Perhaps his training in law reinforced his preference for conflict avoidance but President Obama's unwillingness to step beyond his focus on process rather than outcomes proved critical in undermining the long-term accomplishments of his presidency. After Mitch McConnell's comments about a "one-term presidency" there does not seem to have been a single effort at political retribution thast might have made McConnell's allies think twice. Instead of stating the economic stimulus package would have contained A,B, C for reasons X,Y, Z, then offering Republicans some input on complementary provisions Obama in many ways offered it up as hostage to Republican chicanery. Efforts to avoid massive foreclosures were pitiful compared generous treatment of the banks carefully negotiated through the Wall Street intermediaries quickly ushered into the inner halls of decision-making. Even if one did not want to ask What Would Lyndon Do (in terms of process) Obama should have been asking What Would Franklin Want in terms of outcomes to protect the most vulnerable and marginalized of the population. Perhaps worst of all, by making so much of his first two years about his eloquence and sweeping vision Obama failed the elemental task of securing his position by building a strong party operation. Instead he turned the Democratic party over to the Corporate Democrats who were all too happy to negotiate with the Republicans while anticipating the Clinton Coronation. We pay a high price for failure.
41
@usa999
Good analysis. It's important to remember that Obama was a political novice as he was inheriting the worst recession in 50 years - but most important, he was highly aware of his historic place. Was he too cautious? Yes. Both of those factors, as well as his natural faith in his fellow man - now, sadly naive - doomed his presidency to be lesser than it should have been. I was particularly aggrieved about the Trump/Putin connection that he kept quiet about. You'd think by then, after 8 years in D.C., he would've learned that the Republicans will stop at nothing.
13
@CarolSon Bad analysis. I'm always amazed that the most important thing that President Obama did during his presidency is never mentioned by anyone commenting on or analyzing his presidency: He saved the automobile industry. Had our automobile industry collapsed, I defy anyone to name an industry that would not have been devastatingly affected. Imagine what the affect on our country would have been.
3
What a truly sad commentary of our Country.
All presidents experience lost opportunities as they attempt to govern and lead. And perhaps President Obama will be viewed historically as one who lost more than his share of opportunities compared to others.
But I'm tired of hearing so many blame him for not getting in the gutter. As if this was his job. It wasn't. His job was to put this country back on course. To restore dignity and civility to the country after the endless wars and corrupt practices of the previous administration.
Rather than take a vindictive approach that so many would have hoped for, he rose above and did his best to put things back together. Not always well done, or successful, but with true concern and effort.
The republicans then were no different than they are now. In fact, today they are worse.
They have no interest in governing, only fighting, disrupting and dividing. Win at any cost. Our Country be damned. I got mine!
The best of this country comes through with a progressive agenda, moderated by true conservative principles, that looks out for all citizens.
We need to return to that soon. Though I fear the current president and his cowardly minions in the legislature may have destroyed that opportunity for all time.
I cry for my country.
3
When people don't recognize that President Obama was't king, and he needed the House of Reps and Senate to get a real jobs Bill signed you get the results of 2010...the racist republicans said NO to everything....so those racist who live in fly-over country, is the reason the GLOBE is suffering.....keep it hundred.
2
Obama: good man, bad president. More afraid to be perceived as an Angry Black Man than to be the Chief Executive and Commander in Chief. More Republican Lite than Democrat with half-measure, trickle-down recession legislation. Feckless foreign policy. Give the man credit for good manners and a charming family. And give us the chance to put the spine back into liberal politics. Today's the day.
1
A black man in the White House. That is what spawned the backlash.
3
This I guess is left wing Obama derangement syndrome. Blame him for the tea party and trump. Hunh? Well its a neat bookend for Brooks' deranged argument that multiculturalism is to blame for what ails us. Taken together they show us the protean power of unbound while privilege. Never take responsibility for yourself and always find a colored person to blame - - preferably a black man. Oh, and always insist on an honorable platform for the racism of the odious Charles Murray.
Not mentioned by the author or any commentators...
could it be even remotely possible that the hatred towards Obama had something to do with his skin color? Far-fetched, I know, but...
10
I liked the title and I eyeballed this excruciating llong winded article without really reading it but in a nutshell we are still fighting the civil war, the women’s lib and a black president with the two-party-lesser-Of-two-evils-winner-take-all fekakte system of ‘democracy.’
1
When Reagan initiated his 1980 campaign in the municipality that had condoned the murder of three civil rights workers 15 years earlier, the signal to the world was that the Republican Party no longer had any true moral center. The Republican Party has sought power for it’s own sake and considers all Americans who don’t give it to them as their enemies. We all wonder why they continually fail to act as representatives of all of us when they govern, since they will suffer with the rest of us when government does not function well. But we know, they seek power to control government from anyone else borrowing it to do anything.
5
Excellent piece! Obama campaigned and led as a uniter of people, but identity politics got a fresh lease of life during his tenure and divided the Democratic Party. Even minorities, like me, watched in dismay as social justice activism took the country in a different direction and to a “victim and perpetrator” conversation- an unceasing finger pointing at allies and foes alike.
Lost in these boutique obsessions was the plight of the working class, not just white but minority as well. Shuttered factories, broken families, serious health problems, blight, etc - real painful struggle- was ignored.
I voted for Obama twice and am a Democrat. However, i will be the first to say that we need to tone down identity politics and the PC culture. Get back in touch with the working class, improve their lot and build a bridge with corporations that employ them. There needs to be give and take here. Obama’s rhetoric of unity was on point but it did play out well even in his own party.
4
The backlash occurred for one reason and one reason only: President Obama was focused on helping various racial minority groups, gays, transgenders, socialists, globalists, the wealthy elitists, illegal immigrants, unions, pacifists, environmentalists and other subsets of the American population. I'm not saying this was bad, just that he completely ignored the people in fly-over country...middle America, small-towns, manufacturing, the disappearing middle class, small business owners, and the rest of the forgotten "little guys".
Did anyone notice that Trump won PA, MI, OH, WI, IN, KY, TN, NC, SC, IA, WV, GA, AL, MS, LA, AR, ND, SD, NE, TX and the list goes on? Did anyone wonder why?
Niro fiddles while Rome fell. And so will our current president. But Rome was rebuilt and regained it’s strength and so shall the United States. I first voted in 1970. I see parallels of that time now with the big exception of the information highway. Todays 18yos know so much more, have greater avenues for knowledge, and have a huge venue for communication. We can only hooe they will use these efficiently and help us move into the new now, not the now of my youth. The 59s and 69s were great for the middle class white people like me but if you were Black or Jewish or even Italian there was always a hint of otherness. And being nongender specific, well forget it. There were definitely gays but sshh, we don’t talk about it.
Our country is better than the hate and lies of the Trump administration. Our young leople are wiser than the lies. In the words of Donald Trump “ Get em out of here!”
Trump is just the logical outcome of a Republican Party that will lie cheat and steal to win. It is a Tacit admission that they do not represent the majority of Americans. If they somehow maintain total control come Wednesday morning I fear for our country.
3
I am not so sure that the epic mid-terms, touted to be the most important in history are
as consequential as assumed. Sure, it is Trumpism vs, anti-Trumpism. But the Democratic Party of today is like the amorphous slime from which humanity emerged,after a few million years: it does not know what it is going to look like and what it’s fundamental core will be. It is a amalgam of well intentioned individuals, some some dedicated to the public good, some more self-absorbed, trying to formulate coherent policies. Win or lose, this election is not so much about the entrenchment of Trumpism, as it is about the resergence of progressive ideals achievable through politics.
I have this much faith in our citizenry, (and it isn’t that much); but how long can anyone stand this guy? Eventually his “base”has to tire of his act. Either they will want to change the channel , or, sadly, the accumulation of horrors unleashed by him will visit them personally. He has done horrible destruction to his neighbors, but they still believe he is
on their side.Those horrors enrage and depress us daily; but today will not be the real day of reckoning.
That day will come when new, dedicated and progressive people give new life to the foundering Democratic Party.
2
I disagree that the racist fires were stoked for Trump as soon as Obama was elected. Trump won because for the third time (Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004, Hillary in 2016) the Democrats put up an unelectable candidate with a soporific campaign. As other commenters note, Obama always took the high road, always played nice. The same could be said for the Democratic party. Democrats need to learn to fight, to play to win. I'm a Democrat but like many others, my vote for Hillary was merely a vote against Trump.
Oh, and remember Hillary won the popular vote by 3 million. Trump was handed the victory by our outdated Electoral College.
Early in President Obama's administration, black unemployment was climbing, the effects of the recession were decimating communities, black wealth (for those who enjoyed some) was disappearing.
When civil rights leaders asked Obama what he'd do to craft and support policies to address black joblessness, he said, “I have a special responsibility to look out for the interests of every American. That’s my job as president of the United States. And I wake up every morning trying to promote the kinds of policies that are going to make the biggest difference for the most number of people so that they can live out their American dream.”
And, what did he do about the disparity in arrests and sentencing of black men? About a million African Americans are incarcerated, one in four black men, between 20-29, are under the control of the criminal justice system. What did he do? He lectured them. But, he worked with Wall Street and the big banks to help the more privileged "recover" from the recession. He ignored structural inequality.
I voted for him...but I soon realized, he's more sizzle than substance.
And...here we are.
2
According to humans and their science, nothing can be infinite, since in order for something to "be", it must be defined and measurable. Attorneys also need undeniable evidence that something is real in a court of law, the same thinking goes for atheists and agnostics. So how can an attorney be a true Christian and believer in God? Humans can only understand infinity as an entity acted upon by gravity as in a black hole. For humans to understand real...it must be something tangible, something you can touch. God is forever not acted upon by man’s ideas. God is infinity. Infinity cannot have a beginning point and an ending point. Man gets real upset because he can not control the weather here on earth nor understand the greatness of forever infinity of God.
There are times when it does not matter whether a majority or a minority of people have the commanding ruling voice. If the ruling voice is indecent and immoral, selfish and sadistic....then the ruling few or the many......are totally wrong.
What's the difference between a Christian and an atheist.....and the difference between separation of church and state?
Blessed be those that believe in His name: who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
I voted for Obama twice and I'm proud of it. But he helped promote identity politics in unintended ways. But I don't care for this gruesome display of human behavior we call politics. I'm so sick of the me too movement, how women are changing politics, the whole immigration debate. Blah. Blah. Blah. We as humans living on this planet are signing our own death warrant as we fail to see our failing and dying planet. The signs are everywhere, yet we continue to bicker about issues we should've solved 20 years ago.
8
Obama is a highly articulate intellectual. Trump is an uneducated buffoon with the vocabulary of a junior high school student. Obama has statesman qualities while Trump has none. Obama brings people together. Trump drives them apart. Obama let other nations admire America. Trump makes the world fear America. If the Republicans continue to hold the House of Representatives, the possibility of violence is possible. Yesterday I read an article in a Montreal newspaper that warned about the likelihood of civil war in America.
4
The seeds for Trump were sown when the Obama administration decided 'we can't afford justice.' Which is to say, we have a country where even democracy must bow to capitalism. Fools, all of us.
17
If Obama had adhered to principles he spoke in his 2004 speech there would have been no Trump.
Obama not only abandoned lower class blue collar folks concerns but mocked them as" bitter clingers".
He squandered the opportunity to unite across party lines and doubled down with identity politics..deepening a rift for political advantage.
2
In Obama’s era, democracy done in good faith struggled? You are joking, of course. Perhaps Obama will trot our Farrakhan to boost the polls. Or, even reverend Wright!
I disagree. Obama's ascendancy to the White House unleashed the hidden racism in the country. And now it is in full view.
How dare a black man be elected! We'll show him and them.
And Trump is the result.
7
The country is no longer a governable democracy. The Republicans have long dismissed any illusions that it is so they govern by money, secrecy, power and undermining the norms and rules that once maintained any semblance of a democratic state. The Republicans can only "win" by breaking democracy. Obama served as their final justification for winning at any cost. Trump was just a natural for taking control of their pirated ship of authoritarian followers. The swamp is their float.
8
"By nightfall Tuesday, we'll all know."
That's why all true American patriots are going to bed tonight with a grapefruit-sized lump in the pits of our stomachs. After two years of the Trumpocalypse - now is the Day of Reckoning when we'll discover if America is salvageable - or not.
Will the Better Angels of our Nature show up in sufficient force to blunt our two-year nightmarish descent into neo-fascism, bigotry, tribalism and 5,000 lies worth of rank demagogy?
Or will we discover 24 hours from now that November, 2016 was not just a "one-off" spastic backlash of "blood and soil" tribalism - but rather that America, far from being "Great Again" - will have ceased to exist as a beacon of tolerance, reason, compassion, egalitarianism and The Enlightenment itself?
Because "Trumpism" is nothing more than "tribalism" writ large. Its foundation is literally "pre-Enlightenment". Trump is nothing less than the modern equivalent of feudalism and a regression to the Machiavellian Realpolitik that "Might makes Right".
That's what our Founding Fathers were trying to rise above. The only thing that makes America "exceptional" is our ideals expressed in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, starting with: "All men (people) are created equal", regardless of race, religion, color, creed (or gender).
Trumpism, by contrast, is the Orwellian embodiment of, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
As "America", we are on the brink of extinction.
7
What makes democracy perilous and thrilling is that those who abhor it are permitted to participate in it.
What Obama misses is that norms are maleable. For centuries slavery was considered normal and even the most pious and respectable man would think anything wrong of holding slaves. After slavery was abolished the conviction that black people were inferior remained. So when the Civil Rights Act forced people to act differently a reaction was predictable.
But when Obama let the financial industry get away with fraud the situation was different. These were norms on which everyone agreed and if Obama had organized a Pecora style exposure of their crimes there would have been broad public support for punishing them and implementing reforms.
Instead Obama let these people get away with their crimes. What he forgot is that this is a self-reinforcing process. These shady characters who got rich thanks to his policies are now role models. And they spend lots of money lobbying Congress for even more freedom to get rich quickly and immorally.
The problem of Obama was not that he was afraid to use his power. It was that he was afraid to use his power against the rich and powerful.
25
You omit something very important but focusing entirely on political aspects, no matter how troubling those aspects are. Racism. Much of the hatred of Obama arose from racism and the backlash came about because believers of white identity politics, strong and mild, were freaked out that a black man could be President and even popular.
9
One of the most difficult aspects of governing in the 21st century is people's expectation that results will be "instant." We have grown so used to immediacy that anything that takes time is seen as a failure. Good things that happen in one administration are usually rooted in a previous administration, but the credit rarely goes where it belongs. So people vote in kneejerk reaction to what they see now.
Of course some policies do result in immediate changes, e.g., the tariffs on Chinese goods which resulted in the current depression of the soybean market for American farmers. "Instant' for them is bringing disaster. The hard thing is to know no whether the long-term result of the tariffs will be productive of good across the economy. That no one can really predict, and economic theory can really only suggest. There are too many variables involved.
Whether Obama's presidency--the fact of it--will have repercussions other than the kneejerk vote of those who could not stand the thought, much less the sight, of a Black president may begin to be seen in today's election in which significant positions are being contested by qualified Black candidates. But it will take longer to conquer the ingrained prejudices of the whilte's first voters who support Trump.
5
Mr. Suskind fails to address the fundamental asymmetry at work here in that one side plays fair, while the other plays to win. Al Gore in Florida said "count every vote" and we know were that got the country. Years later we have Michelle Obama advise to "go high when they go low". While I think that in the long run fair play wins, I fear that the long run will be too long for the likes of me and my kids.
8
Obama possessed much of the eloquence of my hero, Abraham Lincoln; which made for that beautiful, remarkable and historic acceptance speech on that November night. Unfortunately, Barak does not share Abe’s skill as a politician. Lincoln forged a Union victory through spectacular political maneuvers and force of will. It was the combination of these skills - the rhetoric and the leadership, that made him successful.
I deeply appreciate the graceful way Obama conducted himself in office and also for a few of his policies and initiatives. However, there was something missing that always kept him from greatness. Obama's weakness is his aloofness; trying to keep above the fray and reluctant to fight. He let the Wall street bankers off the hook and even allowed them to take bonuses from the bailout - meanwhile leaving many Americans unemployed, homes in foreclosure, with devastating bankruptcies (I know, I was one of them).
Trump is partially a backlash to Obama - but even without him, the Republican party was going to end up here anyway. Mitch McConnell and the other GOP leaders do not believe in principles, democratic norms, or bi-partisan politics – they only believe in power and the Republican way of life. Their constituents are the wealthy “job-creators,” who conveniently provide security blankets when their time in politics is over. Their ambition, to paraphrase Lincoln, “that the government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich, shall not perish from the earth.”
23
Only by ignoring healthcare can Suskind say Obama "failed to fulfill the core dictum of reversing the Reagan drumbeat of government as problem not solution."
The reality is, Obama delivered the most important expansion of the social safety net since Medicare. And it was over tremendous GOP opposition.
That is the definition of working together to solve problems, and it makes us stronger when we celebrate our shared accomplishments. Or at least recognize they exist.
22
Excellent, eloquently written commentary, but it fails to take any new measure of Obama or account for his failings as president except for the modest reference to the decision to protect Wall Street from populist anger that was boiling hot during the Great Recession.
Obama understood and was a student of many aspects of American life, including constitutional law, but he did not grasp essential realities of the struggles of ordinary wage earners. He was, in short, out of touch. A son of the distant island state of Hawaii who had spent a number of critical childhood years in Indonesia, Obama's brain failed to connect to his gut. After the lickety-split efforts to counteract the recession, his administration pivoted to health care at a time when the nation was in the middle of one of the worst economic crisis in history. Who cares about health care in the middle of losing a job and a home?
Why was Obama so apparently reluctant to engage in the necessary partisan battles? Why did he remain cool and sometimes silent while the right put up newly created, and highly financed, efforts to defeat him and his party? It is my view that Obama, and the key player of his wife, viewed the presidency as kind of a phase of their lives, not a hypercritical moment. He seemed more focused on getting through the presidency with his cool intact.
The Great Recession was ended too quickly. Not enough was done to help, and show Obama helping, those across America caught in the economic whiplash.
13
@Doug Terry
Obamacare = "partisan" battle.
If we judge Abraham Lincoln not by his victorious leadership during the Civil War that ended slavery, but by the reactionary backlash of 150 years of rightwing resistance to equal rights for African Americans, then some may incorrectly say Lincoln was a failure as a president. In Lincoln’s case even his heroic efforts were undercut by the low and evil minds of reactionary hatred and self-interest. The process of creating racial equality has been a very long uncompleted arc, but slow and painful progress has been made toward expanding civil rights.
Pres. Obama ran the most scandal free presidency of my lifetime. Certainly, I wished that he had focused on building a legacy among young people by mentoring them to engage and carry forward his ideas. Still this shortcoming doesn’t diminish the transformation nature of his presidency. We should not to let the good be the enemy of the perfect.
If we take the larger view, were it not for Lincoln’s efforts, than an Obama presidency would not have been possible. Hopefully in years to come people will view the Obama presidency as a breakthrough toward a better and fairer country that strives to reach the ideals of equality and rational engagement with the challenges of a complex world.
18
@MDJ. That is if we can survive the next few years! Today will be a big part of the story, but the next two years will complete the book. We have two more years to salvage what began in 1776.
It is interesting to compare Obama's reaction to economic crisis to FDR's. Both came to office with the nation on the verge of economic collapse, and with their Republican predecessors asking for their cooperation to address the crisis. FDR refused, not wanting to bear responsibility for the Great Depression. The result was indeed total collapse (25% unemployment), but when he took office, he had a completely free hand to enact fundamental economic changes - and the Republicans were out of office for 20 years. By contrast, Obama did the responsible thing - enacting TARP - and avoided a depression, but at the cost of missing the chance to enact fundamental reforms (although Obamacare was a pretty big change) and sharing responsibility for the recession, leading to the devastating Democratic losses of 2010.
I continue to think that Obama will be very favorably evaluated by historians, as he 1) avoided a second Great Depression; and 2) enacted the ACA - not to mention being the first black president. He did the right thing, even if it wasn't the most expedient path politically.
But Obama's time is over. The Democrats need new blood to rescue the nation from the darkness that threatens us.
22
@Elliot
Thank you, Elliot. Your comment is a refreshing jolt of reality. It only takes watching a few documentaries of the 2008 economic meltdown to grasp how much our country owes to Obama for the recovery from that disaster. Was it perfect? Of course not. But 10 years later, the country is in recovery. And, as you point out, the ACA is also still here despite all the fear-mongering Republicans could muster... Who would have predicted that the ACA would be so popular that Republicans now want to claim it was their idea. Ha!
3
I voted twice for President Obama- once joyfully and once reluctantly. He allowed his administration to be coopted by people too far to his left. The constant focus on identity politics became too much for middle class Americans who had lost their manufacturing jobs under NAFTA.
Not once did then-President Obama visit the Marcellus Shale oil and gas region of the Upper Ohio Valley and offer encouragement to this cleaner-energy-than-coal industry that finally created real jobs with real wages. Instead, he let environmentalists in his administration stymie the pipeline that was to be the main artery of this industry. Why shouldn’t these working class voters look for alternative candidates like Trump?
5
@Conservative Democrat Too far to the Left? Obama's administration was to the right of center. Conservative Republicans have moved so far to the Right that we no longer properly perceive what the center is.
And pipelines actually create very few jobs. Are the working class voters in the Upper Ohio Valley better off today than they were two years ago based upon Trump's policies. I don't think so.
20
Perhaps we should differentiate what one or a few people can do, even a Pope as well as a President, as distinct from deeper forces that have a powerful inertia. It's hard to see those deeper underlying forces -- the economic institutions and procedures, the demographic reality, the layout of cities with their schools, scientific knowledge and practices, religious organizations, culture imprints on language, and the patterns of thinking socialized for generations.
Obama could try to expose some of that inertia and help guide us in seeing the possible directions and convergences. With that we could all try to become more aware and do what we can to direct it towards some agreed upon goal. Some of this was in fact done.
But we know how difficult agreeing on the goal, and then even if we could agree, the challenge not to be pawns of those trends remains a daunting task.
Conclusion: We can vote out Trump and his people, and we must, but we still have a lot of work to make things right. Don't complain, just roll up your sleeves.(And if we cannot begin this year, then next. We're in this for the long slog.)
7
this country was founded with slavery and genocide. little has changed.
8
Barack Obama was more a promise than a reality. Historians may one day record that Obama wasn't a visionary and a revolutionary leader like Dr. Martin Luther King, but merely our 1st black president. See: fool's gold.
5
@HLB Engineering His actual record of accomplishment says otherwise. People just choose to ignore it and ignore just how bad a state we were in when he took office.
2
Obama's only mistake was being willing to negotiate with the GOP. We see their reckless and absurd behavior now. Once Dems take control, it should be our agenda, our judges, and anything that comes from the GOP should get no more respect than Merrick Garland or Dr. Blasey Ford. Down the line push single payer, legal weed, the end of Citizens United, billionaires paying their fair share, net neutrality, upping EPA enforcement, and judges that make Justice Ginsberg look like Justice Kennedy.
16
So incredibly sad that our country reached those majestic heights in 2008, only to squander it so soon thereafter. How foolish we were to think that the Obama Era would mark a new beginning for our country marked by intelligence, compassion, inclusion, and the greater good, without considering the possibility of an ugly and repulsive backlash the likes of which we are now experiencing...now it feels like we have to start all over again, as Trump in many ways is 100 steps back.
All we can do is dust ourselves, get to work, and make Trump the last gasp of an ugly and bygone era.
12
I voted for Obama in 2008, but not again. It became clear to me that he was just in it for himself and as you noted, exacted no concessions from Wall Street and also did nothing to promote Democrats in the statehouses, causing the party to implode. After the crash millions of homeowners were left stranded by his insultingly feeble Main Street remedies. Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder, came from the law firm of Covington, which represents just the sort of corporate miscreants that caused the crash, and after leaving office, went right back to his old job. While in office, he sat on his hands, scoring points with his real bosses I'm sure. A few - just a few indictments in eight years might have spared us a Trump, but that might have jeopardized his career.
Obama talked a good game; whenever on the campaign trail, he would morph into Teddy Roosevelt, but as soon as it was over, he'd once again govern to the right of Richard Nixon. As a fitting capstone to his career, he was not out of office two weeks before he was shamelessly snapping selfies with a bevy of billionaires. That is the true man. I'm interested in seeing as little of him as I am of Hillary, two birds of a feather.
12
@stan continople Sadly agree. I could never get over how quickly he gave in, instead of fighting.
3
@stan continople What you fail to understand is history. the more violent or severe the action, the more extreme the backlash. We're already experiencing a monstrous backlash despite the civility of the Obama administration. Secondly, the problem with "statehouses" was not Obama's doing - it was the successful culmination of a 30-year right wing strategy to take over state govt. so they could gerrymander control of Congress. Read "Dark Money." You also fail to understand how government works. Obama was not all powerful. Nor was he "in it for himself." He was, maybe, too trusting. He insisted in focusing on the positive. He believed that he could negotiate with Republicans and yes, he tried to avoid creating a gigantic backlash during his presidency. But, he failed to understand how grotesquely vicious, cynical and utterly devoid of principle most Republicans are. You forget the hysteria and screams of opposition that arose from them when he did what was minimally necessary to put the economy, which they had wrecked, back on its feet. For instance, the US government was reimbursed with INTEREST by the auto industry, which, amidst their howls of protest, Obama bailed out. You also forget the (mysterious) rise of the fake grassroots Koch-funded Tea Party which immediately appeared to oppose everything - and I mean everything - he tried to do.
5
Obama was ultimately not a transformative figure. He couldn't be. The backlash started the day he was elected. It took shape when Mitch McConnell promised to make him a 1-term president, Republicans refused to work with him, through the Tea Party wave of 2010, and 1000 Democratic seats lost in statehouses throughout the country.
He was a uniquely gifted once-in-a-lifetime politician. People say he wasn't tough enough, but they are asking him to be something he wasn't. He wouldn't have been elected if he wasn't preturnaturally calm, able to maintain his composure in the face of enormous criticism, provocation, and racism.
The America that elected Obama is bigger than the America that elected Trump. Trump is the product of 40 years of Republican efforts to tear down the foundations of American life, fix elections, and elevate the rich at the expense of everyone else. They are a minority trying to rule the majority. This can't last, Whether it changes peacefully or violently, eventually the will of the people will win out. We'll see if it begins tomorrow.
97
@Eric This column totally misses the point. Trump isn't the problem. He never was. It's the 62 million people who voted for him. No matter what happens on Tuesday they're not going morph into liberals. If anything they will become more determined to win the cultural war that divides this country. Dems are panicking because their tactics to win are coming apart. The messy judicial hearings, calls to impeach, Heidi Heitkamp apology, Elizabeth Warren DNA tests, Hillary & the caravan. If this election is a referendum on Trump then it also referendum on the viability of progressive politicians. If they lose...& all indicators are they will...then it will strengthen the hand of Democratic moderates. From the GOP's perspective losing the House is irrelevant. They're going to win the Senate. Control the Senate & you control the most important lever of power: the judiciary. Progressive Democrats misunderstand diversity. Spend 3 minutes listening to them being interviewed about almost anything and the conversation inevitably turns to the “number” of women, Latinos, LGBTQ, African-Americans running to be the FIRST to do this or that. How about allowing the color of people’s skin to speak for itself & invest time and energy touting how the party will produce better legislation. Diversity is about the harnessing of everyone’s strengths to accomplish common objectives ...yes? Until the Dems can engage voters on actual economic OUTCOMES, they will continue to be thrashed by the GOP machine.
21
You just don’t get it. As Keynes taught us a long time ago reform is always the enemy of recovery.
1
"Few then were thinking of the word “backlash.”"
As I recall 2008, there was a great deal of talk about that.
It was one explanation given at the time for Obama's care to reach out. He did not strong arm, in part because it would feed the backlash idea.
Instead, he tried to rise above it. He largely succeeded in that, but that is not proof backlash was unimportant, it is proof that it was always an important consideration, one that Obama handled very well for as long as he was President.
11
A concept about America - the land of the free and the brave - that liberal progressives may not want to accept is that our country has a well established, entrenched minority of racists, bigots, white supremacists, Klan members, weekend armed militia that want to take the country back...to what? The Antebellum South?
Just slide down below the Mason Dixon. People pride themselves on their racist attitudes and "home truths" about states' rights, slavery, and the Civil war - which they're still fighting. Now, they wouldn't make a peep about anything racial - blacks, Latinos, Chinese, Native Americans, Indians, Eskimos? - unless they knew they were in friendly territory with their like-minded buddies. And, that's a big territory in this country.
Was Obama an anomaly? I don't think so. He was a man whose time had come, and America's time had come. Trump is the anomaly. And it's interesting how impotent we are, how feckless were are as a country, in our ability to to reign him in. (Notwithstanding the Republicans' skillful efforts to dissemble, to lie - to misdirect, to deceive, to bamboozle the American people - and they're good at it.)
The hard right has been running against Obama, and his race - the threat of minority participation in the electoral and legislative process - for ten years. And quite successfully, I might add.
Maybe that will change tomorrow...
19
I've been saying for years Obama made two mistakes, he let the Bush cabal get away with it and the banksters get away with it. All he had to do was hold those two entities to account and he could have gotten reelected for centuries.
12
Trump did not win. He stole the White House. The GOP have rigged the system knowing they can’t win fairly. If the Russians and the gerrymandering and the rigged voting machines are minimized, the brilliance of this country appears. There is an underlying intelligence in our country that defies the GOP. Trumps mismanagement resembles the lack of governance with George W. Bush presidency. The economy will probably collapses with Trump with a 3rd “great depression” spelling the demise of the Republicans unless tomorrow changes it all.
8
@WR Yet he has done a much better job than his predecessor. Go figure.
1
@Robert
Obama claimed manufacturing and other jobs would never come back to the USA. Yet he is now claiming credit for Trumps policies which results in real job growth, a return of manufacturing, rising incomes.
It is Trump that is doing what he said he would do in his campaigns. We know this because MSM like CNN keeps on complaining Trump is doing what he promised to do.
@Robert
On what planet? He has exploded the deficit with a trillion dollar giveaway to the top one percent. He was played bigly by Kim of North Korea. No denuclearization on the Korea peninsula. He pulled out of the Paris and Iran accords out of his pathological hatred of his admired predecessor. The economy is a house of cards due to his irresponsibile tax cuts and tariffs. He has dishonored the office with his incessant lying and racist demagoguery. No Nobel Prize or addition to Mt. Rushmore for this most venal of presidents. Incidentally, no one ever laughed at the cerebral, elegant,preternaturally calm Barack Obama. Donald Trump is not by any measure better than the 44th president.
Obama is a good orator but was a mediocre president at best. The socialist democrats can put him on display but in the end, it will not change the fact that under Trump, our economy is booming, unemployment is at a record low, and our borders are becoming secure. Obama left us with a dysfunctional immigration policy, nuclear enabled Iran and North Korea, doubled the national debt and heightened racial tensions. We saw his ineptness in Benghazi, the handling of ISIS, and failure to acknowledge Radical Islam.
5
@George I have refuted all of these lies in previous comments but am unwilling to waste another minute on such nonsense.
9
@George
The Economy was in ascent when Trump Got the Job. It was in the second worst decline in our History when Obama got the Job. There were more jobs created in the last 21 months of Obama's presidency than in the first 21 of Trumps. What does that say about the Economy and who is responsible for it? What happens when the inevitable recession comes? Who gets the blame. You seem reasonable. When was America Great? What years? What Decade? What underpinned that greatness? I would love to know and I would love to know if our completely controlled Republican congress is doing whatever was going on during that great decade.
6
@George
Nice work. You have gotten all your facts wrong--except for the unemployment. Wrong on Iran (they weren't nuclear enabled--but they will be now!), wrong about DPRK (they're playing Pompeo like an accordion), inaccurate about the debt (you can thank Bush and McConnell for that one) and about race? He heightened tension by being black. It was Obama's policy on ISIS that brought them down. Trump's failure to acknowledge his debt to white supremacy--and you're probably with him on that, bigot boy--will be one of his greatest legacies. Along with the financial disaster of his trade policies. Killing jobs whereever he looks. Nice job all around.
13
We will probably never know what kinds of compromises have to be made by men like Obama in order to get anything done. But we can assess their rhetoric. Does it inspire? Is it unitive? Does it reflect a high moral tone? It is, after all, the job of a president to be a figurehead for our values (whether or not it actually reflects our behaviors).
14
Freud argued that civilization is a tremendous burden on us despite its clear benefits. The reaction to this burden is aggression, which has to find a way to be expressed in hopefully non-destructive ways.
We have reached a time of nakedness. The Id seems to be in charge of the chariot of the soul.
Obama navigated a minefield his entire presidency, a presidency that from the beginning struck many as wrong. The elephant in the room: racism is very, very real. It isn't dead, it has just gone underground.
And it is clutching from there at us. And it might well clutch some more.
Zombie ideas do that often.
8
If you're right, then a backlash against Trumpism will follow. Many signs of it already.
5
How convenient that obstructionist extraordinaire Mitch McConnell is absent from this column.
14
It's not backlash because President Obama is black, the backlash is he because he brought the country too far left. Now it's regression to the mean and perhaps past it.
6
Obama did NOT keep his promises. He betrayed seniors by pushing for cuts to SS and then by doing away with the COLA, he tried to betray working class Americans by pushing TPP, he extended the war in Afghanistan, and moved troops into Sudan.
5
Donald cannot just undo Obama. He leaves behind a solid positive legacy and it has driven Donald and his ignorant bigots nuts. Thanks, Obama.
Wednesday the 7th Donald will go back to campaigning and rallies, inciting the right in the name of civility and unity. Beautiful barbed wire and bla bla bla bla bla.
5
@ogn yet the items that he did undo has helped our country thrive. Go figure.
2
Not one true word.
A lot of words though.
4
@In deed All true words and brilliantly couched. A pity some can't understand them.
3
This essay fails to cite the catastrophic effects of the FOX News channel and hate radio that have successfully fomented fear and loathing for 25 years and collapsed the nation's IQ.
In the pre-FOX news days, there were no mainstream platforms for evolution and science deniers, contraception deniers, Birther Liars, Benghazi conspiracy mongers, and various other organ-harvesting of America's brains.
But for the last ten years or more, FOX and hate radio and now the alt-right internet and the Liar-In-Chief just make stuff up and broadcast their endless propaganda as truth and 40% of the nation eats that mental garbage.
The ACA was an imperfect but positive step forward borrowed from the right-wing Heritage Foundation; it was a conservative idea predicated on the principle of individual responsibility known as the 'mandate', that each person requires coverage for the system to work.
In the old days, the ACA would have had bipartisan support and been a bipartisan success story, but in the radical right-wing world that Republicans have created with right-wing 0.1% corporate speech, the ACA became 'socialism', slavery and the personification of the anti-Christ.
In the old days, no one would have attacked Barack Obama's American very legitimate citizenship, but in the Goebbellian Orwellian Poppycock world of the GOP, their lies ride around the world twice before the truth can tie its shoes.
One political party decided to destroy the truth and American democracy: Republicans.
182
Of what importance is it to us, at this moment, to dissect President Obama's every move, every action. Of course he wasn't perfect. But in comparison to both his predecessor and follower, he accomplished more, so much more for the good of our nation. He saved us from Bush's Great Recession. HE, not Trump, got this economy moving. And let us not play down the importance of the ACA. Approximately 70% of Americans now want it to stay in some form in spite of Trump's ranting proclamation while campaigning that he will destroy it. And it was not because it was bad, but because it was the brain-child of a Democrat, and a Black one at that.
If there was a backlash in 2016 from having (thankfully) an African American president for 8 years, just wait until 2020. Moral corruption will only take us so far, and the trajectory will not be toward progress or stability, decency or civility. Our steps as a democracy will be more than two or three steps backwards...
24
I agree with this assessment of Obama. I have long felt that he was naive enough to believe in the good nature and rationality of the GOP. Despite a real achievement in the ACA, he failed to seize the bully pulpit (which he could have done brilliantly) in so many other areas, and the most egregious example of this was his minimal fight for Merrill Garland. I was hoping for a new FDR, but was disappointed.
15
@Mark
How would you have gotten the Republicans to have a hearing for Merrick Garland?
@SCarton Obama was a master at swaying public opinion. Had he made a fight and made his case to the public, pressure on the GOP might have increased. I don't see that O did anything to fight the situation. Or maybe it wouldn't, but we'll never know.
1
"When words don’t mean anything, when truth doesn’t matter, when people can just lie with abandon, democracy can’t work!"
Are you kidding me?
When Obama ran for President, his words were that he was opposed to gay marriage.
He became President, appointed two ultra-liberal justices (who voted for gay marriage), and then came out as a supporter of gay marriage.
His supporters said he "evolved." To me, he lied.
Not surprisingly, whether democracy is working is in the eye of the beholder.
3
Steve Smith
67% of Americans support same-sex marriage, the highest level of support that Pew has recorded in the more than 20 years it has been querying Americans on the issue.
When Gallup first queried Americans on the issue in 1996, 27% said they supported gay marriage.
That's rock solid evidence that many Americans have evolved on the issue.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/05/23/same-sex-marriage-poll-americans/638587002/
You sound like you have doubts about evolution, natural variation, giving being the benefit of the doubt...and simply be kind to people.
Good luck in your future.
30
@Steve Smith
Don't forget, "you can keep your doctor and your insurance"
5
Steve and Andrew, perhaps you find these Trumpian whoppers more to your small-minded likeness:
“We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” Trump said in Jan. 2017. “We’re going to have a healthcare that is far less expensive and far better.”
Or, as he said in a September 2015 “60 Minutes” interview, “I am going to take care of everybody. Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.”
At last Obama had the grace and dignity to explain his statement after the fact where Trump just tried to eliminate healthcare 15 million Americans and pre-existing condition coverage for all Americans.
http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/02/did-president-obama-lie-when-he-said-if-you-like-the-policy-you-have-you-can-keep-it-context-is-everything/
Obama was a scandal-free, dignified President.
Trump, a disgusting human being on all levels.
46
I believe Mr. Obama's greatest achievement that will change America for the better is that he was elected President, twice. He showed all of us, especially our sons and daughters, that America can still be a great place; that the promise of equality under the law enables opportunity for one and all. He rekindled that dream and his achievement will be forever historic.
30
So therefore this "achievement" would have been nothing if he weren't black?
2
“But these midterms are also a gauge of the Obama legacy”
I respectfully disagree with you Mr. Suskind. Tomorrow’s midterm elections are a gauge of our Democratic beliefs, a “We the People” decision. Do we turn our country around and into a better light, or do we continue with the fear and racist based ideology of the current President and Republican Party? We’ll soon find out.
President Obama has already made his mark in history, and it’s a great one.
56
@cherrylog754 Actually...if you call displacing Carter as the worst president in history as a great mark, then you have achieved what you desired.
@Robert, don't worry, Trump has already hit that benchmark in only two years! Impressive in its own way, actually...
1
Obama was indeed a very good president, but he could have been even better if he had taken the gloves off and engaged in some good old fashioned hardball once in a while. Perhaps in private meetings with congressional Republicans he was tougher. But publicly he was too nice.
A simple example: In 2011, Obama agreed to discuss a grand bargain on reducing the deficit. He put VP Biden in charge of the negotiations. Partway through the process, the Republicans quit the process. Obama should have simply shut down the government himself, as chief executive, and blamed it on the Republicans. Instead, he muddled through. The government eventually was shut down, but he could have punched them in the nose then and delivered a message that he wouldn't be held hostage.
17
On January 21, 2009, a large number of Americans woke up to find that there was a Black man in the White House. It was this simple fact, not health care, not the Great Recession, and not anything else, which led to the Tea Party revolt in 2010.
And the slogan of the Tea Party was "Take Our Country Back." But at that time none of the media asked the simple question, "Take it back from whom?" The answer, we now see, was from People of Color. And when the 2016 slogan was to "Make America Great Again" they didn't realize, or didn't say, that it really meant to make it white again.
So this election, like most before now and like many in the future, for many people begins and ends with race. Indeed, with a demographic transition to a country without a majority racial group by 2040 or so, certain people feel an existential threat, as exemplified to them by the caravan.
Although I feel confident that in the end things will work out, I see many troubling times in the near future.
67
An older phrase for it all is "bread and circuses." Give 'em a tax break, give 'em some entertainment, toss a few people to the lions and prevail.
Obama did wonders, and the nation recovered, enough so that the Braggart in Chief can take credit. But Obama could not recover from the GOP's absolute sense that they should have prevailed, even as they were the cause of a global meltdown, and an endless, fruitless and stupid , costly war, and they sold the nation down the drain to make their point.
I have found both Liberal and Conservative backlash to Obama's handling of the banking crisis a bit bankrupt. You can't take a failing heart out of a body, unless you have a really good replacement ready. At the time, we had no replacement, and let's be clear: since then, we have a government not interested in fixing or removing the diseased heart.
Who are we now? We are the same nation we were in 2008 and in 2016. One that wants change but can neither agree on what change we want, nor on how we will pay for it. That is why we should be able to elect leaders, not masses of protoplasm taking up air and real estate in the capital. Obama was a leader, flawed, but with a real vision. Trump is a carnival barker appealing to the lowest common denominator and offering the bread and circus distraction that allows the GOP leaders so upset by Obama to hollow out the middle class for short term profit.
16
I voted for Obama twice, but I remember the first time I saw him in a forum after he had been elected the first time. A Wall Streeter, who claimed to have gone to Harvard with him, complained during a question-and-answer period that guys like himself were being blamed unfairly for the financial meltdown. I thought it was a perfect moment for Obama to make this guy an example of Wall Street greed and to forcefully assert his support for the little guy. Instead he was classic Obama -- articulate, measured and unwilling to offend. It was a missed opportunity. He then went on to bail out the banks, but not homeowners, left Nancy Pelosi to pass the Affordable Care Act, and repeatedly tried to compromise with Republicans when they only wanted to destroy him. Besides Obamacare, which was craftily constructed to withstand the GOP's withering assault, the former president's legacy has been obliterated. He gave us calm, dignity, integrity -- all good things -- but at that moment we needed FDR, not Carter. We needed Trumpian chutzpah. We needed the angry black man. I wonder if Teddy Kennedy had lived whether Obama would've been a populist hero, rather than a centrist milquetoast.
15
@AlNewman
He ended up being just another corporate Democrat. And he got exactly what he wanted - millions of dollars, billionaire buddies, and some modicum of respect. I didn't need an angry black man, but i did hope for a President who worked in the interests of the folks who voted for him, not his big bucks donors and his now vaporized "legacy". Fool me once, (ok, twice, i voted for Bill Clinton too), i'm done with the corporate wing of Dems, Trump or no Trump. Why would i ever vote for the people - both R and D - who got us here in the first place.
5
@AlNewman You forget to mention that Obamacare was passed without a single Republican vote, and when asked what was in the bill exactly, was told "just pass it and find out". How droll.
2
@Robert
You can continue to whine about that until you realize that the big "tax cut" bill the Trump Republicans passed was in the dead of night, secret, and still being hand-written on scraps of paper right up until the vote, because the Republicans absolutely wanted to pass it before anyone else got to see it and object to the giveaway to the millionaires.
1
No one ever talks about the deep, dark effects of being in a state of war for 18 years has done to the psyche and values of the American people. We will need generations to recover...if it ever ends.
24
I still wonder how many men either voted GOP or just stayed home in 2016 because they couldn’t handle having a woman president.
68
@Lawyermom Answer: several million.
18
@Lawyermom We can handle a woman president. Just not THAT woman. She was a liar and a criminal. I don't think the Dems could have put up a worse candidate if they tried.
5
@Lawyermom
Perhaps more that a few women felt the same way. My elderly Mother-in Law definitely felt a President should be a man.
My vote for Hillary Clinton was easy as there only two serious candidates and one of them was a cartoon.
However Ms. Clinton had heavy baggage and being a woman was not a large part of that load.
1
Can you recall the terror in 2008 as the economic world imploded? But along comes a bright guy just when we need him to solve it all by stupid good luck. The other choice was an erratic senator who offered no plan and picked Palin as his first demonstration of executive reasoning...
Obama pulls us back from the brink in 2 unwinnable wars; carefully stepped around endless landmines economically and puts the country on track to reap a good economy which Trump inherits; refuses to go to war in other regions in part to save us from further economic bleeding and to give us a rest from blood; mends necessary global fences Bush mocked; lifted up transgender civil rights; and the list goes on. And on. And he did most of it with a Congress sticking a knife in his back.
Obama understood it would be pure Wall Street chaos if he went after the banks criminally and we were very near a depression. He did the smart thing instead and saved us. And now the writer complains Obama didn't do enough. It is to laugh.
Chew on this America: you didn't deserve an Obama. Your greed and bloodlust got you into your dilemmas in the 00's - you were pulled out of the abyss. Trump is the president you deserve.
46
@AG: I think if Obama had gone after Wall Street....he would have been loved by BOTH the left and right....sorry, but Wall Street DESERVES "chaos" and if we had that, we might have another New Deal today ... instead of repeating ALL the mistakes of the early 00s like speculation and house flipping and an overheated stock market.
1
My main issue with this ex president, is his handling of the housing crash and our crash.
Before him, I got a house, a 401K, savings, a nice car, my family was not swimming in cash, but we could go on vacations and enjoy life.
Then the interest rate went from 5.4% to 23.5% and my mortgage begun to be sold from one party to another for seven years, where we really had no clue who we owed the mortgage to, or even how much.
At the end we lost the house, the 401k, the savings, the vacations, the nice things and after my brother’s divorce, he and I moved in with dad and mom, and she moved back in with her dad and mom.
Now in our late 40’s, none of us, my brother, his exwife or me have a 401k, savings, money for things and zero prospects of ever owning a home of our own. My brother rents, I rent with my wife, and his ex lives with mom. We are toast for the remainder of this life time.
This is the real cost of the choices made by this guy for us.
Had he simply frozen the interest at 5.4% none of this would have happened. He instead gave near 1 Trillion to the guys who left many of us in limbo.
Thanks for nothing, friend.
5
@AutumLeaff
I'm very sorry that happened to you. It's not just mortgages, an awful lot of people who could ill afford it got hosed by the ACA as well. Fell through the cracks and ended up worse off than before it, what with the unaffordable premiums and deductables. And that's before we got to the TPP written by his corporate buddies that no one was allowed to see. That sent chills up my spine.
5
@AutumLeaff
How exactly did your mortgage interest rate go from 5.4% to 23.5%? The average interest rate stayed in the 4% range the whole time Obama was in office. That's where our mortgage stayed.
Mortgages get transferred a lot, but the terms stay the same.
"...there needs to be enough ambition connected to compromise in order for it to be productive." There's not much logic in your piece Mr Suskind; the Koch's, the Dick Armey PACs, the big money and the existing right-wing conspiracy (and yes, she was correct) are responsible for the toxic, successful GOP agenda. Please refrain from placing blame or responsibility on a decent man who worked for equality and peace. All the ambition in the world cannot fight successfully against the moneyed agenda of men and women who believe corporations are people. We GOTV or else we sink further into the GOP morass of corruption.
13
“For every two steps of progressive change, we often take one step back in conservative retrenchment”.
As so many times, Obama is completely wrong.
There were multiple steps back under his Administration.
He failed to prosecute the politicians that wrongly saddled us with two longest wars in the US history as if the Afghani and Iraqi people attacked us on the 9/11 (what kind of intellectual one should be to fail to instantly understand that the ideology, financiers, perpetrators, leaders and fatwa writers behind the terrorism were from the Saudi Arabia).
He failed to prosecute those who pushed us into the Great Recession.
He failed to end two wrongful wars and launched two additional ones that created the ISIS and the millions of refugees.
He oversaw the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Egypt by the Saudi Crown and stayed aloof after the Saudis invaded Bahrein to quell the democratic local movement.
He piled up the colossal national debt and exported a lot of the US industrial base to China.
Does he really believe the world is the better place now than it was in 2008?
7
@Kenan Porobic The world is worse and it's entirely due to Trump and his supporters, defenders, and enablers.
4
Everyone (or enough of us) wanted a cool, rational, intelligent-seeming, and even intellectual-sounding president after the folksy W. had "driven the bus in the ditch" (as Obama used to say) with Iraq, Katrina debacle, and the Great Recession. Obama stepped in at the perfect time.
However, as Mr. Suskind has well-demonstrated in his column, there was tremendous backlash against Obama to prove that Reagan's dictum, "Government is the problem and not the solution," could be reasserted strongly by his detractors. i.e., his enemies.
Obama could have strengthened the argument about the role of government had he stood up and passed legislation for a decent bailout for the homeowners who were directly impacted by the Wall Street irresonsibility and failure. But he handed it over to the bankers, just as he handed health care to the Senate committees, which helped lead to his crushing 2010 defeat in the mid-terms.
Obama, a healer and not divider, who staked his claim on there being "not a Red State and Blue State America, but a United States of America," was basically naive, wrong and forced to eat crow on his most basic assertion - the centerpiece of his speech about the country's unity. It served as the fodder for a vicious counter-attack by the right.
8
Why are the Republicans getting a complete pass on deficit spending?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/us/politics/federal-deficit-2018-trump-tax-cuts.html
If Democrats were this fiscally irresponsible (during a period of economic growth and prosperity; NOT in a period, such as faced by Obama, of global economic crisis), the Republicans would trounce all over them… deriding them as socialists, communists or worse.
With Trump and the Republicans, it hardly gets a mention.
The new jobs, corporate profits and surging (until recently) stock market have all been “purchased” with a $1.5 tax cut.
If we divide $1.5 trillion by 3,000,000 jobs (roughly 250,000 new jobs for 12 months), then each job cost the Trump government $500,000 to create.
17
One is put in mind of H.L. Mencken: -- “As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
Let's just hope they get reversed tomorrow.!
AND that it's a prelude to the demise of the morons currently in charge in 2020
12
The article juxtaposes Roosevelt and Obama, and Reagan and Trump. This is old stuff of the dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. The country needs new political ideals, instead of the rehashing of old truths. Alas, I do not know, wherefrom the light will shine.
2
Former Supreme Court Justice Suter said, back in 2012, that the greatest threat to American democracy will not be military coups or foreign invasions. It will be "civic ignorance."
"Civic ignorance" was what Trump bet on, and it has paid off or him in abundance. Americans, as a whole, have become so ignorant of the workings of our government and the world around us that one man can lead us around by the nose. We have no sense of what is plausible anymore...about 35-40% of this country would believe there is a vast conspiracy involving FBI, CIA, dozens of major news outlets, and everyone from George Soros to George Clooney before they would believe that one reality TV huckster is lying to them.
I hope everyone else will vote tomorrow. Otherwise, civic ignorance will be the future of America.
14
i agree with this piece. obama was a corporate dem, not one to take chances and too timid by far. he really did not stand up and he did not fight. i think maybe he was too genteel. and too removed from the hoipaloi.
4
I am very concerned for our way of life under trump the authoritarian dictator
Held up by syncophants and opportunist
Evil incarnate in Washington and red America
Slavery never ended. We thought Obama would cure us but he fell short listening to Wall Street
Bush did it and Obama owned it.
trump should be in prison.
4
"The first thing we must do here tonight is to decide we are not going to become panicky. That we are going to be calm, and we are going to continue to stand up for what is right. Fear not, we've come too far to turn back... we are not afraid and we shall overcome."-Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
16
There is no question that for Obama's entire eight years as POTUS, a too-large segment of our population was filled with racists rage, and too-large proportion of GOP politicians were either, themselves filled with racists rage, or were attempting to take political advantage of the racism amongst the voters.
And there is no question that this pent up (and stoked) racists anger over having a black man as president was one of the main factors in the anti-Democratic sentiment and Trump's victory in 2016.
But I think Mr. Suskind, in analyzing the supposed missed opportunities and failures of Obama is giving far, far too little weight toward the immovable, anti-democratic and unprecedented obstructionism of the GOP controlled Congress for Obama's last six year.
Oh, sure, Obama could have been a slightly better politician. But it would not have mattered. The GOP was simply not going to let Obama move the dial on anything. So he didn't. But, seriously, you can't blame him for that.
34
@NA Expat
"But, seriously, you can't blame him for that."
I do. He could have taken his cases to we, the people, who elected him. Instead he caved to the donors and establishment.
3
@rtj
He tried to bring his case to the people; we didn’t listen. When Mr. McConnell and Mr. Boehner took the leadership positions in the Senate and House, we didn’t act to stop the “make him a one term president” strategy. Yes, President Obama could have had Mr. Holder go after the banks, fought harder on the ACA, shut down the government to force a hearing for Judge Garland; to what end? Even more obstruction by the Congress?
We the people had full and complete opportunities in 2012, 2014, and again in 2016 to change the Senate and House. We didn’t. We sat back and condemned the Tea Party, fought with rancor over the primary process, and failed to vote in sufficient numbers when and where we were needed to in order to prevent this catastrophe. Blame Obama if you must; however, we are culpable as well.
1
@rtj
Interesting that you condemn Obama, and don't say anything about the Republicans..
I liked President Obama as a person and as a president. He was and is a decent human being and a dedicated family man. His epic failure to truly hold the thieves on Wall Street accountable, even symbolically, directly lead to the disillusionment of "the working class", you know, those people who voted for him but then turned around and voted for Trump. They are not racists, as so many pundits claim. It's easy and lazy to make such a claim. Don't forget that these are the same people who rejected 16 other Repbulican professional politicians for someone that went out amongst them, listened to their heartache and then in a stroke of marketing billiance and incredibly hard work defeated the GOP establshment AND Obama's hand picked successor. They knew that the entire political class had betrayed them and their children with global trade deals that raised the standard of living for tens of millions of foregin workers while hollowing out our own middle class; putting the American Dream out of reach for and entire generation. That and the incredibly naive Iran deal plus the abdication of leadsrship on Syria (both driven by the callow and arrogant 35 year old Ben Rhodes) will forever tarnish and otherwise impeccable legacy.
6
Ron Suskind paints a fair overview.
I've always felt that Obama, for all his successes, wasted the bully pulpit like no other president. You don't use the biggest stage of the world to display competency, you use it for advocacy.
There is precedent for this. Even as a black man facing racism, he was elected by a majority of Americans. He had a mandate. George Bush used his political capital to take the nation to war. Trump is using his to enrich himself and his cronies in the Republican establishment. Obama seemed to me to use the Office to show that a black man can intelligibly preside and guide the nation. To those of us that voted for him, that was obvious. We wanted more than the proving of the obvious.
We wanted to see bankers in prison. We wanted flaming rhetoric of justice from the White house pulpit. For an orator like Obama, it would have been an ordinary manner to construct speeches outlining a vision. But something held him back.
Most who looked into this matter have agreed that what held him back is that he was an ordinary politician, and not a visionary MLK reincarnated, to whom he paid scant fidelity. Once he made nice with the banks (who had approved all those millions of loans so they could get commissions) and let them write their own get-out-of-jail-free card, the cat was out of the bag. He was owned by the oligarchs like everyone else.
I loved Obama's reasonableness and hated his lack of passion when events justified it.
10
@Kip Leitner
True: he was stifled by feeling the need to prove he was good enough. It's the educated Black man's burden: proving you are competent, good enough, not a mistaken recruit.
Losing oneself pursuing a desire to fit in with mediocrity, the acceptable ... when in fact it was exceptional boldness, drive, passion, being different that got you there in the first place.
2
In 2008, before Obama was elected, progressives suggested that the US could never elect a black president - Americans were still too racist and too ignorant for such a radical change, a "post racial" society. Obama was then elected twice. Then Trump was elected and the narrative of the racist and ignorant America returned: Trump's election was obviously a "backlash". Democrats will continue losing elections as long as they treat Americans like deplorable idiots. Trump was elected because the establishment failed a lot of people, blacks included, who were promised Hope and Change and ultimately ended up with little hope and little change.
5
@Michael James, you are simply wrong about what progressives were saying prior to 2008. If we believed that the US could never elect a black president, we wouldn't have voted for Obama in the Democratic primaries, because we would have considered that tantamount to conceding the election to the Republicans. In fact, progressives voted for Obama because we believed he could win--and we were right, twice.
6
I vividly remember the near euphoria of that night in Nov. 2008. It was a great occasion. Oh, I expected that there would be some backlash, but I didn't expect that it would be as severe as it turned out to be. The Republicans openly declared their intention of blocking virtually everything President Obama proposed and making him a one-term president. They didn't quite succeed. In spite of all their obstructionism, President Obama managed to count up some major achievements, most especially lifting the economy out of its worst crisis since the Great Depression and extending health care coverage to millions of Americans. And in spite of all the vitriol that was thrown at him, his behavior demonstrated a graciousness, dignity and class that are totally alien to the mean spirited and vulgar current occupant of the Oval Office. Just compare how President Obama spoke so movingy and sang "Amazing after the shooting of
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@Debra Petersen (I accidentally hit submit before I was finished. Here's the rest of what I wanted to say.)
Just compare how President Obama spoke so movingly and sang "Amazing Grace" after the shooting of nine people at a black Church in Charleston to Trump's response after the shooting of eleven people at the synagogue in Pittsburgh...an obviously scripted condemnation of violence followed by a quick return to the attacks on his enemies that have so poisoned our political atmosphere. The contrast could not be starker...or sadder. This is what the backlash has brought us to.
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Authoritarianism is different from being an authority.
Trump tries to give himself authority by being authoritarian. He talks of himself as an enforcer of law. Trump allows no criticism. He throws under a bus those who don't toe his line. Trump admits no mistakes, apologizes for nothing, never corrects course. Certainly, his unwillingness to hint at any weakness is in itself a weakness, and reveals pronounced weakness of character. He is no authority, just someone trying too hard to be more than he is.
President Obama never was authoritarian, but he has authority. Where does it come from? His impeccable character. President Obama has always been committed to truth. He treats people respectfully and recognizes their inherent dignity - every color, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, you name it. President Obama stood up for himself without putting others down, whether his opposition was from political adversaries or from conservative media.
Today, when President Obama speaks, the authority he has established comes shining through. Trump, who is hellbent on using President Obama as a foil, will never understand how much stronger is his predecessor. A big mouth can't fill President Obama's big shoes.
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What Mr. Suskind dances close to—but never touches —is that stunning novelty of a biracial president, Barack Obama, a deus ex machina of hope for a race of people descended from slaves, a people whose very visibility was and is a direct affront to a white America that sought to bury them before the pus of the Civil War oozed from the festering sores that were all that remained of a fraudulent Declaration of Independence that conferred Providence’s blessings upon white men only.
When Senator Barack Obama stood across the street from Constitution Hall on March 18, 2008 he was poised between two pincers: (a) an audacious black man (and front-running) Democratic presidential candidate and (b) on trial for the “violent” rhetoric of his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The vultures circled, sure of his impending catastrophe, caught red-handed in their crosshairs in the act of defending what fearful whites always dreaded: a Nat Turner.
Having delivered one of America’s greatest addresses on the nation’s “original sin,” Mr. Obama sought to still fears and strengthen those who may have wavered in their support.
He would always have enemies—Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, never willing to recognize him as president nor the office he had won. Joe Wilson encapsulated its hatred with his immortal “You lie!” Republicans sought always to delegitimize him as white Americans, for most of their history here, sought to delegitimize slaves and their descendants.
America is a big lie.
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@Sox are red
AMEN BROTHER!
3
@Red Sox, '04, '07, '13, ‘18
On the eve of Obama's election, the one curious thing I read repeatedly on readers' comments, across multiple platforms, was an insistence that Obama was "biracial, not black; his mom was white, why should his white side count less etc..." It was an interesting, white (and perhaps biracial) take on him that at the time was just that, interesting.
Now I wonder if there was more to it. He self-identified as Black. If you weren't paying attention during election season, you could hardly miss it during his presidency.
Obama's background as a community organizer was his weak spot in dealing in DC -- he viewed America as a community to be organized, and failed to realize that for about one-third (at most) of the country, it doesn't want to be organized into the part of a larger, more cosmopolitan America. Obama's enemies want to rule the country, not see it organized into something that doesn't have them at the top.
Obama's other big blunder (tied to his conciliatory, community-building mindset) was not running hard on the electoral mandate for change he actually had when he won, when he had the Congress, too. Instead, he tried to be bipartisan with a group who was hell-bent on ousting him, specifically, the GOP.
The GOP were floundering after his election, sputtering in the weeds, but his willingness to work with them (or try to) got them back on their feet so they could then oppose him through and through, which takes us to today -- Trump was the "reward" for Obama not running with his electoral mandate, when he had the chance.
He remains intelligent, charismatic, considerate, and compassionate -- but he terribly underestimated the determination of his adversaries, something Lyndon Johnson wouldn't have done.
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"The process of self-governance — which Mr. Obama haltingly attempted to restore — is busted, and maybe irreparably."
Nope. Sorry. Wrong.
First of all, democracy doesn't begin and end with the executive branch. Most of Obama's failures were the result of the legislature. Namely: McConnell. Obama's Congress never successfully sat a super majority despite winning one from the electorate. Thankfully the court, while hostile, was not essentially determinate at the time. Everything else was a cascade.
Second, no one likes Orrin Hatch! If you're so clueless as to believe Orrin Hatch has a bearing on the modern electorate, you must be living on a demi-planet somewhere past Pluto. Everyone in the political arena has been trying to push Hatch out for years. The Hatch 2020 sign reads: Not Welcome!!!
The man is an insult to public intelligence. He is the General MacArthur of his political situation. His role in Kavanaugh is the most insulting piece to date. Not because of Kavanaugh. Because Hatch really is that [random pejorative] clueless.
Sigh . . .
You read someone like Suskind and you need to wonder why they are paid to write.
8
The backlash started the night of January 20, 2009, in a smoke filled Washington DC steakhouse where the GOP hierarchy met to plot the destruction of the US economy and total obstruction of Obama's agenda.
The words of then Senator Jim Demint of SC spoken at that meeting:
“Our goal is a complete gridlock for the next two years. There is no place for bi-partisanship, compromise, only acceptable outcome is total victory and any politician that disagrees will be treated as a traitor. This is war.”
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There was a backlash because Obama voters and independents were complacent and let the same people who ran the economy into the ground in 2008 back in power in 2016. The tea party and lower and middle class republicans have consistently voted against there own economic interests and had no problem bringing down the economy in 2008 and are at it again. Tax cuts for corporations and the rich and trickle down economics still won't work for most Americans and that painful/costly lesson is being repeated. Once again, it is up to the rest of us to vote this losers out of power.
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@EPMD Yet our country is in the best shape in decades thanks to these "losers". Go figure.
Really well said.
Now let’s vote these bums out.
6
Even should the Democrats defeat every single Republican candidate, America still won't recoup its former glory. The rock's been lifted and we all know what crawls beneath.
10
As Ron Suskind's book has already observed, President Obama informed the Wall Street fat-cats during an emergency meeting of March 2009 that they had a "PR" problem only. Obama and Geithner --- Obama's money-whisperer, as Rubin was to Clinton --- sat on the board of the banks during TARP and did precisely .... nothing. (Because politics abhors a vacuum, the far-right Tea Party immediately grabbed the headlines.) In the absence of criminal penalties, the problem not only returns but metastasizes. When I was a stockbroker in the 80s, financial services was 8% of GDP. It is now five times bigger.
Obama also renewed the obscene Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, the first time in the nation's history that taxes had been cut during war. And despite knowing beforehand that they would not receive even one Republican vote for the ACA, the Dems refused to present an argument in favor of single-payer. Speaking of which, you'd have an easier time finding a snowflake in July than President Obama anywhere near Capitol Hill. A congressman told me that, to my face.
What few realize is that the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, which *is* the party, despises the true progressives who take income inequality seriously. The Clintons have amassed a $150M fortune from speeches to Goldman et al. Obama is already following in their footsteps.
Blech. I'll vote blue tomorrow, then I'll go home and puke.
8
Barak was limited by the correct assessment that he could not afford to show anger. That’s a fault more of mainstream prejudice than of Barak’s character.
It would have been nice if he would have either not drawn a line in Syria at all, or better, had gone in heavy on Assad, for example.
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Always a pleasure to see another Ron Suskind piece :)
We are constantly mindful of this, from his 2004 article, heralding the utter rot of GOP'ers:
" The aide (a White House senior advisor) said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do. "
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-and-the-presidency-of-george-w-bush.html
What else is there to say ?
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@R. Law Re: the 2004 Suskind piece on George Bush -- yes, I remember that too and have commented many times on what a brilliant piece of journalism it represented. It's true, it foreshadowed the move away from truth and towards what it calls "acting and creating our own realities" -- as if the capacity to act is the same as creating reality. Until that time, the major parties had paid some attention to a socially conceived notion of "truth," but the war by the Bush Administration against the media to sell a real, aggressive, illegal war against Iraq shows you how far you can actually go in creating realities that don't match reality.
8
Once upon a time in a land far away, I voted for a Republican. It wasn’t a difficult choice (Bill Weld v. John Silber — so quaint). At this point, I can’t imagine voting for a Republican. In my opinion, any Republican vote enables the the current administration. I don’t have anything against Charlie Baker, but if he really wanted to send Trump a message, he should have run as an independent. I will never trust the Republicans again. Even John Silber would be better than Trump. At least there would be some level of attention to education - does anyone know what Betsy DeVos is up to these days? I’m not sure if she even make the top ten list of Trump’s blunders at this point.
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@GWLEX, Not fair. Bill Weld is an anomaly, even when he was a Republican.
1
@GWLEX
Wow! You and are I are definitely related in some way. I have been voting since 1982 and Bill Weld is the only Republican that I, too, have ever voted for. [Used to live not far from you in Carlisle, MA.]
This time around, for the first time in my life, I have gone on three canvassing trips to California's Central Valley. We've been working to flip three Republican-held districts. Whatever happens tomorrow, I am going to work even harder for us Democrats for 2020.
1
Bill Weld wouldn't make it in the Republican Party today. Once the Republicans decided to embrace the Dixiecrats 50 years ago, the die was cast. The reasonable, worldly wise, science affirming type of centrist Republicans were cast aside. Republicans decided that ignorant voters would become their foot soldiers and their sole purpose was to protect the wealthy.
2
polls consistently show that a majority of the country (about 60 percent on average) support the domestic social policy favored by the democrats. typically only about half the electorate votes in any presidential election and that number is lower for midterms. this means that a little over 25 percent of the electorate is deciding who governs the country. with the republicans consistently polling around 40 percent that is more than enough to win elections, and they do. because they have consistently been able to motivate their voters to actually vote. in 2008 that was not the case because McCain to his credit did not run a fear based campaign like the one trump did and is now doing. in 2016 mistakes by HRC and Obama failed to motivate sufficient numbers of democratic voters to actually go and vote. hopefully this time around it will be different
2
My joy at Obama's victory in 2008 was something I had not experienced in some time. So many dreadful years of Republican rule. My 60's antiwar fervor never left me and here we had a former senator who had not been fooled by W's bogus claims of weapons of mass destruction.
I was distressed when he chose Clinton as his Secretary of State. I knew he was an admirer of Lincoln's and fancied having advisors and a Cabinet peopled by former opponents. But surely one doesn't pick a hawkish politician when one has promised peace? But so it went. Libya turned out to be one of his greatest failures.
Surely one does not tap the very culprits who helped bring down the economy to help restore it to health? But so it went, with no one punished.
Surely one does not enthusiastically position a candidate whom one has accused of lacking any kind of magnetism to represent your party against a very dangerous outlier? But so it went. We lost.
I don't want to add to the hateful rhetoric but he broke my heart. So much so that when I saw pictures of him on the billionaire's yachts and read about his taking almost a quarter of a million dollars to make a Wall St speech or joyfully embracing George W. Bush, I wasn't surprised anymore.
He has wisely said that the White House is a bubble that isolates presidents from the people. I did admire that he would end his busy day by reading letters from his countrymen and women.
But it turned out not to be enough.
38
@TM I don't hate Obama (I voted for him twice), but the disenchantment began before he won the 2008 election when he put aside his promise to only use the Federal limit on public election spending in favor of going all in with private donations. That was a clear signal early on that his promises were meaningless. Nancy Pelosi gave us the ACA, which should rightly be nicknamed Pelosicare. Time and again Obama acted like Charlie Brown to the Republicans' Lucy ever pulling away the football. He was a seemingly very bright man who never learned.
9
For me, the key sentence in this analysis is the following: "When partisans won’t allow their elected agents to do that anymore, the system collapses, grievance doesn’t get redressed and people start calling for power to be exercised on their behalf by any means necessary."
Essays and columns that target polarized politicians as the cause of government dysfunction miss the mark. The cause of our discontents always lies with the voters. Walt Kelly, the creator of the Pogo comic strip (for those of you old enough to remember), pointed this out in 1972 when Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Conditions will improve only when a majority of voters exercise their critical thinking skills and come to the realization that they cannot continue to elect people who reflect their darkest irrational fears.
51
For the kinds of moral arcs that Obama talks about, the results are not measured election to election but over decades. While slavery was being debated, litigated, and eventually fought over, it took decades for some kind of punctuated change to occur - there were set backs but the arc in general was positive. It is small comfort for those in the moment but we can say that about pretty much anything involving humanity.
The same with climate change. If the (slope of the) arc doesn't turn out to be positive, then humanity will face extinction. But other than something existential, humanity in general has moved forward in a progressive manner in the long run. Not just in the US but all over the world.
8
Obama sees the potential for good in all of us and tries to bring that out. Trump sees us as we actually are and knows that it's easier to appeal to our dark nature than to try to elevate us.
Ironically capitalism may save the day. The corporations have a vested interest in a stable society that welcomes all citizens (customers) equally. Money talks louder than Trump or a divided Congress.
47
Pres. Obama's position was not unlike that of Jackie Robinson.
What he accomplished given the position he was in is nothing less than truly remarkable.
My only disappointment is that he didn't do more while in office, to help develop the bench.
55
I don't believe it's fair to criticize President Obama for not having been more forceful. Obviously, racism is alive and well in the U.S., and while a white politician like Trump can act like a bully and get away with it, that privilege is not accorded to members of less favored groups like African-American men or women of any race, religion, or ethnicity. If Obama had been less civil, he would have been pilloried for being an "angry black man."
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@lydgate
Wholeheartedly agree! Your important point was utterly missed in this column.
17
@lydgate ~
Wholeheartedly agree with you. I will add that a woman would not be allowed to get away with trump's tawdry behavior either. Racism and misogyny are more widespread than I would have believed before trump put both on full display.
7
@lydgate
It is certainly true that Obama faced opposition that was unprecedented in its racist ugliness.
And yet, if he was unprepared to fight more fiercely, he should not have accepted the presidency. As president, he was not responsible only for himself. The responsibility was enormous, and it required an enormous fighting spirit. Like many of us, I read his books and was so hopeful that his rise will mean the rise of a renewed society, a more compassionate and equitable one. I have been left very disappointed. And the passing time has only strengthened this impression.
So I disagree with you that it was unfair to expect more of Obama. It was unfair that he had more power than most of us for 8 years (though less than he should have had), and he knew the truth but had no courage to fight for it, and for us. Great power, great responsibility. I was very sad for him when I watched the last WH Correspondents dinner: his jokes were excellent, but they had a tinge of sadness and bitter truth about the wasted time and battles lost before they even started in earnest. Yes, Republicans did this to him. But we needed him to rise to this novel and enormous challenge, and he did not. I still love him for the person he is, but he was a very mediocre president.
7
Certainly race was and continues to be a major factor in the backlash against the election of a man of color to the White House;however; the decision to let the banks ‘foreclose’ their way back to health, on people. At times completely innocent people, represents a departure from Roosevelt or LBJ.
Combine the abovewith the loss of manufacturing jobs and racism and one has the mother of all backlashes.
On the other hand, we had a health care system, even thought imperfect.
2
Health care is what Mr. Obama ran on, back in 2008, and he got the ACA passed. Yes, in hindsight he should have nailed down some of the bits and pieces more carefully, and not bothered to bring in so many Republican ideas, but still this was quite an accomplishment and likely will play a big positive role for Democrats in tomorrow's election. The rise of the Tea Party in 2010 was fueled by racism, plain and simple, and not anger at technical bits of policy concerning the economic recovery. The true tragedy is that his 2008 supporters didn't bother turning up in the polls in 2010, which launched our country into a deepening darkness. May they make amends tomorrow and every year thereafter!
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@Nick
Minor correction: President Obama campaigned more on the environment and less on healthcare, and the ACA is more reflective of Hillary Clinton's proposals. Add to the list of "what ifs" whether prioritizing environmental reforms instead of healthcare would have had a better result. I doubt it.
The Republican Party has fully become the Party-Over-Country Party, and efforts to save the planet would have been demonized too. As much as anything the last 10 years have been about the total abandonment of honor and morality within that party. As a Democrat, I miss the party of Reagan.
11
@Nick
Well said; thank you. Racism plain and simple.
7
@Eric
Reagan gave the best performance of his acting career playing president, it was Baker who pulled the strings.
9
Even if the predictions I keep reading turn out to be right and the Democrats regain control of the House, but not the Senate, will that really tell us that we're going to avoid a "coming darkness"?
Sometimes I think Trump is mainly a distraction. He's there to entertain the masses while "movement conservatives" continue on with their master plan for turning the country back to 1859. Yes, you read that correctly. Not 1959, but 1859.
And its become so UN-popular to defend government that even Democratic control of the House won't stop the piecemeal dismantling of government programs and regulatory agencies, not to mention the confirmation of more justices like Gorsuch and Cavanaugh who could cripple the ability of the federal government by striking down precedents that go back over 70 years.
In the big picture, it may turn out that Trump was nothing more than a diversion. Watch and see in a new Congress what will happen to ANYTHING a Democratic House tries to get past the senate, let alone the President.
78
@Bryan The power of a Democratic House is not to legislate (nothing will pass with a Republican Senate, and Republicans appear to be fine with that) but to investigate. That's not necessarily a good thing as I think the American people are tired of endless investigations, but at least it provides some sort of check on Trump. With any luck, it will lead to Trump's early ouster – though after that, who knows what will happen?
9
@John B
You're right. We'll have to see. I guess they COULD really run with whatever Mueller releases, if its damning enough, and that MIGHT force the senate to act also.
5
This is a good assessment. President Obama succeeded in many ways, but failed in a most important one: he didn't deliver on the hope that millions of working and middle class people had in his turning back the decades of assault on their share of prosperity.
Maybe it was too much to ask. After all, he had overcome immense odds to become the first black President, and he arrived on the heals of the biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression and didn't have much time to do something. Still, his deep seated urge to find compromise and avoid destructive conflict ,as Mr. Suskind points out, prevented him from being the "warrior for the little guy" that so many needed him to be. And when he instead helped the very people who caused the Crash, these people felt scorned and taken advantage of.
Obama stood on the cusp of having an historic Presidency the equal of FDR's, but he settled for less. And it's ironic that the closer one gets to the pinnacle, the more disappointing it is to not reach it. He will be remembered for a lot of important things, and was successful by almost any measure, but he was an Achiever, not the Conqueror America needed to vanquish the forces of dark money, wealth, and power. And out of that corruption came Trump.
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@Kingfish52 ~
Your concise, clear assessment hits the mark. Maybe the best short summary of Obama's Presidency I've ever read. Thank you.
20
@Kingfish52 It is also important to remember that even while Obama may have been President, the Republicans controlled Congress. It was extremely difficult for Obama to get any legislation passed. The ultimate expression of that was their decision not to even consider a Supreme Court nomination until such time as they once again had a Republican President.
39
@Michael O'Farrell Yes, but he DID have an all-Democratic Congress for the first 2 years, and he used it to pass the ACA, which in itself was also a "pre-emptive" compromise that he hoped the Republicans would support, rather than going all in for Single Payer.
On balance, he achieved a lot, but not as much as he might have, and not enough for many.
23