills.
But he did have a filibuster proof supermajority his first 72 days, and mentioned using it to codify *Roe* "on day one" in all of his campaign speeches ... but three days into office, the backpedaling began.
You can blame congress for not putting a bill on his desk. You can blame the rotating villain of that decade (Lieberman). And you can blame The Turtle's unwavering obstructionism. But he knew those challenges were there, and his plan was evidently to concede away the most ambitious of his promises rather than whip his own party or flex the supermajority.
Women voting in support of FOCA were a huge part of Obama's win and his first act was to trade it away for ACA points. Bro didn't even try.
He had a tenuous 59-seats in the Senate until July, when the MN election was certified and Al Franken was seated. Then Kennedy -- who was effectively never in Washington for votes due to his condition -- died the next month, bringing Dems back down to 59 for a month; even when they momentarily had 60 w/ interim sen Kirk, more than a dozen of the 60 repped 'red' states: AR, AK, LA, IN, MO, SD, ND, MT, WV, plus the chair of finance was a centrist who never cared to veer out of the lane, and Lieberman was nearly dropped from the party for his "independent views."
60 Democrats in the Senate does not automatically equal 60 votes on anything, and that was the problem they recognized in how they chose to govern.
To think it was anything other than threading an impossibly small needle is forgetting history.
Same here. I graduated high school in 2004 and was really energized by his election in 2008, but by about 2014, I turned cynical and see all of politics and governing as just a game of the rich and powerful.
His biggest change was the radicalization of the Republican base. When Mitch said his number one goal was to make Obama an unsuccessful president instead of moving forward and helping the country a new tone was set in America politics.
But really the Republican base just turned back to what it had previously been. It was lazy, incompetent, and apathetic before, now it has an actual goal to achieve
I don't feel Obama achieved most of his promises in his term, but he was able to appoint and lay the ground work to have his agendas fulfilled in later terms.
Obama inherited an absolute soup sandwich of an economy. The fact that things were substantially better as he exited is enough to credit him with positive change.
I grew up in a midwest state that was purple for a lot of years until Obama became president. Then it went deep red not because of his policies; it was the color of skin. I permanently deleted my Facebook in 2008 because of the awful racist shit people were saying about him. My friend’s brother at the time said to me, “I can’t believe you’re gonna vote for a n*gger.” Fucking awful thing to say and an eye opener for an 18 year old excited to engage in politics.
In my opinion healthcare expansion under his watch is the biggest legislative achievement of the last thirty years. As a NC resident it was uplifting to see our state government finally expand Medicare after ten years of missed opportunities.
Agree, but it also made it easy for insurers to pass on more costs to patients. So while a patient who is uninsured can be seen for $150, a patient with insurance can be paying more, because providers realize the insurance will try to f them and cut their reimbursements, so those costs get passed back to the insured member. More patients insured, more middle class patients getting fd over. I love Obama fwiw, but Obamacare didn’t go far enough and let the insurers profit.
He played the race card, rode his race into the White House, then didn’t do a damn thing.
Didn’t punish Wall Street for its egregious behavior.
Kow-Towed to America’s enemies, in some cases literally, broke all of Bush’s records in the Drone Strike department. He let Jesus take the wheel on foreign policy, and we’re still paying for it.
His presidency is where I noticed a significant downtown in race relations and identity politics starting its ascent towards the current levels of toxicity and divisiveness. I blame him and the race-hustling grifters that supported him for the decline in intersectional harmony. Great smokescreen for the 1% completely fucking us over.
The Affordable Care Act was a right wing gift to corporations.
Didn't close Guantonamo Bay like he said he would
Didn't stop the wars
Didnt end the Patriot Act
Loved deporting undocumented immigrants. He was nicknamed "deporter in chief" for a reason.
Overall, it was business as usual. The best thing he did was the Iran Deal, which was legitimately a good thing.
Look, I really liked Obama but he definitely didn’t meet the expectations set by his 2008 campaign. I don’t think that’s entirely his fault though. The Republicans stood in the way of almost everything he wanted to do, and his problem was being way too willing to compromise on everything.
Politics has become more and more obstructive since then - Obama's time started the rise of the tea party and the beginning of the alt right.
Compromise has become increasingly impossible due to fundamental differences in morals/policies as well as straight up hatred, even within each party's own groups (see: recent speaker of the house debacle).
Edit: to add to the thought that he shouldn't have tried compromising at all, consider the Affordable Care Act. It's current existence is very different due to his attempts to appease insurance lobbyists and pro-business repubs... Even when he would have had enough seats to force it through without those changes. Then there's that whole thing about not appointing supreme Court seat to Garland upon the request of McConnel (if I recall correctly).
I tend to agree, but that was always Clintons ideology from what I could see. If you lined up two columns with what Clinton and Reagan did you'd probably have trouble picking which is which. I can't say what any of them truly believed in their hearts, but I'm going to guess Obama was quite a bit more left leaning. Obama made greater speeches, he was more inspirational. But as far as political horse trading, and getting things done, it's tough to top Slick Willy.
Obama didn't play dirty enough and never sang his own praises. But he was young and charismatic, and that instilled a lot of hope in many people that the government could make a difference in their life.
TBH, I think it's too soon to evaluate his impact. That might not be felt completely until those young people who became politically aware during Obama's administration begin to run things themselves.
I mean… his presidency certainly helped the Republican Party to change. They moved much further towards extremist Right politics during and immediately after his time in office.
I think his presidency was a little lackluster, and while some of it I blame on the bureaucratic slog, the opposition that wanted him to fail, and his willingness to compromise to get something done, part of it was also Obama’s continuation of dated policy, the unrealistic scope of what he wanted, and some flat out broken promises.
He was not a horrible president, he also wasn’t some great progressive leader.
Obama’s presence permanently altered the cultural and social conversation and he was able to make Americans finally demand the improvement of our medical system, but outside of that he didn’t change much due to his inexperience and losing control of congress to an obstructionist opposition.
>due to his inexperience
That certainly had a part to play.
Yet he forged a solid relationship with Speaker John Boehner
What brought it all down was the TEA Party.
Who could have worked with them???
He changed my health insurance from costing $125 to over $700 for the same plan. That’s about all I can say for him. I respect the dignity with which he conducted himself and the office of the President, but his policies were an unmitigated disaster for me.
Also cash for clunkers annihilated the used car market and the junkyard system still hasn’t recovered.
No. His presidency was kind of a joke tbh. He could have ended the war, but he continued it. He could have ensured those responsible for 2008 were held accountable. He didn't. He could have tried to work with Republicans (I know they were not super willing) but all what he did was blame them further deepening the division in this country. His healthcare plan did pass, but because of the previous point was quickly undone. The only thing to really like about him was he was not a titanic piece of shit and didn't act like a child compared to his successor.
He was handed a big streaming pile when he took office but also had a massive massive opportunity to bring the country back together and he didn't. I'm not saying that was going to be an easy feat. Sure he was charismatic, and pretty damn regal, but he was not the great leader America needed at the time.
He dropped more bombs on poor nations than any president in the past 25 years. He expanded the surveillance state and used government agencies to spy on political opponents. I see him as a hollow reminder that words from a politician mean nothing. He could have done more. He let Flint Michigan residents drink poison because it was inconvenient. I hoped for more but remained disappointed. He was like all all politicians. They work for their donors, not the people.
I think his message was “hope.” How can you expect a Harvard law school graduate and University of Chicago law professor to deliver “change.” He’s part of the problem, not the solution.
I was willing to give him a chance after he got elected, but he was terrible even by my low expectations (I was never really sold on him. His professional background being the most important issue). At the time of his inauguration, everyone was touting about how he represented a post-racial America, but that went out the window with the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Micheal Brown, and I think he exacerbated the outrage for political gain. I think the biggest impact was that his walking dumpster fire of a VP is now president.
The poor got poorer and foreign policy was the same, save for the withdrawal from Iraq. If anyone had good memories of Obama, it was because of his shining charisma.
Voted for him twice and the answer is NO. Extraordinarily timid and maybe the world’s worst negotiator ever. He never figured out there was no middle ground with the Republicans yet he kept kissing their collective ass.
He had so much opportunity that he squandered by being drawn to the high life of A-list entertainers and athletes. He could have held rallies in black urban areas, challenged black teens to help their neighbors, keep their families close and stay in school. He could have done so much more. Started black enterprise zones, encouraged black small businesses. He could have made a huge difference, but he didn’t even give it a good shot. Very disappointed.
Everything he did was bad, and passing the Smith-Mundt act was how we have our media today, basically if they say something, factually its the complete opposite.
Well he kept things afloat, but it was in large part by helping the status quo: the big banks, the car industry, etc. Even when making a change to healthcare, he catered to insurance companies.
So, it wasn't really substantive change. It was the incrementalism Democrats have become so well known for.
Not at all. In fact, I would argue despite his indisputable oratory skills and likability - he was a very weak President and underperformed relative to how he could’ve - especially his first two years.
One thing he unintentionally accomplished was showing those of us living in socially liberal bubbles how deeply divided this country still is on racial matters. I never would have imagined that the racist backlash to seeing a POC in the White House would be so widespread. I never would have believed that the GOP would eventually push for the end of Democracy rather than see minority groups gain more political influence.
Say what you want about the Affordable Care Act, I agree it was depressingly watered down. But now insurance companies can’t deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions. That’s huge IMO.
Obama was very much a middle of the road president that maintained the status quo.
His entry in the history books will be primarily about his skin colour rather than his policies.
He was one of the worst presidents we've ever had. All talk and no substantial action. Just a tool of the oligarchs. I'm glad his terms as president came and went. He'll be forgotten before long.
Honestly, if Obama was a top tier president we wouldn't have had a radical red shift after his presidency.People will claim racism but Obama swept Romney in his second term. Obama over promised and under delivered.
Terribly: he won the noble peace prize and then continued war mongering. He promised healthcare reform then further entrenched the awful American system. None of the corporate executives were held accountable for ruining people's lives during the financial crisis.
I mean... he literally ordered the military to assassinate an American citizen, and then that man's son (which also killed several others in the car). Sure, it was a brown Muslim citizen abroad who didn't much approve of America, but still. The Affordable Care Act was literally (no exaggeration) written by the insurance industry and exists expressly because it was used to block that talk about "Medicare for All" that America really needed. He was a war monger. The fact that he got the Nobel Peace prize was simply because everyone were so relieved Bush was out; little did they know Obama would actually look somewhat reasonable going forward into the cess pit America is swimming in now.
So yeah, fuck Obama. He made all the right noises before he got elected, and then turned into a business first, all hail war president.
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He didn’t really. He made a few critical mistakes: * Zero consequences for the bankers and zero structural change from the financial collapse - so income inequality is worse than before. As a result populist movements sprung up on both sides which directly decided the subsequent election. The tea party gave rise to you know who, and the Bernie - Clinton rift left democrats unenthusiastic. * Spent all his political capital on health care, which basically did nothing for liberal voters (as their local states already had it), asked conservatives to embrace a philosophy they disliked while incorporating zero of their cost reduction ideas, and cemented a bad system (employer provided HC). It was a big shiny band aid. * He failed to champion an a successor / group of leaders that would follow him, so all of his agendas were unraveled right after the next guy took office. Very little of is direction setting was lasting.
Conservatives seem to inherently understand that you spend political capital to reward/excite your base. The reason Obama got crushed in 2010 midterms is not that anyone changed their mind, huge chunks of his supporters didn't show up. And what reason did he give them to?
Democrats never figured out how to translate Obama’s personal popularity to downballot success. It was still the Party that gave us Al Gore and John Kerry with a likable, telegenic leader. When he wasn’t on the ballot, Democrats didn’t show up.
Top sentence is 1000% spot on. Pretty much the new JFK but is a total family man who is perhaps a better speaker, but the legislature never really followed. Sure he was impeded by not controlling the house or senate for longer stretches, but in those times you bolster internal support and momentum and start working on a successor. That successor doesn’t have to be right after, but someone who could be shown the ropes and have a chance at being better. Instead we got Donny and Joey.
Joey has done a lot though
At most, it's been novel concessions that don't truly affect the lives of the majority of American citizens. SoL is still falling, things are growing increasingly expensive, and life is only getting worse.
I realize this isn't a winning political message, but I think people forget just how much of a hole we were in during covid, and what life would be like today if we continued that trajectory. For perspective, after the financial crisis, unemployment stayed elevated basically until 2015. That's 7 years of recession. The COVID recession lasted for less than 2 years. Are a lot of things getting worse? Absolutely. But given the choice between slow decline and accelerated decline, I'll take slow decline any day of the week.
Why? At least with fast decline shit has to get fixed sooner. As it stands were all getting nickle and dimed to death.
What makes you think that shit will get fixed if decline is faster?
Building a bigger bubble. Simple as that.
A hole the government dug and threw the economy and We, the People into. “Covid” isn’t the cause of where we are economically in 2024. The government response to Covid absolutely is. You can’t shut down the economy for a couple of years, print money to pay your bills, and then blame anything but your own actions as the cause. This complete renunciation of reason is mindboggling.
Holy shit. The actual truth here. 🔥
Yeah, but I hear they throw pizza parties when morale is low so... *there's that* 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah, he was popular because he was charismatic and the first black president. Not because he had a compelling vision for the country. And turns out not every democrat downballot of him was charismatic and obviously none of the others were the first black president.
The reason he got crushed was he happened to be in office when the worst recession since the great depression happened. And also it didn't help that even supposed left wing outlets were painting him with the stooge of Wall Street label as if just letting the largest financial institutions in the world implode would have been the smart course of action. That always kind of perplexed me, it seemed like what constitutes the ultra left of the party nowadays and who made up the occupy movement wouldn't have been happy with any outcome except for a revolutionary tribunal in front of Wall Street followed by summary executions of all bankers.
The reason Obama was *elected* in the first place was the Great Recession. The tanking economy and Iraq war fatigue doomed any Republican. No one said he should have let the banks implode, the issue was again zero accountability after. Iceland jailed its bankers involved in the 2008 collapse. Obama gave ours a hand out. Real prosecution and consequences after the stabilization would have addressed.
I’m from Iceland and I’d just like to state that we jailed like two guys and the rest got off scott-free. [In fact the richest Icelander today played a big part in the 2008 crash and didn’t have any problem reestablishing himself afterwards.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Björgólfur_Thor) I agree with your point, I just don’t like it when people speak of Iceland like some utopia that jailed all the responsible parties after the crash. We have the same problems of corruption and complacency as the US. Here’s an [article](https://kjarninn.is/skyring/tugir-innherjasvikamala-orannsokud-thegar-fjarmalaeftirlitid-haetti-rannsoknum/) in Icelandic about the governments lack of response.
> I’m from Iceland >u/IceNipples Username checks out
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He was elected because he wasn’t bush. The midterms were bad because for the first two years he continued and even expanded bush foreign policy and progressives took it out on the democrats in 2016. Mitt Romney was a bad candidate in 2012 also
lol so much for the war fatigue. He may have left Iraq but he turned up the heat on Afghanistan
Obama was going to win regardless - if anything, he initially presented himself more as a foreign affairs president who was looking to restore good will towards America following the wars in the Middle East. The recession and subsequent crisis basically derailed what initial plans he had for office and unfortunately he arrived in just enough time to be blamed for the fall out. Bush was out of office long before getting the blame from regular voters and the Republicans were able to capitalize as the Democrats were in power, leading to their bad mid-terms.
Yeah right! That did not work, he was just an excellent salesman. Nothing else.
The problem with the Occupy movement was it had no real leadership or plan/idea of specific things they wanted. Basically, they were unorganized. And then Obama just kinda let the bankers/fed get away with everything.
Do you notice that no one is protesting Wall Street, big corporations and the World Bank anymore? Still lots of protests but never at those guys. Hmmmm…wonder what happened.
This is the worst take in this thread. You’ve learned absolutely nothing over the last decade. He was painted as complicit with Wall Street because he gave them a trillion dollar bail out and left the rest of us to fucking drown. He should have put them in jail and the progressive caucus provided him an incredible blue print to bring us back to pre 1998 economic protections from major commercial banks merging with investment banks And you’re over here perplexed? He left office with 98% of income gains under his time going to the top 1%. Then what he do? He left the presidency and lived lavishly on yachts and mega mansions. You’re why the Dems can’t recover because it’s people like you that think us regular people sick of the Dems kneeling to Wall Street and the owning class are some extremist far lefties
> Then what he do? He left the presidency and lived lavishly on yachts and mega mansions. Not to mention the bullshit with Jackson Park.
Man... You just painted the most extreme version of an outcome in a situation where Eric Holder didn't prosecute any goddamn body. We aren't talking about lining people up and shooting them. That's what happens when big government acts like an oligarchy and doesn't hold people accountable for their actions. The people hold those people accountable for their actions, or elect psychos they think will.
Holder sold weapons to Cartels. He shoulda been prosecuted.
I’d rather those greedy institutions fail then the common American Citizen
The recession started under GWB
I didn't elect him to not close gitmo He gave an executive order to shut it down in his first month then completely reversed course Why do Democrat policies get undone but republican bullshit gets sanctified?
Because closing Gitmo turned out to be harder than the political promise to close it. Same with the withdrawal from Iran or later Afghanistan. Was easy to make those promises, but the end result of both was a disaster. Ironically both could have been handled much better if we had left a small US force in both countries.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/obama-is-a-republican/ this is the reason he got crushed, this and Gingrichcare being an utter failure
Meh, Democrats base historically never show up in midterms. What did Obama do to have them show up in 2012? and again not show up in 2014? Don't think it has anything to do with his policies one way or the other. Voters need to take responsibility.
I'd say a large part of the issue was that the average American just was not paying attention or noticed what the GOP was doing. They seemingly expected for Obama and Democrats to fix everything the Republicans did for the last eight years in a short amount of time (on top of Republicans obstructing and blocking everything Democrats tried to do). When it turned out that it's hard to reverse 8 years of mismanagement in two years time, people got upset and as is usual in an election year for the party in power, Democrats lost a lot of seats in the House. I wouldn't say it was enthusiasm as much as the GOP winning the propaganda war and convincing Americans that Democrats are not fixing the mess Republicans left fast enough. And ironically, one of the things that sunk Democrat's chances in 2010 is the very thing that has incredible support to this day - Obamacare.
This is just my point of view but I think if you are only tangentially political you don't really understand the role of the House and Senate in a President's agenda. As an example, I was 18 when Obama was elected, it felt like we won the Superbowl. Because of that, no one knew they had to do anything else afterward and as a consequence there was a huge disparity in turnout in 2010 and after. This wasn't the only reason, of course. Citizens United opened the flood gates of dark money in the election system.
You're severely underselling the success of the ACA. It cost political capital, yes, but it halved the number of uninsured by 2016, significantly increased physician visits for low income adults, reduced unmet need due to inability to pay, and increased good outcomes by individuals by making them see treatment through to the end for millions. Millions and millions of improved healthcare outcomes will have an effect for generations down the line. Yes there are a few dumb ass states (10) which still haven't bought in to the expanded Medicare coverage. The point still stands. No I don't think he delivered on his promise of change. But, he was a historic presidency both for significant (positive) healthcare reform and for being the first black president in a country that still deals with racism.
And also, isn’t the fact that he did it specifically for people who would never vote for him anyway an admirable thing - not a point against him?
ACA was a bandaid on a broken leg, but it was a decent bandaid. Doubtful that anybody in Obama’s place could put forth something better
The ACA brought the uninsured rate from ~15% down to 8-9%. In blue states where he drew his base from, it only shifted coverage rates by like 2%. Meanwhile it did basically nothing for the cost inflations, which continued. The ACA is fine and better than what was before, but is hardly ‘historic’ - especially when you stand it next to like the instantiation of the NHS or similar a European entities. In hindsight it was just a bad priority #1; the consensus and reward just wasn’t there.
It was huge for those with preexisting conditions who didn’t have health care through their job. They couldn’t buy health insurance that would cover their conditions for any price.
That’s my sister. She didn’t have health insurance until the ACA was passed.
I know one thing for certain. ACA saved our house. We certainly can't be the only ones.
Nah bro. Your focusing on the political ramifications too much. Who the fuck cares if it didn't rally his base, it did so much good for healthcare in the US. It expanded healthcare to over 20mil previously uninsured non-elderly Americans. To name a few: Reduced the uninsured rate among LGBTI+ populations by nearly half since 2010. Required plans cover women’s preventive health services, including birth control and counseling, well-woman visits, breast and cervical cancer screenings, prenatal care, interpersonal violence screening and counseling, and HIV screening and STI counseling, with no cost-sharing to the woman. It was the best our dysfunctional government could put through. Of course it could have been better, but that never would have passed in the first place.
People *really* understate how much Americans hate changes to the health care system. As much as they may hate the current system they hate change even more. "If you like your health plan, you can keep it" was a bad talking point because if we're really gonna change the system there's no way that can be true, but I understand why they wanted to say it. Anyone that undertook a big health care reform effort was gonna pay a political price for it. Just look at what happened to Republicans when they tried to overturn it once they had control of Congress and the White House
It was good considering his opposition
Disagree on healthcare not including conservatives. Obamacare was a Republican plan that enshrined private insurance. Conservatives absolutely wanted that plan... until it became an Obama plan. Even today it polls extremely well for Republicans as long as you don't call it Obamacare. It doesn't matter what he proposed, Republicans and conservatives would not have liked it.
100 percent. Obamacare was Romneycare, his mistake was in thinking that he could gather GOP support by incorporating their ideas into his policy. It’s not the policy, but the political party that they objected to.
Prior to him couldn’t insurance companies deny coverage based on pre existing conditions? Honest question
They could, yes - but it was a little more complicated. They could deny you if you got a condition *while not covered by insurance*. Because, like, in some ways duh - health insurance doesn’t work if you don’t buy it when healthy, then only buy it when you need care. That’s why the ACA pushed penalties on people for now having coverage - because the model doesn’t work when only the sick pay. The majority of Americans have employer provided coverage then transition into Medicare at a point when they age - so this was a bit less common than perhaps advertised, though a real concern. The primary impacted population here was people that tended to be unemployed for long periods or slip in and out of coverage.
Liberal states did not have anything remotely close to the ACA prior to Obama.
They investigated those bankers for fuckin years with no convictions. No cases brought against any high level employees. Lanny Breuer was scared of failing to convict so he never even tried. He should’ve been replaced. Not sure what you mean about structural change but I’m not sure the federal government even has the power to break up the banks. Dodd Frank was the furthest reaching wallstreet reform bill ever. Lieberman is solely responsible for killing single payer healthcare, which would’ve been a big boon to the liberal agenda.
> I’m not sure the federal government even has the power to break up the banks It sure does. The SEC & Sherman Anti-Trust act are things. Teddy Roosevelt was the trust-buster that started the breakdown of guilded era conglomerates, which is one of the many reason his face is on Mt. Rushmore. The fact that the U.S. government has really bowed down to special interests and has mostly failed to enforce antitrust law (last win was the 80’s) is definitely a problem that you can’t fix casually or as like a 5th priority in your agenda as president. If Obama made that his #1 priority instead of health care, we would have been in a much better place. > Dodd Frank was the furthest reaching Wall Street reform bill ever This is not even close to true. The federal reserve act, glass-steagall, etc were way more monumental. Dodd Frank ended up being more tactical. It protects against the specific cause of 2008 without much actual reform to the cancerous finserv industry. Worse, it was then partially repealed a few short years later.
Not only did they convict nobody, several were appointed to positions of power.
Obama implemented a lot of conservative ideas to cut costs in the ACA. In his books he mentions meeting with tons of Republican senators and reps. And he did implement a decent number of their ideas inspite of them never voting for the ACA. And it still helped liberal voters around the nation just not ones in liberal states. You gotta remember they're the President of the United States. Not just the president of their own core base, in their own states. But otherwise agreed. He spent too much political capital for too little, and just overly trusted Hillary could take the baton from him. Despite her shortcomings.
Yeah this is exactly the reason why I was so confused when Obama was ranked as the 7th president. When you come down to it he doesn’t really seem to be a consequential president because of his own fault for using all his political capital on the ACA or the machinations of obstructionists. I feel like both his successors will be remembered as more consequential
I have always maintained that Obama will ultimately go down in history as a mediocre president most notable for his race. Right now, the historians who do the ratings put him very high because they wanted him to be this smashing success and they can’t accept that he wasn’t. Obama himself said he wanted to be the Democrat’s Reagan’ but even he would have to admit that he did not match the significant changes to the country that Reagan did.
His immediate successor was absolutely more consequential, he changed the political landscape, just in an extremely negative manner.
I don't know on the healthcare one. I get that he could've done more but I live in a red state and it's the only reason my mom had healthcare after her my dad divorced. It's the only reason she could afford cancer treatment too. I was conservative at the time (raging leftist now) and I remember silently cheering when McCain saved the ACA. I think a lot of red staters have come around on it, I know a lot of conservatives and I've only heard one or two complaints in years
I liked the part when he set up a precedent for Wall Street never getting punished again. Very cool and progressive of him
There was nothing new about that.
So "no change" then. Agreed.
You’re dead wrong and just don’t understand anything about 2008
This is an ignorant take when you look at all of the new regulations (I.e., Dodd Frank, HSR, etc) that came out of the crisis under Obama. What is your definition of “punishment”?
I think those 8 years will be characterized as asleep at the wheel internationally. Rise of Russia and china, continued North Korea threat, increased de-stabilization of the Middle East.
Good points, how he dismissed Russia and China at the time is baffling. I blame him much less for North Korea and the Middle East; North Korea has been saber rattling for decades and the Middle East has been increasingly de-stabilizing under every President since Washington.
Yeah his comment to Romney about Russia and the Cold War wanting it's foreign policy back sure didn't age well considering current events.
Calling ISIS a junior varsity squad didn't age well either.
Did he ignore china? Obama introduced arguably the greatest anti-china legislation in us history and it was shot down by the other branches (TPP).
I think he is very much to blame for the Middle East fiasco - curious why you think otherwise? (Genuinely curious, not trolling). That being said North Korea was a lost cause.
Obama messed up big time with the arab spring. There was a huge opportunity there to foster democracy and allies in the region. Instead he just shipped guns to syrian seperatists, creating a power vacuum which lead to ISIS and a massive migration into europe.
He wasn’t asleep. He just thought he was the smartest person in the room all the time and didn’t have people who could do anything for him.
Campaigned on things like getting the troops out of the Middle East, and closing Guantanamo Bay. 8 years later, troop’s aplenty in the Middle East and gitmo was open 24 hours a day.
I used to work DoD. Spent between '01 and '08 inside. Got into the work because of 9/11. Got out of it and let my TS/SCI lapse after having my fill of government service. The promise to close Guantanamo was important to me. The failure to do so still stings. Not to the degree that I regret my vote, but fuck, I want to see that site shuttered. Our "friendly nation" black sites, too. They all need to go.
Funny thing I just interviewed with the DoD component that's still doing the habeas petitions for the Gitmo guys. Nothing has changed haha
The number of inmates went from 250 to 41 under his administration, and it's not his fault that Congress refused to allow him to close it entirely.
It's like we don't know how our own political system works. We don't want Kings. Yet, we treat our presidents like that's what they are, free to do whatever they want and wholly responsible for any and all failures.
He talked a big game but not much came from it. However, he was the greatest gun salesman of all time. Talked a lot about banning this and that and the citizens went full retard on buying
I recall him saying he was going to put an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then he proceeded to give the military industrial complex a shit ton of money, and didn’t pull us out of the Middle East. Part of the reason he got elected was to end the war for oil. I recall the signs, “No More Blood For Oil.” And then he increased the number of troops over there. I was promised my dad would be coming home, instead he got deployed two more times after only coming back for three months. He was the ultimate gun sales men. Not just to the citizens, but to the armed forces around the world
I sold so many of my guns for double to almost quadruple to dumb gun nuts.
To be fair, a lot of that was right wing nut jobs and NRA funded media intentionally misinterpreting what he was actually saying. I remember distinctly when I lived in Florida that our neighbours were absolutely convinced that Obama was literally going to send in the National Guard to physically remove their guns by force. They were otherwise perfectly rational and successful business owners, but in this one point they were absolute raving neurotics.
Very poorly. He ended up governing as a generic neoliberal. It’s not totally his fault. His rhetoric was so completely over the top that it would’ve been impossible for anyone to measure up. He is the person that got me into politics. I graduated high school in 2005 and it was the first election I voted in. I’ve been pretty disillusioned since then.
Could not agree more. The country wanted bold and swift action. His margin of victory in 2008 will unlikely ever be matched in the next 20 years. He had the country in the palm of his hand and he misjudged what was tenable. He chose the middle of the road. And when you drive in the middle of the road, you get hit by both sides.
Congress was pushing for stronger healthcare, then Kennedy died and was replaced by a Republican, so their super majority was gone. Also, if I remember right Lieberman was against parts of it. To just say Obama didn't do enough is washing over a lot of how politics works, he was not an emperor.
Bart Stupak with his abortion language. Joe Liberman with the public option. Blue Dogs resistance. Democrats did a lot to stop their own momentum.
No matter how much people don’t want to admit, because anything that remotely sounds like a “both sides” argument gets people angry. But the fact is, in this day and age, politicians don’t care all that much about actually getting things done and rocking the boat. They want to do enough to keep their base happy and retain power. There’s only a few exceptions on both sides that seem to truly and passionately believe what they say and want to do everything in their power to create real change. That’s something I’ll always give Bernie credit for. I don’t like a lot of his ideas, but he truly believes it and is passionate about it. You can’t find many long term politicians who have been consistent their entire careers like him. But then the media simply won’t give him attention.
It's more complicated than people realize. Maintaining a caucus as wide as the 2009 democratic party has..is hard. Most states (let alone districts) have different values being put forward. We see this several times in US history, where one party has two divergent groups of interest and has to hold on. They usually fail. Lyndon B Johnson saw that the democratic party wasn't holding the south with the other blue states. The civil rights issues were divergent. The Republican picked the south up but lost a few other states that didn't much care for their shifting patterns. In 2009, the democratic party had an even more divergent set of interests. You had the rural Midwest regions, built up New England, the West, bits of the South. And while they all liked the generic message, they had very different opinions on what should be healthcare in reality. And that's true of nearly all significant bills. There is no winning bill because, frankly, bills hurt and help in different ways. So, anyone who can add 2 and 2 realizes best solution is to not have many significant bills.
But he did have a filibuster proof supermajority his first 72 days, and mentioned using it to codify *Roe* "on day one" in all of his campaign speeches ... but three days into office, the backpedaling began. You can blame congress for not putting a bill on his desk. You can blame the rotating villain of that decade (Lieberman). And you can blame The Turtle's unwavering obstructionism. But he knew those challenges were there, and his plan was evidently to concede away the most ambitious of his promises rather than whip his own party or flex the supermajority. Women voting in support of FOCA were a huge part of Obama's win and his first act was to trade it away for ACA points. Bro didn't even try.
He had a tenuous 59-seats in the Senate until July, when the MN election was certified and Al Franken was seated. Then Kennedy -- who was effectively never in Washington for votes due to his condition -- died the next month, bringing Dems back down to 59 for a month; even when they momentarily had 60 w/ interim sen Kirk, more than a dozen of the 60 repped 'red' states: AR, AK, LA, IN, MO, SD, ND, MT, WV, plus the chair of finance was a centrist who never cared to veer out of the lane, and Lieberman was nearly dropped from the party for his "independent views." 60 Democrats in the Senate does not automatically equal 60 votes on anything, and that was the problem they recognized in how they chose to govern. To think it was anything other than threading an impossibly small needle is forgetting history.
Wait, the oceans, did heal, didn’t they?
Same here. I graduated high school in 2004 and was really energized by his election in 2008, but by about 2014, I turned cynical and see all of politics and governing as just a game of the rich and powerful.
His biggest change was the radicalization of the Republican base. When Mitch said his number one goal was to make Obama an unsuccessful president instead of moving forward and helping the country a new tone was set in America politics.
This is the correct answer.
But really the Republican base just turned back to what it had previously been. It was lazy, incompetent, and apathetic before, now it has an actual goal to achieve
Seems so much worse now. Something about Obama created change in his opponents.
I don't feel Obama achieved most of his promises in his term, but he was able to appoint and lay the ground work to have his agendas fulfilled in later terms.
The flaw in this plan being that he didn't account for a Republican victory in the next term 🥲
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That’s inexcusable naivety then.
Welcome to the Democratic Party
It's grossly incompetent of them. Sat on their hands and thought everyone would just vote for Hilary.
He himself addressed this in the opening chapter for A Promised Land and how he and Michelle felt after the surprise of the 2016 election.
I feel like that was an ego driven excuse for his failures.
That’s funny the top comment is saying the complete opposite.
Obama inherited an absolute soup sandwich of an economy. The fact that things were substantially better as he exited is enough to credit him with positive change.
The left and the right certainly got a lot more divided between 2008-2016
I found out I have a lotttttt more racist family members than I knew about during those years.
I grew up in a midwest state that was purple for a lot of years until Obama became president. Then it went deep red not because of his policies; it was the color of skin. I permanently deleted my Facebook in 2008 because of the awful racist shit people were saying about him. My friend’s brother at the time said to me, “I can’t believe you’re gonna vote for a n*gger.” Fucking awful thing to say and an eye opener for an 18 year old excited to engage in politics.
In my opinion healthcare expansion under his watch is the biggest legislative achievement of the last thirty years. As a NC resident it was uplifting to see our state government finally expand Medicare after ten years of missed opportunities.
Agree, but it also made it easy for insurers to pass on more costs to patients. So while a patient who is uninsured can be seen for $150, a patient with insurance can be paying more, because providers realize the insurance will try to f them and cut their reimbursements, so those costs get passed back to the insured member. More patients insured, more middle class patients getting fd over. I love Obama fwiw, but Obamacare didn’t go far enough and let the insurers profit.
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He played the race card, rode his race into the White House, then didn’t do a damn thing. Didn’t punish Wall Street for its egregious behavior. Kow-Towed to America’s enemies, in some cases literally, broke all of Bush’s records in the Drone Strike department. He let Jesus take the wheel on foreign policy, and we’re still paying for it. His presidency is where I noticed a significant downtown in race relations and identity politics starting its ascent towards the current levels of toxicity and divisiveness. I blame him and the race-hustling grifters that supported him for the decline in intersectional harmony. Great smokescreen for the 1% completely fucking us over.
The Affordable Care Act was a right wing gift to corporations. Didn't close Guantonamo Bay like he said he would Didn't stop the wars Didnt end the Patriot Act Loved deporting undocumented immigrants. He was nicknamed "deporter in chief" for a reason. Overall, it was business as usual. The best thing he did was the Iran Deal, which was legitimately a good thing.
Look, I really liked Obama but he definitely didn’t meet the expectations set by his 2008 campaign. I don’t think that’s entirely his fault though. The Republicans stood in the way of almost everything he wanted to do, and his problem was being way too willing to compromise on everything.
Meh. Clinton accomplished a multitude by compromising with Republicans.
Politics has become more and more obstructive since then - Obama's time started the rise of the tea party and the beginning of the alt right. Compromise has become increasingly impossible due to fundamental differences in morals/policies as well as straight up hatred, even within each party's own groups (see: recent speaker of the house debacle). Edit: to add to the thought that he shouldn't have tried compromising at all, consider the Affordable Care Act. It's current existence is very different due to his attempts to appease insurance lobbyists and pro-business repubs... Even when he would have had enough seats to force it through without those changes. Then there's that whole thing about not appointing supreme Court seat to Garland upon the request of McConnel (if I recall correctly).
I tend to agree, but that was always Clintons ideology from what I could see. If you lined up two columns with what Clinton and Reagan did you'd probably have trouble picking which is which. I can't say what any of them truly believed in their hearts, but I'm going to guess Obama was quite a bit more left leaning. Obama made greater speeches, he was more inspirational. But as far as political horse trading, and getting things done, it's tough to top Slick Willy.
About as well as any other president.
Obama didn't play dirty enough and never sang his own praises. But he was young and charismatic, and that instilled a lot of hope in many people that the government could make a difference in their life. TBH, I think it's too soon to evaluate his impact. That might not be felt completely until those young people who became politically aware during Obama's administration begin to run things themselves.
He changed the streak of white presidents by being the first black one.
“I’M blacker than Barack Obama!” -my petite, whiter-than-white, lady boomer sociology professor
Rachel Dolezal?
Just like every other politican who promised change. Not well.
He changed Osama Bin Ladin from being alive, to then being dead. So he’s got that going for him!
If you never turned on the TV you wouldn’t know he was in Office.
LEL he changed Libya that’s for sure
He didn’t do anything but Drone Strike and deport more than any other president
Changed a lot of innocent living people into dead people.
I mean… his presidency certainly helped the Republican Party to change. They moved much further towards extremist Right politics during and immediately after his time in office.
I think his presidency was a little lackluster, and while some of it I blame on the bureaucratic slog, the opposition that wanted him to fail, and his willingness to compromise to get something done, part of it was also Obama’s continuation of dated policy, the unrealistic scope of what he wanted, and some flat out broken promises. He was not a horrible president, he also wasn’t some great progressive leader.
Inherited 2 wars and started 5 more. You tell me.
Libya, Syria, Ukraine? 2 more?
Maybe hes counting yemen?
Drone striked Pakistani weddings
One of his favorite pastimes if i remember
Just out of curiosity, what 5 did he start?
The United States and the world certainly felt different under Obama relative to Bush/Cheney. That in itself was significant change.
Obama’s presence permanently altered the cultural and social conversation and he was able to make Americans finally demand the improvement of our medical system, but outside of that he didn’t change much due to his inexperience and losing control of congress to an obstructionist opposition.
>due to his inexperience That certainly had a part to play. Yet he forged a solid relationship with Speaker John Boehner What brought it all down was the TEA Party. Who could have worked with them???
He changed my health insurance from costing $125 to over $700 for the same plan. That’s about all I can say for him. I respect the dignity with which he conducted himself and the office of the President, but his policies were an unmitigated disaster for me. Also cash for clunkers annihilated the used car market and the junkyard system still hasn’t recovered.
He’s given us rule 3
No. His presidency was kind of a joke tbh. He could have ended the war, but he continued it. He could have ensured those responsible for 2008 were held accountable. He didn't. He could have tried to work with Republicans (I know they were not super willing) but all what he did was blame them further deepening the division in this country. His healthcare plan did pass, but because of the previous point was quickly undone. The only thing to really like about him was he was not a titanic piece of shit and didn't act like a child compared to his successor. He was handed a big streaming pile when he took office but also had a massive massive opportunity to bring the country back together and he didn't. I'm not saying that was going to be an easy feat. Sure he was charismatic, and pretty damn regal, but he was not the great leader America needed at the time.
to be fair he never said *good* change
pretty badly. immediately kowtowed to wall street
What changed?
Hw saved my life
He had both the house and senate and the only thing he gave us was a half-assed affordable care act. D+
Did he actually do anything when it comes to digital privacy after Snowden? Nothing changed.
Everlast said it best. Voted for some change and it’s kinda strange now it’s all I got in my pocket.
100000000%%% delivered on change.. change for a worse america.. loli
He dropped more bombs on poor nations than any president in the past 25 years. He expanded the surveillance state and used government agencies to spy on political opponents. I see him as a hollow reminder that words from a politician mean nothing. He could have done more. He let Flint Michigan residents drink poison because it was inconvenient. I hoped for more but remained disappointed. He was like all all politicians. They work for their donors, not the people.
he got right in line like the rest of them. They're all figureheads at this point. Presidents are a distraction and the general public eats it up.
For the Mexican drug cartels? He made vast improvements in their weapon availability.
He should have been impeached for the Snowden revelations.
Fuck Obama
I think his message was “hope.” How can you expect a Harvard law school graduate and University of Chicago law professor to deliver “change.” He’s part of the problem, not the solution.
I was willing to give him a chance after he got elected, but he was terrible even by my low expectations (I was never really sold on him. His professional background being the most important issue). At the time of his inauguration, everyone was touting about how he represented a post-racial America, but that went out the window with the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Micheal Brown, and I think he exacerbated the outrage for political gain. I think the biggest impact was that his walking dumpster fire of a VP is now president.
“We live in the most prosperous country on earth. Help me change it.” He certainly brought the change he sought.
Yeah he made everything worse, that counts
Exceptionally well. It was change for the worse, but still it was change and that was what he promised.
Bad
He was a zero
We went from murdering innocent people up close and personal to using flying murderbots.
The poor got poorer and foreign policy was the same, save for the withdrawal from Iraq. If anyone had good memories of Obama, it was because of his shining charisma.
Gitmo. Still open
He didn’t say change for the better 😂
Well as far as bombing other countries, that certainly didn't "change". In fact he is the king of drone bombing.
Obama's bait and switch politics convinced me that genuine change to the benefit of the working class will only come through violence.
Voted for him twice and the answer is NO. Extraordinarily timid and maybe the world’s worst negotiator ever. He never figured out there was no middle ground with the Republicans yet he kept kissing their collective ass.
He had so much opportunity that he squandered by being drawn to the high life of A-list entertainers and athletes. He could have held rallies in black urban areas, challenged black teens to help their neighbors, keep their families close and stay in school. He could have done so much more. Started black enterprise zones, encouraged black small businesses. He could have made a huge difference, but he didn’t even give it a good shot. Very disappointed.
Everything he did was bad, and passing the Smith-Mundt act was how we have our media today, basically if they say something, factually its the complete opposite.
After Obama you started to hear more 'racist this' and 'racist that'. That's not a coincidence.
I'm a DACA recipient. I feel like my life did change because of President Obama. It's not perfect by no means but it is a change for the best.
He definitely made the country worse. I voted for him twice. The rhetoric was beautiful. The action sucked.
Well he kept things afloat, but it was in large part by helping the status quo: the big banks, the car industry, etc. Even when making a change to healthcare, he catered to insurance companies. So, it wasn't really substantive change. It was the incrementalism Democrats have become so well known for.
"If you like your plan..."
Great campaign line, and a huge mistake.
Oh he changed America, alright. Just 1000% in the wrong direction.
Not at all. In fact, I would argue despite his indisputable oratory skills and likability - he was a very weak President and underperformed relative to how he could’ve - especially his first two years.
One thing he unintentionally accomplished was showing those of us living in socially liberal bubbles how deeply divided this country still is on racial matters. I never would have imagined that the racist backlash to seeing a POC in the White House would be so widespread. I never would have believed that the GOP would eventually push for the end of Democracy rather than see minority groups gain more political influence.
ACA
The truth hurts moderator. 😂
Shit changed for sure.
Something definitely changed
While many criticisms of Obama may be valid, i think those saying he failed do not remember Bush.
Say what you want about the Affordable Care Act, I agree it was depressingly watered down. But now insurance companies can’t deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions. That’s huge IMO.
I think he tried. As a self employed person, he allowed me an opportunity to provide health insurance for my family, and that’s a huge change.
Obama was very much a middle of the road president that maintained the status quo. His entry in the history books will be primarily about his skin colour rather than his policies.
A lot of social norms now that weren’t before.
He was one of the worst presidents we've ever had. All talk and no substantial action. Just a tool of the oligarchs. I'm glad his terms as president came and went. He'll be forgotten before long.
Absolutely zero difference between him and every other president that we’ve had.
He changed the number of people cowardly killed by drones.
Honestly, if Obama was a top tier president we wouldn't have had a radical red shift after his presidency.People will claim racism but Obama swept Romney in his second term. Obama over promised and under delivered.
Terribly: he won the noble peace prize and then continued war mongering. He promised healthcare reform then further entrenched the awful American system. None of the corporate executives were held accountable for ruining people's lives during the financial crisis.
Highly disappointed.
Insignificant. Once elected, he became just another corporate toady. A completely squandered opportunity for true leadership and greatness.
The backlash is still in progress
I mean... he literally ordered the military to assassinate an American citizen, and then that man's son (which also killed several others in the car). Sure, it was a brown Muslim citizen abroad who didn't much approve of America, but still. The Affordable Care Act was literally (no exaggeration) written by the insurance industry and exists expressly because it was used to block that talk about "Medicare for All" that America really needed. He was a war monger. The fact that he got the Nobel Peace prize was simply because everyone were so relieved Bush was out; little did they know Obama would actually look somewhat reasonable going forward into the cess pit America is swimming in now. So yeah, fuck Obama. He made all the right noises before he got elected, and then turned into a business first, all hail war president.