Finally, someone at the Times is willing to look with clear eyes at the Obama presidency. Thank you, Farhad Majoo, for eschewing the conventional wisdom -- uninformed by history or and honest analysis of Obama's presidency -- that Obama was a "liberal" and/or a "progressive."
My only quibble is the seemingly laudatory reference to the Rahm Emmanuel, who as the Obama's first chief of staff and key liaison to Congress, was -- other than the president -- the person most responsible for Obama's weak-kneed first-term agenda.
7
Give my president a break.
he was a good man.
He had bad advisers. He followed protocol, worrying that a deviation would bring the 'angry black man' stigma to the office. he was advised by an inner circle of progressive white people.
and now you throw him under the bus?
98
It is futile to argue Obama's success or failure in economic terms. The statement that Obama, like Clinton before him, was the product of a Democratic Party that had forgotten its history and legacy is blind to the differences between them.
What does this mean? The Democratic Party of Jim Crow and the Solid South, or the party of civil rights champions Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr.? Clinton was a white product of Arkansas and the south, Obama the African-American product of Hawaii, Kansas, and Illinois. Obama, with his dark skin, learned his lessons well at Columbia and Harvard Law. In order to assimilate enough to win two national campaigns, he couldn't rock the Wall Street boat which the banks, under Republican neglect and mismanagement, threatened to sink the whole country. The 2008-10 rescue wasn't just a case of numbers of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, it was the monumental task of convincing white politicians as well as allies around the world that a black man could legitimately and effectively be President of the U.S. He succeeded.
17
Thanks for doing this column. The “mea culpa” is especially appreciated....
6
Thanks, about time. One thing though: I would not presume that Clinton would not have taken us much more where you want to go. She is a far stauncher liberal than she gets credit for, had the most liberal party platform in history, and would certainly have saved and expanded Obama's best policies. If everyone who loved Obama had gotten off the couch and voted, Trump would be a forgotten political joke looking for a TV show.
20
Obama was a realist. The Republicans practiced scorched earth politics then, as now, and would have never gone for anything grander than what we got, which did indeed stave off GD2. Back to Warren.....although I happen to like her, she has NO CHANCE of winning the White House. Biden is our only shot at dislodging Trump. Baby steps.
4
"Only now, in the age of Sanders and Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are we beginning to relearn the lessons of the past."
This is the golden age we'll live in, where Ocasio-Cortez never makes mistakes, and insists she can use her own alternate facts.
This is written as if the author already knows that decades from now Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, unlike President Obama, will be held up as an infallible paragon of virtue and achievement, as she's already accomplished so much...on Twitter.
If we're speaking about Ocasio-Cortez, we must speak of her patron, Corbin Trent, the Koch Brothers of the new-left, and his movement, the Justice Democrats.
Contempt for Democratic achievements, as directed at Obama during the Democratic debates, is on display here again.
As Thomas B. Edsall detailed in the Times, Obama has little in common with the Justice Democrats, by far the smallest, whitest and most affluent part of the Democratic Party which forcefully sets an agenda most Democrats, especially blacks and Latinos, don't agree with, while cynically marketing themselves as formed by and representing blacks and Latinos.
Justice Democrat rules are simple: Affluent whites run everything; non-whites are selected as their mouthpieces.
Corbin Trent formed the Justice Democrats using outrage culture and Cultural Revolution style warfare which Obama eschewed. It's a gift to Trump who wants to run on identity, not healthcare, highly regressive taxation, or economic inequality.
10
Farhad, your mistake is thinking that most people want an "aggressive, interventionist restructuring of the American economy". Socialists on Twitter and burn-the-house Trumpists may want this. But most American families want a modest improvement to their situation, and vote accordingly.
13
Meh, it's always easy to play Monday morning QB. Obama had to think about what might happen when (inevitably) he would lose the 2010 midterms. The stimulus, as it took place, was difficult enough in the face of incessant vitriol from the Republicans, who used Obama's fiscal "irresponsibility" to hammer their way to control of Congress that they would never relinquish the rest of the time Obama was president. (Now, those same Republicans are silent in the face of even bigger deficits from Trump). Back then, we all still believed in bipartisanship (just look at Biden, who believes that now).
Had Obama been white, it would have been different. The racism he had to deal with, yet couldn't use as an excuse to get his base worked up over (again, in contrast to our current president), prevented him from doing those broad, sweeping measures that the article proposes. Even so, he did plenty. He doesn't get enough credit for the current bull market. Trump's claims over the bull market stop short of the word "market."
The best Obama could hope for was to create a legacy that his Democratic successor could build on. Again, he did plenty (which he doesn't get credit for because we have such short memories). We can't lament that he didn't do more (just look at Merrick Garland), nor can we apply today's standards to 2009, a decade(!) ago.
15
Obama made at least two major mistakes. Even before he was elected, he should have referred to the Recession as the "Bush Recession". Every time he or any other Democrat mentioned it, it should have been the Bush Recession.
Besides being correct, look how it works for trump with his "Fake News" and "Crooked Hillary".
Second, Obama's DOJ should have prosecuted every single banker. How can you go wrong jailing a Wall Street banker? Everyone except the 1% would be thrilled. Bihara said the cases would be too difficult? How does he know? Even if you didn't get convictions, the banking filth you would expose could have changed this country.
I love Obama as a person, but he was, and is, a terrible politician.
10
Every President makes choices. Mr Obama made a choice to "address" health care in a major way. He did and put the health care system on a better path. It still needs to be "fixed" but the changed direction is good for Americans.
Recommending 1.2 trillion infrastructure projects is goofy. The administration couldn't even fund 800 billion shovel ready projects. The lesson learned, there are very few shovel ready projects. Limiting projects to "American Made Products" and shovel ready is idiotic. No one even understood the timeline process of major infrastructure projects. It wasn't a mistake, it was foolish agendas by those lobbying the government.
Just remember Lyndon Johnson got significant legislation through on the domestic policy front but his "other" decisions caused some serious death tolls in Vietnam. Go read the Pentagon Papers about decisions.
2
Gee Whiz, this kind of criticism is debatable at best but its kind of nit-picking at moment when we have the most corrupt president on record. I would take Obama back as president in a second especially if we could loose Mitch McConnell.
22
Don't worry
Trump is rightfully erasing the entire mistake that was Obama
All of his "greatest" achievements being undone in prompt fashion
Thank you Trump!
7
Obama was a failure because he want to please everybody including the Republican when you get the hammer you swing for the fences playing small is not the solution
9
I campaigned for Obama in the 2008 primary when he ran against Clinton and in the general when he ran against McCain. But I am now quite comforted that we are visiting his biggest mistake along with others. Obama benefited from the blunders of Bush and the stupidity of the Republicans in trying to repeal and replace Obamacare. If there is 1 thing that Obama has to be thankful to Trump for is fixing Obamacare. It is the restoration of the freedoms of those penalized not to have Obamacare or any other available so called affordable insurance.
I think Obama's biggest mistake was in allowing his SoS Hillary Clinton and the war mongers in senate like John McCain take over the foreign policy which resulted in additional regime change wars in Yemen, Libya and Syria during his years in office. Additionally, Obama missed opportunities to bring peace with the Taliban when at the height of US military presence in Afghanistan. When Obama left office contribution of his presidency to national debt was the highest of any president. Agreed he threw tax payers dollars to overcome recession but a lot of the money thrown at problems was a colossal waste. During Obama's term there was an epic migration of migrants to Europe and the rest if the world. The cradle of civilization during the Obama years was a disaster of epic proportion and the barbaric acts of terror by organizations operating from terrorist safe havens was just astounding.
In summary, President Obama's legacy is a mixed bag
9
Gosh, hindsight is so wonderful and accurate. Y'know we also cuda shoulda woulda....or we woulda coulda shoulda, but instead we shouda coulda woudadadad....that' my 2 cent's
6
Mr. Manjoo is right. At the beginning of his presidency, Obama could have done anything he wanted. Instead of making the progressive reforms that were necessary, he played conservative. FDR and LBJ must have been turning in their graves. No surprisingly, a significant amount of the working classes abandoned the Democrats in 2016.
He also failed to prosecute those responsible for war crimes in Iraq and those that engineered the financial crisis of 2008.
Some wit here in Texas said that in the middle of the road there are only dead armadillos. Too bad Obama didn't realize this.
10
Mr. Manjoo fails to acknowledge that the Republicans filibustered everything and that Speaker of the house John Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell agreed to stop Mr. Obama cold. Failure to admit brutal obstruction and threats to stop everything including executive orders and finally stopped all appointments and legislation. The President was treated with abuse no Democrat had ever received before. President Obama was reticent, but with good reason. As the first black president had he become aggressive like Bernie Sanders the response would have been total destruction.
10
Whatever. Obama may have his failings, but he tried. The real problem is that a significant number of Americans are incapable of rational thought. Period.
10
Oh please, Obama went as far as the greedy neocon capitalists would let him, the striving whining Wall Street and young technorich who thought money would give them culture and access to the creative freedom they jealously coveted and snidely destroyed. Or at least allow them to abuse women and max out their credit cards with impunity. Their goal was to take and pattern themselves on the rather poor but socially conscious Boomers who had improved urban areas with sweat labor, and whose lives and styles they desired for themselves alone, by outspending them, and creating anodyne nothing burgers of rampant consumerism in their place. Now that these greedy young technocrats have destroyed markets and overpriced everything, they realize that the America they want was built on the labor of people of color and Boomers of conscience and that their gated mentality isn’t sustainable. Blame Reagan.
5
Oh how rich of all of these posters to criticize President Obama. Can you imagine where the country would be if Trump had started his presidency with a Great Depression? Instead, Trump gave himself, his family, his swamp and his fellow cronies a huge tax break; leaving the taxpayers with trillions of dollars in shortfall of taxes to pay for programs AND a great big ballooning debt for our future generations to deal with. Hypocrites--all of you.
13
Lots of woulda shoulda coulda conjectures with no proof that anything suggested by Mr. Manjoo would have come to pass if done so.
Let’s not forget, only in a Trumpian America does it seems normal for one party to absolutely run roughshod over it’s rival without a second thought on a daily basis.
Back then, there was at least a bit of restraint, slight as may have been, until of course we heard the battle cry of Mr. McConnell. Dems should have taken that seriously.
6
What country is Farhad Manjoo living in?
In the one in which I live, known colloquially as America, Democrats went right and incremental not by choice but by the brutal political reality fostered by the Nixon (1972) and especially the Reagan landslides.
That is, the voting public, led by Republicans, has in the past half century sharply limited progressive activism. To claim otherwise, that the outcomes Manjoo deplores are simply a failure of will or judgment, is to misread modern American political history.
“In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.” -- Abraham Lincoln
6
That's a great post-hoc argument there. If they're looking for a quarterback next Monday morning, you have my vote. Give me a break. D.A., J.D., NYC (volunteer for Hillary 2016)
3
Obama inherited a disaster and was smart enough to avoid a full-blown depression. In a frictionless world more could have been done. The real world is populated by Mitch McConnell types .... which dictate a totally alternate reality.
“'... because the senator from Kentucky, who just spoke, announced at the beginning, four years ago, exactly what his strategy would be. He said, his number-one goal was to make sure that Barack Obama was a one-term president.”
Relitigating 'what could have been' is trickery. Obama was the perfect man for the job!
4
This is the first article that is critical for all of the right reasons of Obama. Those were such a wasted 8 years.
13
Thank you for this excellent article.
Obama said he would change the trajectory of the nation but he failed to do so.
In the end he became, like Clinton, just a Democratic President in the Age of Reagan.
With the financial crisis of 2007, Obama had the opportunity to end The Age of Reagan and to return us to the Age if FDR.
We still live in the Age if Reagan and we have an unstable economy with great income inequality.
Let’s hope that when Reaganomics brings the next financial crisis there is not a total collapse of our economic and political system and that a Democratic President can end the Age of Reagan.
Economic strife produced Hitler, Mussolini and Trump.
We must stabilize our economy or we will lose our Constitutional Democracy.
5
Let's not waste the next crisis which might be right around the corner.
4
I was a lifelong Democrat. Obama and Max Baucus made an independent out of me. Obama was a Wall Street Democrat, like the Clintons. I want to vote for someone who Wall Street hates.
11
"IF, there was to be any ''false'' move (of really any kind) then one could easily argue that race relations would have been set back decades. "
And yet, despite Obama's caution, here we are in 2019 with race relations having rapidly been set back decades...
3
Hindsight is easy....
1
Democrats are making the same mistake today that led to their 63 seat blow out in 2010: trying to overhaul the US health care system when there are many more pressing problems, like the planet on fire.
Liberals and progressives try to justify going early on with the ACA because so many people were losing their health care due to massive job losses and the ACA offered a way to get HC insurance.
Liberals and progressives forget the ACA did go into effect until 2012, doing nothing to help people in 2009 and giving Republicans several years to bash the Democrats "government take over of health care.
Progressives got TRump elected in 2016
https://www.gq.com/story/democratic-leadership-base
and they will do so again in 2020.
But, hey, you'll always have that selfie with Liz to keep you warm at night.
Why do you think liberals back in the day voted for “third way”Clinton? Do you believe we were all corporate tools, eager to sell out our ideals? No indeed. After the crushing defeats of liberal standard bearers like George McGovern and Mike Dukakis, after 12 long years of trickle-down, greed is good, “welfare queens”, dog whistles galore, and El Salvador and Iran contra, we were desperate, and Clinton’s candidacy offered the possibility of some semblance of liberal, though triangulated, governance. I would have crawled over broken glass to vote for the man. When the alternative is ghastly, you make the compromises you need to make to avoid the annihilation of all you hold dear. We are at that desperate impasse once again.
2
Hard to see the point of an article about how Obama wasn't a good enough president, given that we now have one that isn't qualified to shine Obama's shoes, much less hold the office. What's next, Farhad - a piece about Lincoln's disastrous, dead-end presidency?
Please keep your eyes on the road. We're in trouble, here.
4
I blame the American people for not creating a political climate that would allow that kind of restructuring.
Since Reagan, all presidents believed we could have great inequality and all of us thrive. It's almost as if they were saying free lunch.
Moreover, a black president who didn't hew to the middle would have come in for even worse I expect although I concede that's a tough one since you had, as now, Fox news serving as a racist, propaganda machine of the Right.
1
I thought you were leading up to the Wall Street crook bailout — the deflating early tone setter of Obama's presidency. But I guess you were just talking about Cash–for–Clunkers. Rewarding the corruption that led to the crash still can't seen as a "mistake."
1
Wrong.
Obama's biggest mistake was assuming H Clinton was going to win the election.
The Commander in Chief held off on announcing and condemning Russian interference in the election in the name of political expediency.
Barack Obama lacked the kind of PT-109 courage that a Kennedy had at critical moments to defend the nation.
3
Hindsight is easy to dispense.
Could've done this, could've done that... Aren't you even slightly embarrassed by your litany of facile criticism? It would take a book to respond to every point, but whoever is old enough to remember the fight for ACA (does Senator Liberman ring a bell?) cannot but get annoyed by the facile "He should have implemented a Public Option!" slogan.
Generally, it verges on intellectual dishonesty to explain away Barack Obama by saying that he "was the product of a Democratic Party that had forgotten its history and legacy." Clearly Obama didn't forget any of it, racism included. It is rather the writer that seems to forget this aspect of what Obama had to face from day one, as he forgets the Iraq war, neglects to mention the Paris accord, etc., etc.
This is 2019 and the challenges are scary. FDR's "hundred days" was a glorious moment, Barack Obama's presidency was one, too. We can only hope for a third one, possibly named Warren. But we, progressives, will not be up to the task if we start spitting in the soup, as the French saying goes.
2
This is an irritating essay for so many reasons. Among them -
1. Obama was a moderate from the get-go. Not news, Farhad.
2. Yes, he should have addressed the economy BEFORE he addressed health care. Again, old news. But give him a break, he did pretty well on both.
3. Yeah, this is just what we need: after 8 years of Republican obstructionism and 3 years of Trump trying to undo anything Obama did, Democrats are joining and piling on Obama. Hey Farhad, you should go after Hillary Clinton, too! That worked for the Republicans!
4. How about you run for president? Then we'll get to see how well you'll do everything. I know it will be easy for you.
I'll end with a plea to my country people out there: when you're in a conservative state, which we are now, moderate Democrats are a very good alternative. Don't brush them off.
2
Politically, Obama was a clone of Bill Clinton. Both were outsiders (despite Ivy League credentials), eager to be accepted at all costs by the media/Silicon Valley/Wall St establishment. Both were "centrists," as the now meaningless term had it. Both were entirely incapable of saying to their intractable Republican opponents what FDR said to his: "I welcome their hatred." Their failure to take a side, clearly and unequivocally, has cost this country dearly - and led directly to the ascension of scoundrels like Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump.
7
From reading this and similar pieces written from bubbles where AOC can win an election, one might think President Obama has become like Boxer the Horse from "Animal Farm".
Boxer was loved by the other animals and praised by the ruling pigs for hard work and dedication. When a very difficult task came up (in Obama's case, trying to get Hillary and her baggage elected) age had caught up to Boxer and he failed. Soon after, an opportunity came up for the pigs to profit at Boxer's expense, and he was sent off to the glue factory. In Obama's case, he has been cast as a wimp or a sell-out because Biden is not radical enough and will keep the unelectable progressives from getting the nomination.
Months of attacking Biden's age and bipartisanship have not changed the polls, so Obama is apparently the next target. This is getting about as predictable as I imagine Fox News is.
"But Obama’s closest advisers declined to push Congress for anything more than $800 billion,..."
Are you aware, Mr Manjoo, that Rahm Emmanuel, then Obama's Chief of Staff, was certain that nothing more than $800 billion would pass, filibuster-proof majority or not.
It's exceptionally foolish to think that all the Democrats would vote in lock-step; each had his own calculus to consider. Is it too much to expect you to be aware of such things?
By any rational yardstick Obama's tenure was a major success. The fact that you can't see it and pontificate about things you don't understand speaks volumes about you.
Obama has a choice. He chose the bankers. He didn’t choose the victims of their greed. He chose the pharmaceuticals. He didn’t choose victims of the opioid crisis. He chose to protect CIA torturers. He didn’t choose to protect those who revealed war crimes. He chose the NSA. He didn’t choose those of us they spied on illegally. He chose drone attacks. He didn’t choose the many innocent civilian victims. He chose rich donors. He didn’t choose public funding. He chose insurer-backed pseudo reform of healthcare. He didn’t choose the many bankrupted by costs or forced to choose pathetic bronze plans with poor coverage. He chose lenders. He didn’t choose those struggling with student loan debt that will take a lifetime to discharge. He chose monopolies. He didn’t choose to enforce antitrust laws.
Obama is now buying $15 million mansions. That’s his reward for his choices. From the oligarch class he worked for. The many millions who voted for him get continued economic servitude, debt, and to choose between food and medication.
10
I don't know how much restructuring Obama would have gotten past the faux Democrats, but I would have appreciated him using the bully pulpit to and popularity to try. Definitely agree with Mr. Manjoo about that.
What I will never forgive Obama for is bailing out Wall Street on the backs of the middle class. That's one of the things that gave us Trump.
CEO heads should have rolled.
6
Barack was a neoliberal centrist Democrat who like Hillary and Biden doesn't understand that the Democratic Party is at its best when it's the party of FDR and Henry Wallace.
He made many bad choices but the worst one was giving a free pass to W, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Powell and the many others who lied us into war.
He also should have gone after Cheney for Cheney's role in outing Valerie Plame as a covert CIA agent.
His refusal to hold these people accountable set us up for Pelosi's refusal to hold Trump accountable.
5
Only now are we beginning to relearn the lessons of the past?
Utter self forgiving piffle.
1
It's so easy to be an armchair quarterback. He was being called a tyrant even for modest measures.
1
Backing Hilary as successor and failing to cultivate the DNC will be what are remembered as his biggest gaffs. History will tell.
2
Manjoo provides us with refreshingly honest and centered commentary on the Obama legacy. I deeply appreciate the author’s ability to provide measured and appropriate critique of Obama without dragging his name through the mud or impugning his character. We need much, much more of this.
2
I wonder if Obama was conditioned to avoid the "angry, hostile black man" image that I feel is in our culture.
He and his entire family were so perfect, it was unreal.
If he had exhibited the hostility, rudeness, disregard of women that Trump indulges in daily, he would not have survived in office one hour.
It's a shame because there's a case for toughness and diplomatic pugilism in our Presidents. Did Obama have that purged from him in early life.
But then there's Biden and Pelosi also very polite and not wanting to offend the opposing party. So, maybe it's just a trait of Democrats. That's too bad,
3
It is disingenuous to play backseat driver to President Obama, and further pretend if you'd been driving everything would been fundamentally better in every way imaginable (and many not imaginable).
In reality, things would have been worse. What Farhad Manjoo refuses to acknowledge is that he and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would not have been able to convince Democrats in moderate and conservative states, supposedly part of that filibuster-proof 60-vote majority Senate, to go along with any of their Justice Democrat left-wing radical ideas, because those Senators constituents would never go along with any of the ideas.
If that isn't enough, Ocasio-Cortez won a mere 17,000 votes in a Democratic district (right near my district), which has a 50-plus point Democratic lean.
You can't magically replace moderate Democrats with left-wing Justice Democrat’s intent on insurrection and revolution. Those constituents may choose a moderate Democrat, but if given the choice between a leftist and a Republican, they'll always choose the Republican.
Pretending that this isn't the reality Obama faced and understood, and the reality which Democrats nationally still face, means your ideas are on par with your insistence that everyone must abandon pronouns like "him" and "her" and call every man or woman "They".
It may be the way you think the world should work, but Obama understood it didn't work that way. It is Obama understanding the reality of America which you're attacking him for.
1
Dems have forgotten how to be ruthless in implementing their programs when they have the chance. Repubs are utterly ruthless, but they are also utterly unethical and corrupt and their programs hurt 99% of normal Americans so we really don't want them having ANY power. Alas, due to the timidity of Dem politicians, the American People, the majority of which vote Democrat, are now under the thumbs of an ultra right wing Senate, an ultra right wing "president" and an ultra-right wing Supreme Court. Once Dems take back power it will take a generation to repair the damage to our country caused by this cabal of corrupt ultra right wing fanatics.
1
“Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, was the product of a Democratic Party that had forgotten its history and legacy.”
…and…
“The long history of Democratic populism is unknown to most liberals today.”
Dead center bullseye on both observations…
At the risk of sounding patronizing, I think this is the best column you’ve written to date, Farhad.
It clearly, cogently outlines the Very Big Idea of how the evolution of the Democratic Party has strayed very, very far from the “fundamental politics involved fighting against concentrations of economic power in favor of the rights and liberties of ordinary people.”
And kudos to you for admitting your error in judgment in “fetishizing” the popular thinking of the time.
Sometimes I wonder how different things could be if more people/“leaders”/the so-called “elite” realized the power of simply saying, “Oops - well, I see now how I was wrong about that back then…”.
4
An unnecessary critique of Barack Obama. We have FAR greater urgencies than rehashing a president only 3 years out of office. Let's spend our time and dollars working on electing another democrat who can and will get things accomplished. This critique is short sighted and rehashes the 'Obama as a centrist' dogma, he did the best he could as the first black American persident. Let's concentrate on Trump and then in 30 years let's look back.
You overlook Republican obstructionism, led by Sen. Mitch “Single-Term” McConnell. That President Obama got even $800 Billion approved was a master stroke of political achievement. Arguing that he could/should have gone for more years later seems foolish to me.
2
Thanks for more Republican criticisms of Democrats
Keep these coming
For someone obviously so insightful as to American politics, the belief you were going to ram through a lot of far left legislature and make it stick is pretty silly.
When you see the blowback against the Kenyan born Muslim president with the compromise laden ACA, I can only imagine the unrest from the right a modern New Deal might have created.
The Left talking to the further Left here still sounds like a weird echo of Fox lead discussions about ObummerCare, regardless of the better intentions. "Centrist" is an evil word and Mr. Obama should have put all the neo-cons in prison? Echo chambers are always very comfortable places, but winning all the debates in them may not mean what you think it means.
I guess, in American politics, nice guys finish last. We are in deep yogurt.
Obama did not “succeed in passing” the ACA. He signed the legislation that Congress passed. In the NYT today a young person is quoted opposing a presidential candidate because “she will raise taxes.” This ignorant statement is a direct result of the media attributing the passage of legislation to presidents.
"It is tricky to criticize Obama from the left in the Trump era."
No, it's not. Obama came into office with a mandate, promising to end the two Bush wars, give us universal health care, and ramp down executive privilege, which Cheney and Rumsfeld had created under Nixon and expanded under Bush. Instead of doing what he promised AND for which he was elected, Obama stabbed us in the back. He did not end Bush's wars and even increased US military action overseas, creating new covert wars in eight countries. He gave us a watered-down version of universal health care which made sure the private health insurance industry and Big Pharma would make even more money. He expanded executive privilege beyond Bush's dreams, which Donald Trump is now using to make a mess of things. In addition, Barack Hussein Obama is now known in history as the "Drone President" because of his immoral and illegal use of predator drones to kill innocent people. He even killed the son of one of his targets!
I was an Obama supported from the first inkling of his destiny in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention through to April 2009. Then I realized he had stabbed us in the back and was a shill for Wall Street. Obama is responsible for Trump's power. Yes, I blame Obama.
5
"they could have done so much more"
A brief five-month 60 vote majority early in his tenure is hardly enough to support this assertion. Mr. Manjoo should read Jane Mayer's "Dark Money" to understand the insidious roadblocks Obama faced from day one.
It was perceived government overreach and a healthy dose of outright racism that lost Obama the midterms. The idea that more government was the answer or was even possible is naive at best.
1
I never read this columnist because he seems sort of conservative. But I saw the headline and read this one. I am very interested in the book reviewed here, as I completely agree with this take on Obama's and the Democrat Party's horrible neoliberalism since the 70s/80s. At the time of the bank/mortgage crises, we (that is, left-leaning folks) were screaming at Obama: "Jobs programs! Infrastructure! Do FDR! Do WPA!" But he did nothing. Just little dribs and drabs that were meaningless and not likely to disturb the capitalist ruling class.
I voted for Obama twice but I look back on his presidency with anger and disapproval: what a waste! his domestic policies were trifling, neoliberal and unfair (including, until his last year in office, his criminal justice efforts); his foreign policy sanctioned drone attacks which consisted of *murdering* people.
I always felt Obama just wanted to be a symbol - the first black US president - and he resented the fact that he had to deal with political crises, instead of being the human representation of US tolerance and diversity.
6
Mr. Manjoo, you need to do your homework sir. Are you forgetting the single influential element that was erected during the 2008 General Election and effectively retired due to a lack of motivation after this nation's first black president termed out of office - the Tea Party? The Tea Party influenced Republicans denied Obama a true stimulus, despite the benefits it would've had to an economy seeking to emerge from a recession. The Tea Party didn't care about the fact that we were in a recession, they just wanted to deny Obama what was needed to aptly heal the economy for fear if he did he just might get re-elected. So please don't attempt to saddle Obama as under-achieving when he managed to get this country back on track despite an absolute foot dragging uncooperative Republican Party making him fight for every dollar he eventually got to completely turn the economy around after 8 years of careless tax giveaways to the top 1% by the pre-Trump Trump W. Obama's biggest mistake was likely thinking the Republicans actually cared enough about country to pitch-in as opposed to dig their collective heads deeper in the sands of ignorance.
1
Farhad, after the first midterms Obama had no power to pass any legislation, having lost control of the House and the Senate. He spent all of his political capital on Obamacare and we should all be grateful. It was the right move. He presided over the greatest economic recovery in 80 years. It's too easy to sit here now and say he could have done this or he could have done that. He had respect for America, something we know now is gone forever. So please, man who has never accomplished anything but to sit on the sidelines and point fingers, shut it.
Warren, according to this newspaper, has quietly assured the Democratic inside old guard she is not a "revolutionary but a revivalist". Reviving what? The revolutionary stuff of FDR, or the middle right fluff of Obama/Clinton/Biden?
Warren lacks sincerity and is revealing insufficient nerve to govern aggressively, if elected. Increasingly for me, she is too much in the mold of Obama.
4
In 2008 we thought we elected a community organizer who would blaze new trails.
What we got was lawyer, a centrist Democrat who saw worth in a peacefully negotiated settlements in domestic politics.
4
Obama inherited an economy in a meltdown. Obama revived and put the economy back on a growth trajectory. And all this in spite of the Republicans determination to undermine his policies hoping to make him a one-term President. They failed...I suppose the columnist had to write something for his weekly submission. But this opinion piece was a "big mistake", unconvincing and unnecessary.
Finally, someone at the Times is willing to take a clear-eyed look at the Obama presidency. Thank you, Farhad Manjoo, for eschewing the conventional wisdom -- uninformed by history or honest analysis -- that Obama was a "liberal" and/or a "progressive."
My only quibble is the seemingly laudatory reference to Rahm Emanuel, who as Obama's first chief of staff and key liaison to Congress, was -- other than the president -- the person most responsible for Obama's weak-kneed first term agenda.
Obama's presidency illustrated how far right the Democrats have drifted and demonstrates the success of the neoliberal strategy to capitalize on the social open-mindedness of elites while playing to their pocketbooks.
As Mr. Manjoo notes, those who fail to learn history are destined to repeat it. Trump's victory didn't come out of thin air. It was the result of the hypocrisy of those -- like Obama -- who claimed to represent poor and working people but then advanced policies that favored the rich and corporations.
If Democrats continue to romanticize the failed Obama presidency, then they shouldn't expect anything to change come 2020.
12
Excellent. I well remember Christina Romer's genius promotion for greater economic stimulation and that it was rejected.
Perhaps Obama was too young to remember the great benefits
which Roosevelt's thinking had brought to America.
6
I loved Obama for his values, his integrity, and his intelligence. He inspired me and made me proud to be an American.
As for all the naysayers and apologists - some (many?) of whom make valid points here - I think they are missing the fact that the way our current political system is structured, the idea of a superhero president is fallacious. Rather than hanging all the missed opportunities on the POTUS, I think it’s time for we as a society, as Americans, to consider what more we could have done or could be doing now, to set things right.
A leader can’t lead people who want to go in a different direction. We have become too complacent. Maybe we need to remember JFK’s words: “Ask what you can do for your country, not what your country can do for you.”
2
B.O. failed on almost every front through his lack of understanding how the economy and commerce works. Listening to Krugman on stimulus strategies verses allowing the economy to hit bottom and reset, leading to QE 1, 2, 3 is the major reason behind our wealth inequity today. Trying to save the housing market was beyond ignorant, as history proved. Obama's attack on industry through regulatory policy greatly reduced economic freedoms that produce the good wages for the USA. Attacking people's freedoms to get ahead has promoted wage inequality. Embracing technology monopolies because of their politics is a huge driver behind wealth inequality. Obama failed for the people. When we get a liberal who is pro commerce, pro competitive business growth, pro industry and understands the difference between free trade verses mercantilism, the Republican party will be in big trouble. Until then.......
3
Wow, how hindsight is truly 20/20. I doubt any new president in history had to face an entrenched opposition that proclaimed from day one that their main objective was not to find some sliver of common ground to help move the entire nation forward, but to make them a one term president.
I am a progressive Democrat, liberal to my bones. But I also am not naive enough to think that America is a left of center country. Get out of your big coastal city and travel across America and you will see what I mean. Obama was a pragmatist who got done what he knew he could get through the Congress. He was not afraid to wield power. Remember, he was heavily criticized for using executive action to bypass the legislative branch.
Our only focus right now is to defeat Donald Trump and end our nation's nightmare slide into tyranny and authoritarianism. If we choose a far left candidate, we could end up with a disastrous four more years of Trump that puts our country in a deep hole that will take a generation or more to dig out of.
Obama was not perfect. But, your criticism is the stuff of fairy tales.
3
The biggest mistake President Obama made was to dismiss the war crimes of the previous administration. The second biggest mistake was not holding Wall Street to account for their criminality. In both cases, President Obama swept accountability under the rug. The normalization of consequence-free malfeasance has given rise to Donald Trump and his criminal misuse of the office of the presidency to enrich himself.
5
Obama’s biggest mistake was trying to impose his will using Executive Orders rather than having Congress happily and quickly pass laws to accomplish and protect those actions.
2
It's high time people started saying loud and clear that Obama had a moderate Republican ideology and had nothing but contempt for the Democratic base and basically did nothing with his opportunities except try in vain to get Republicans to like him. That he was well spoken, polite, and well dressed and a good family man is nice and makes a stark contrast with the lout in there now, but it sure doesn't make him a good president.
5
Wow. We seem to forget what President Obama walked into: two wars, economy teetering, obstructionist Senate, cabinet members lying under oath, to name a few. He maintained a level of dignity throughout after cleaning up after the Republican Frat Party. My only regret was that he let the People who exercised the profoundly poor judgment to take us to war we’re never called out. Hence, the Republicans are now the Party of Impunity.
Can anyone name two power Democrats who complained Obama was a Republican pacifier? He sent Howard Dean back to Vermont as quickly as possible. The Democratic sheep pen on capitol hill enjoyed the old rituals with Obama's indulgence.
Obama and company convinced me the Democrats are no more than a Republican mop head. Not one robo-banker saw a prosecutor. Thousands of bankrupted home owners lost everything.
Manjoo's summary omits the willing compliance by power Democrats. The summary also omits that almost all the poorest and most backward states in the nation are solidly in the GOP column. There's the promise and success of Obama and the Democrat's.
5
Thank you so much for writing this column!
The adulation of Obama has bothered me for years--he not only squandered an opportunity to do permanent good, he finished the job started by Bill Clinton by pushing the Democratic Party to the right, discrediting progressive ideas, and detaching what had once been a blue-collar, working class party from its base--Hollywood instead of Youngstown. All of my working class friends have become Republicans since "their party" left them behind for the billionaire class.
Obama's "professorial" style was patronizing, and his moralizing, in the face of "kill lists' and drone strikes made me ill.
He showed Hillary the way, and the result was Trump.
9
Article written by a man who clearly doesn't remember what it was like in American when Obama was handed the steering wheel of the National Bus. It had gone off a cliff; people were screaming in terror; loud disagreement raged on all sides about how to avert mortal disaster. To look back now and say he missed the opportunity to do big things with his Congress full of purple-state Democrats and a news media that second-guessed his every move...is just plain disingenuous if not openly dishonest.
1
One, you exaggerate the power wielded by the president in general but especially by Obama after his election. Two, you ignore the attitude of the Republican opposition, pushed to the right by plutocratic donors and Tea Party radicals. Three, I wish Obama had done what you said he could have but I don’t fault him at all for not succeeding. He lacked the power to overcome the latent racism and big-money right wing.
1
Manjoo, always interesting, is wrong to claim ALL of Obama moves were NeoLiberal because, unlike Clinton, he never went after entitlements. NeoLiberalism is capital's political solution to the Fiscal Crisis of Govt debt after subsidizing capital and military, as Trump is doing. Next move in NeoLiberal plan is to do away with all welfare, social security, unemployment insurance, etc, but Obama never did that. Trump will.
But, main thing, by not attacking McConnell's plan for judiciary and Senate's deadlock on Obama legislation, with Merrick Garland being best example, Obama doomed us to total dysfunctionality of govt and, when Trump surprisingly won, Americans all lost.
Tribalism and deadlocked politics will take years to fix, if it ever is fixed (bad future scenarios because of Obama's cowardly leadership will haunt us in our iifetimes.)
1
My perceptions at the time were that Obama was constrained by the real powers-that-be, including the Democratic Party at the time in the hands of the ultra-neoliberal Clintons, even before he was allowed to become a candidate, being black and all. And the reason that he was allowed is that, if you recall, the whole Middle-Eastern world, it was exploding, anti-Americanism was metastasizing after 8 years of Bush-Cheney and nearing critical mass, in their view.
And that Obama accepted the constraints in hopes of doing something for his people, that is, all the American people.
I wonder if he regrets it now or has become one of the predatory elite.
2
And the point of this is what? President Obama did what he could given the hand he was dealt. The ACA barely made it through because the GOP pushed back against it with everything they had. Mitch McConnell openly stated that the goal for the Republicans was to make President Obama "a one term President" - to paraphrase. To that end they obstructed whenever they could, no matter what was being proposed. They became the Party of "NO"! They also doubled down on racism, misogyny, and xenophobia.
President Obama's accomplishments are many - the Paris Accord agreement, the Iran accord agreement, the environmental regulations that were enacted, and the ACA all were major accomplishments. Right now I wish with all my heart and soul that he were still President.
President Obama fought with one hand tied behind his back and remained exemplary in his actions. He was a class act, followed by amateur night starring a dangerous, ignorant, buffoon. I have no complaints about Obama's Presidency. Was he perfect, no, but he stands head and shoulders above the man who pretends to be king.
Progress in this country has now been pushed back. We are starting from behind. Now is the time for patience and compromise, with a look to the future to accomplish progressive goals which are for the time being out of reach. We are going to have to settle if we are to survive.
1
Yes, it's all Obama's fault. Everything. Insert problem and source it to Obama- after inheriting Republican disasters again and again and again- FDR, Clinton, Obama- the republicans destroy and Democrats rebuild and republicans criticize. So tiring.
Obama and his cabinet were weak on economics and long on constitutional rights and social issues. The balance was off. The Car Czar was a failure and led to car workers getting hosed. Any plan has to deal with both the short term and long term but long term, there was no there there for car workers (GM especially). Taxes on the wealthy were missed. And the bow to archaic Senate niceties were supported. Finally, the update of the Fair Labor Standards as to who was a manager was too late, too little. Too many people in Obama's cabinet were sleepy and complacent. Much of what led to Hillary's loss and Trump's win stems from Obama govt ineptness on economic issues.
Hopefully the next election will lead to something other than huge deficit spending to address Dem pandering for votes by promising reparations, college debt foregivenss, and money printing. We have had enough of the housing and equity market bubbles that are like heroin abuse.
1
Indeed that crisis was too good an opportunity to waste and Obama blew from day one when hei appointed the Geithner and some of the other figures from the banking sector. Based on these decisions the toxic inequality and the populism we have today was created. He had full control of the government and blew it. You have to ask yourself now whether he was really on the side of working people and not just a fake progressive talker.
4
When I first heard about Obama, I researched him and determined easily that he was a neoliberal. Disappointed again. We have had many of these people in Colorado: essentially 1950s and 1960s Republicans who wear the Dem coat but reject Eugene Debs, FDR, Michael Harrington, etc. in favour of a fanatical belief in Reaganite capitalism. With 2020 we have an opportunity to elect actual progressives as embodied by Sanders and Warren. This country could actually achieve the greatness it has the potential for, despite the shadow population which embraces Republican fascism and thuggery.
4
Exactly right! And until Democrats replace faith in neoliberalism with an clear-eyed analysis of the our political economy, inequality will continue to grow, Democrats will continue to be seen as elitist by working class Americans, and Republicans and their media propagandists will continue to wield power by race-baiting and fear mongering.
3
No doubt about it, Democrats blew it, AGAIN. Looks like they may be headed in the same direction today. Get rid of all Corporate Democrats (Pelosi, Schumer, Hoyer, Clyburn, Perez, Feinstein, et al,) or the result will be the same kind of disappointment, inaction, and corporate favoritism, but the consequences will be more much dire. Vote Progressive, whenever you can. Move left.
4
The problem with this piece is the premise, that being that the U.S. government 'should be in control' of the economy. No, it shouldn't. As bad as U.S. businesses are at running an economy, Warren-type bureaucrats would be immeasurably worse. I can't think of anything scarier than a bunch of pampered and cloistered Ivy professors being in charge of anything other than their own retirement funds.
Also missing from this analysis is the fact that Obama had a team of seasoned bi-partisan advisers who together (remember that word, together?) worked to stave off Great Depression II. Despite this, the rabid dogs of the GOP at the time screamed absolute bloody murder over the moderate steps taken and predicted protracted gloom and doom. These steps, in fact, led to the greatest economic expansion in U.S. History.
To retroactively say that 'it didn't got far enough' is absurdist leftist pablum that, if allowed to take deep root into the Democratic party, will lead to an election loss to Donald Trump. God help us if that happens.
I'm not sure why a tech reporter is bequeathing us his thoughts on a presidency. Does he have any previous expertise in reporting on politics, economics or policy?
1
I believed in change that never came.
5
You're mixing up with you wish happened with what Obama could realistically achieve. Even the modest stimulus package was incredibly controversial, with no republicans voting for it. A more aggressive proposal would have lost support from democrats in conservative districts. He did the best he could on that.
However, his real mistake, the one that gave Trump the populist ammunition to win in 2016, was in failing to prosecute and jail the senior management of all the big banks resposible for the financial collapse. Instead, his corporate-friendly DOJ heads went easy on the bankers, but instead gave us lawsuits over highly-divisive issues like transgendered bathrooms.
2
This article's author adjudicates Obama out of the context of his times. He blames Obama for being what Obama always was: an optimistic and moderate politician devoted to compromise and pragmatism as a vital tool for legislative success---and a president who every day of his tenure was made acutely aware that he was a Black person presiding over a nation that still refuses to reckon with the past and present racial degradation of people of color. If the very left had bothered to look at his pre-presidential record and beyond their disdain for the Clintons, they would have known what they were getting. Similar to Obama's right wing foes, many of Obama's most ardent fans now turned most vociferous critics viewed Obama through the prism of race---that the Black guy with the funny name and inspirational message was going to be a radical shakeup for America and bring about revolutionary change. Coming on the heels of the Bush economic meltdown and a made-up war on Iraq, many Americans just wanted what they got: a fundamentally decent president who was dedicated to steady, dependable, responsible leadership with no drama. If he had one great fault, it was that he was TOO optimistic and confident of his rhetorical abilities to deliver America to true democratic transcendence. NOW, look what we got..
1
You don't seem to remember the political and economic climate in 08-09. Obama started working on avoiding Depression while W was still in office. That's the point: Obama prevented Depression 2. FDR helped us out of Depression 1. He came into office 2 1/2 years after the '29 crash; the Depression was in full swing, the country was desperate. New Deal restructuring? FDR was criticized for not doing enough (and of course for doing too much.) Obama had to fight for that $800 billion; can we please remember that is a lot of money, especially when the economic sky is falling? I remember Krugman writing that it wasn't enough. I also remember that most believed it was too much. 'Too big to fail' was real - letting Lehman go down was nearly the last coffin-nail. He had to fight on so many fronts - this was triage - survival mode. The ACA passed by 1 vote - with a Dem president, Sen and House. Everything was hand-to-hand combat. He got 80 or 90 bln for renewable energy (the climate's a mess; imagine it without that investment.) Why say "lackluster," then follow in parens with "(at least in that they failed to hit their stated goals)"? Goals are targets; you state them aggressively in hopes you'll get close. Compare our recovery to Europe's. There aren't enough characters here to respond properly. Add'l $200 bln was impossible to get. Obama performed miracles - stupid to attack him. Democracy is at stake TODAY. Don't want to waste a crisis? Write about THAT! Write about NOW!
1
"It is true that Obama succeeded in passing a groundbreaking universal health care law."
No it isn't...
3
There's a rogue president doing who knows what behind all the things we do know about, and yet, this columnist wants to discuss Obama's biggest mistakes. Give us all a personal break. Since we have to hear 24/7 about nothing but Trump how about directing the criticism to the present dumpster fire, where we all live currently. Obviously there is nothing to learn from history, it's all been upended by the worst thing to ever happen to this country.
Our government is completely broken. The fault is ours alone for letting it happen while we tweet and enjoy our lives on social media, watching TV and complaining while refusing to participate. Unless the American People develop the will to take back their government, we are doomed.
2
Sanders, Warren and AOC?
Really?
A grumpy old guy who shouts and sounds like he's reading aloud from Clifford Odet's "Waiting for Lefty"; an academic scold from Harvard who hectors and lectures; and a naive blunderbuss from the Bronx.
These 3 are teaching us the forgotten history of populism?
I doubt AOC could define the WPA, or tell us the fate of the NRA. She'd think it was a gun organization, not the National Recovery Act.
Sanders has years in Congress and I don't remember him taking on Teflon "government is the problem, not the solution" Ron Reagan, or any of the neocons, or Milton Friedman, or the GOP's determination to destroy labor unions. Silent Sanders.
Warren studied bankruptcy law, taught, and was a Republican until she wasn't.
You do, in this column, what the Left always does to our party -- go after Obama, go after Clinton, apportion blame, when your assault should be nonstop against Reagan republicans, Bush republicans, the Newt Gingriches and Scott Walkers, Jim Jordans and the whole sorry group.
They are responsible for your political despair.
As a Dem, a liberal, white, female, college/grad school educated, suburban, I defy the polls. I wouldn't choose to support Warren because I want to win in 2020. I wouldn't vote for the elderly and angry Sanders and his Medicare for All. I want to win.
I wouldn't have voted for Eugene V. Debs, either, but I think you probably would have.
2
Ah yes hindsight is always 20/20. Like armchair quarterbacks who have never stepped on a gridiron or poker wannabes that watch the game from TV, there is always someone who could've done it better or played a better deck.
1
People stop crediting Rahm with the crisis quote. He isn't that brilliant. It was popularized in the Naomi Klein book Shock Doctrine the years before. He is irrelevant.
2
Agreed, and it’s a lesson for Democrats going forward.
1
Thanks Mr. Manjoo. Your opinions have helped me to narrow down my choice for the candidate for the Democrat’s to run in the presidential election. I think a fabulous duo would be -
Warren/Harris !
1
Farhad, evidently you need some education about how the government actually works.
FYI, laws provide the essence of national programs and services. The President doesn't pass laws. Congress does. The President's only real tool is the bully pulpit. That can be used to stimulate public interest is certain programs. The President also submits a budget to Congress every year. That budget expresses the President's vision for the country. There is nothing which says that Congress must accept that budget. They are free to set their own spending priorities, the viability of which which are, of course, all subject only to public input. If the voters don't like the programs Congress legislates for, they have the option of voting them out of office.
You seems to forget that the President wasn't the only player in all all this, and you place the blame squarely on him for a lack of more targeted legislation being passed to help the economy more. You need to remember that it was the Republicans who blocked Obama from implementing any vision he had at the time. Yes, he wanted stronger stimulus to help the recovery, but was unable to do that because of Republican obstinance.
And most important, Obama realized that he had limited time to get things done, and he chose the program which would benefit America the most - the ACA. If he had put that off, it would never have happened.
Perhaps you should stick to tech subjects and forget rewriting history.
1
Counterfactuals are fun! Counterfactuals are easy! Counterfactuals are seldom useful!
I totally get Matt Stoller - It is the height of chutzpah to counterfactualize Obama but I get it - it sells books.
I will buy Matt's book because I have found he is a smart and invested writer.
But people who suggest that Obama chose an 'elitist' path need their logic interrogated and need to present modest empirical or inductive evidence that he did and that we would have been better had he not.
What's this piece all about; what's the bottom line? it's a call to leftists to eschew moderation and go for broke if they win in 2020. What is the far left economic model? How about Cuba!
Social Security was enacted in May of 1935 2 years and 4 months into FDR's Presidency, the WPA 3 months after that so Obama actually did better well given he did not have huge, overwhelming house and senate majories that FDR did. The ACA passed 13 months into his Presidency. On the infrastucture, not all Dems supported his inital larger proposals. LBJ got Medicare/Medicaid passed within 16 months of his election but one can argue it reaaly was 5 years from JFK's inaugeration. I doubt even you, Mr Manjoo, could spin either FDR or LBJ into anything resembling a full throated left wing idealog. The fact of the matter great progess may be champiomed by folks like Bernie and Warren but the hard work of getting it done is by real politicians like FDR and LBJ. Politics is the art of the possible not fantasy. That is why I support folks like Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar, I am a liberal maybe even a "progressive" meaning I want progress: not noise and backbiting.
You didn't mention the foreclosure fiasco or the Treasury Secretary Geithner.
Thanks to the latter, Wall Street crooks were bailed out but hapless homeowner who were foreclosed on were hung out to dry.
This was the most proximate reason for the election of Despicable Me as president. Obama and Geithner should feel guilty about this.
2
It's why when Biden says, "just like Obama..." that's the reason for him to step aside.
Right "Never let a crisis go to waste" If Trump isn't a REAL crisis I don't know what is.
3
I'm right on board with Manjoo's opinions. I also think it was most regrettable that Obama dismissed calls to try the case for the folly in Iraq. Dubya and the neocons needed to have been brought to trial. Were war crimes committed?
On every level that turn of a blind eye signaled the squeamishness of Democrats, and that squeamishness (read: fear) still pertains.
2
You forget that Republicans blocked the much larger stimulus Obama wanted, ostensibly on the bogus grounds of controlling the deficit (which they merrily blew up with the Bush and Trump tax cuts).
And as others mentioned, there was the obvious hatred of Mr. Obama simply because he was black.
He also wanted to enact a public option but that was also blocked by the opposition.
This column by a technology writer turned pundit is why democracy can't be left in the care of younger people who mistake their own comfort and convenience for conviction and consensus.
Obama's biggest mistake? I think it's obvious, isn't it.? His biggest "mistake" was being Black. His second biggest mistake was being a Constitutional expert who understood deeply how political power is constrained by design and intent, tethered to the legitimacy of majority consensus among a diversity of conflicting, competing and camouflaged interests, many of which are corrupt and cancerous.
Constitutional democracy is reactive problem solving. It's not idealism nor abstract vision. It moves as fast as a super-tanker loaded with 350 million barrels of demands, desires, disinterest, deceit and disillusion. It doesn't move fast and break things.
Where have you gone, FDR? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. But we still don't see how FDR's new deal was bought by selling out Blacks with a barely disguised form of apartheid.
Because of FDR's embrace of America's Original Sin, Obama's presidency was more symbolic than actual. The racist politics enabled and sustained by FDR became the concrete boots that held Obama a prisoner of history and of a rejuvenated rebel-yell confederacy.
Political freedom travels the middle path of promise and potential, not popularity or pander.
When there's a cancer growing in the body politic, prescribing more cancer is quackery.
5
Dear Mr. Manjoo, with all due respect:
Let high skilled historians - best by five from different countries and cultures - assess the achievements failures and deficits of the Obama years by a comprehensive analysis following the rules of this science. You should never reduce criteria on one single (economic) aspect advocated by a specific macroeconomic doctrine even if you are a passionate believer and this doctrine is represented by famous macroeconomists close to this paper because politics and legislation are so much more than giving some (economic) "stimulusses" you are emphasizing in your article all the way. Mr. Obama could have given this stimulus you are missing so much even without this "once in a lifetime" majority you have mentioned quite rightly here.
Maybe he didnt want to for reasons esteemed far more highly by other macros like keeping deficit a bay. Maybe the waste of the opportunities bythis phenomenal majority for 2 years could have been a disaster in many other politicy fields you haven´t thought of yet due to your fixation on a very specific eeconomic measure. Maybe the "usage rate" of ACA is not so high as you have suggested here - and maybe Mr. Obama as a single politician isn´t to blame so much for the deplorable omission of all what could have be done by using this party (!) majority in this period.
These are the tasks specialized historical experts could complete best so I´m waiting for THEIR state-of-the-art reports that are still missing.
This essay hits the mark. I love President Obama, he was a reassuring presence after the GOP led great recession but it did take us nearly 8 years to achieve meaningful results. Along the way he conceded to Wall Street Bailout money to be used for bonuses to the guys that should have been in prison. He also conceded to a tax cut for the wealthy the GOP insisted on. No Obama is not a new deal FDR but he was and is a good man. He however did a mediocre job of making life better for the middle class. Joe Biden is also a good man but the wrong man for the job of president. He may reassure and calm us but he will do little to improve our economic lives as he is no FDR either by a long shot. It is encouraging to see the meek, timid, half brain dead Democrats of the past thirty years get their cages rattled by the likes of AOC, Sanders and Warren. How long are they going to fiddle around with impeaching that intolerable fool trump. What are you waiting for Madam Speaker? How long are the Dems going to be half pregnant? The working class was abandoned by these Democrats and abused by the Republicans. We need someone to stand up for the non-investor class. My money is on Warren.
3
Democrats lost in 2010 because they didn’t prosecute the bankers who caused The Great Recession. This was the height of hypocrisy for middle Americans who financially struggled yet still faithfully paid their bills. Democrats, just like Republicans, need the banks’ money when running for office. Obama, and Holder, did nothing to punish the banks.
4
Democrats lost in 2010 because they didn’t prosecute the bankers who caused The Great Recession. This was the height of hypocrisy for middle Americans who financially struggled yet still faithfully paid their bills. Democrats, just like Republicans, need the banks’ money when running for office. Obama, and Holder, did nothing to punish the banks.
1
I’ve always thought it strange that the Democrats would hold Obama up as a left wing saint while they vilified Trump as a right wing monster. Surely they must realize that the only reason Trump is their President today is because Obama and his real legacy put him there.
3
The problem with Obama was not that he was liberal. He was not liberal enough.
For years, Europeans have discerned little difference between our Democratic and Republican parties. They have both been in the thrall of business.
The vituperation by Fox News of Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton was silly. Clinton repealed Glass Steagall, did Welfare Reform that was draconian, and also passed a tough crime bill. Conservatives should have been cheering Clinton.
Instead hoi polloi were duped into thinking Bill Clinton was a flaming progressive liberal. Hardly.
Mrs. Clinton went along with it, and had no real plans for a new economy or a new vision for the country. That vacuum was filled by Trump.
The Clintons and Obama believe that those at the top of their class in law school automatically have the best ideas, and that others can be peremptorily dismissed. Hence, the death of progressive programs.
Alas Hillary, real life is not law school.
6
Interesting point of view but it's hard for me to think of Obama as a failure since he stopped the bleeding of the economy which was job #1 when he took office. The Dems put their energy into ACA and barely passed it.
& he killed Bin Laden.
2
His next biggest mistake was letting his wife dictate family dinners every night. He was elected President, not First Daddy. Why did she require him to sit at a nightly 'family' dinner rather that forge necessary relationships with the Republicans across the aisle? Nostalgia? Because that is what she had growing up with a disabled and admirable father? Yet.... Barack let us down in so many ways. I sincerely wish he had just kept smoking cigarettes , stopped chewing Nocorettes (in public!) and kept a sharper view. Sorry! Whipped.
4
Thank you Farhad Manjoo! Wonderful article.
2
I remember Obama's very first economic affairs press briefing held in the middle of his second year in office. Uncomfortable with the subject matter, he quickly turned it into a cloying sermon on the Islamic Center/Ground Zero controversy - not that Mayor Bloomberg needed any help. That evening's headlines were all about St. Barack's latest foray into epidermal sanctimony along with the predictable bigoted response, but nary a peep about the administration's economic plans.
At the end of the day, Barack Obama was an empty suit. His soaring rhetoric belied a conventional thinker steeped in the insufferable banality that comes with two years matriculation at an Ivy League law school. He was nothing more than a symbol on a stick.
7
I'd vote for Obama again in a heart-beat.
That said, it's clear one of Obama's many influences was his tenure at the University of Chicago -- with its ultra-conservative school of Economics.
You lie down with dogs, etc, etc...
4
Laughable headline and evidence. To the extent that Barack Obama did not achieve full socialism he was successful. The economy has only benefited the "well-off educated?" What planet have you been on in the last ten years? You make this libertarian-turned-Trump voter want to defend Barack Obama!
Or more likely, Obama’s policy priorities were closer to the correct ones and the ultra liberal preferences of this columnist and the liberal wing of the Democrats are in left field and would be disastrous.
1
While I agree with the writer's sentiment he overlooks one glaring fact. It is the ideology stupid!
For a generation the monopolist as he calls them have pushed a lassiez faire ideology. The blue collar workers who were hurt most by this policy embraced it since it was packaged with the culture wars. A successful candidate and party must educate the populus. Explinations and stories must combat the propaganda of the last generation. This is not socialism or communism but repairing maldistribution in a practical democratic way.
2
Many of you seem to have forgotten what a mess
Obama inherited. Not to mention the GOP behavior was disgraceful. More importantly, he was a far better president that the egocentric myogenic president we currently have.
1
True enough in hindsight, but completely neglects the Jackie Robinson factor. We forget now that it was a huge deal, our first African American president, with a right-wing GOP sharpening the long knives, corporate America wary, crybaby bankers, the Fox empire sniffing every trash can, and an electorate with a proven tendency towards racial gullibility and manipulation. FDR didn't have to be a role model or play nice to stay alive. The initiatives you suggest are so easy to sabotage if you are as anarchic as the GOP.
1
I am sick and tired of progressives trashing imperfect leaders. I heard Jane Fonda trashing Obama, black folks trashing Hillary, Bernie Bros trashing everyone...and now this retrospective scold on Obama's use of a window of power.
He was elected BECAUSE he was a moderate, conciliating centrist. This was not bait & switch. We had watched george W Bush drive the nation into a ditch- both overseeing financial and military disasters. As a black candidate, he was winning because of his sensible, low key temperament. He was thoughtful, smart and mature. He was not a radical. He did the best he could, choosing to use his moment for the ACA. Shortly thereafter, the GOP enforced a road block to infrastructure or financial reform.
Let us not make the perfect, idealistic, ideologically exciting become the enemy of the good enough.
3
While I agree with the basic sentiment of the article one big glaring fact is overlooked. It is the ideology stupid!
This country has been indroctinated for a generation by economic hit men. And the blue collar classes who have suffered the most have bought into the nonsense because of the culture wars.
A winning candidate and parry must combat a generation of propaganda by the monopolies. Warren comes close but all the candidates needs to make a clear argument that combating the ideology du jour is not communism or socialism but practicalism for everyone.
This columnist writes as though he doesn’t know Barack Obama was Black! Moreover he writes with an ahistorical frame as it relates to why his Blackness makes any comparison to Roosevelt just plain silly!
From day one of his presidency Obama knew the most onerous responsibility weighing upon him was to assure that historians not be able to portray the presidency of America’s first Black President as a failure! To meet this responsibility this massively prideful man massively humiliated himself several times! First there was the Beer Summit! And then of course the trump-driven production of his papers!
To expect him to have approached his presidency with the psyche of a Mississippi gambler is to fundamentally misunderstand the role race has played in the broad sweep of American history! And that is very mild criticism since America has made a Herculean effort at avoiding coming to grips with that history!
Or more likely, Obama’s policy priorities were closer to the correct ones and the ultra liberal preferences of this columnist and the liberal wing of the Democrats are in left field and would be disastrous.
2
You re rambling.
Obama did the following:
1-Basically kept us out of war except for the "Hillary War" in Libya that Obama admitted was his worst mistake.
2-Got of out of the greatest recession in modern history with app. eight yrs. of slow but steady growth, by some measurements a record.
3-Gave us ACA, groundbreaking.
4-Restored America's policy of no torture, reversing the policy of the admitted war criminal Bush 2.
5-Restored America's reputation throughout the world as a world leader.
6-Did all of this with an opposition Congress as least in part for six yrs.
I think his only mistake was not pushing for the re instatement of glass/steagall which there was support for in the congress even by some republicans.
Sandwiched between an admitted war criminal like Bush 2 and an ego maniac, pathological liar, bigot demagogue (and those are some of the nicer things I can say about him), Trump, I think I will stick with Obama.
2
I will never ever forgive Obama for not raising the minimum wage to $15 and tying it to inflation. I cannot think of anything that would have had a lasting effect on the average American. What a shame.
3
Trump does indeed have a doctrine. It’s called the Line Dance Doctrine. Take one step forward then three steps back, now lean to the right then shimmy in place, spin in a circle then throw your hands up high. All while crossing over numerous red lines.
2
Obama's biggest mistake was thinking that this country was ready to accept a Black man as President without being hypercritical of every decision he ever made. Perhaps his second biggest mistake was going along with the Democratic National Committee's determination that Hillary Clinton was his successor.
No matter what Obama did or didn't do, we MUST defeat Donald Trump in 2020.
2
It's a shame that Trump is steam-rolling Obama into oblivion.
Amen to all you say. I believe Obama had a certain window of opportunity. He chose to expend his good will/honeymoon majority/whatever on health care reform rather than economic reform. While we’ll never know how that might have turned out, the rise of the Tea Party —->wingnut republican jerks——>conservative obstructionism—->Trump might not have occurred or been much less influential had he had chosen the latter egalitarian route.
Yes, I think there is a lesson here. And now so much remains, as Warren says, to be fixed, just to preserve what little democracy is left.
2
Left out of the biased discussion is the fact that Obama inherited three active wars with a military budget that was four times the annual expenditure before 9-11 while the American economy had gone over the cliff and was in free fall. I challenge the author to find another president who faced such challenges when they took the oath. On top of all that the GOP declared war on the Black usurper of the executive branch. He needed to unify the country to meet these challenges and like Roosevelt, he did so despite the opposition entrenched in the GOP.
1
Obama achieved a lot. Ask Trump. Day-by-day he is undoing it.
1
Obama saved the US and the global economy. Period.
1
In addition to punting on the economy, Obama punted on gun control. Just sayin ...
3
Hindsight is 20/20.
I absolutely agree with this assessment of the missed opportunities in 2009. A single payer health care system, an overhaul of financial systems that caused the train wreck, a firm hand on corporate abuse of workers, and a strong focus on environmental challenges would have done so much that could not be easily undone later. People don’t like to give up perks once they have them. As usual, the Democratic Party never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. We can only hope that the backlash against the abusive idiots in power now does not become yet another example of the Democrats failing to deliver on expectations.
3
Just thought I'd throw a little historic reality on the premise of this piece. Because of his contested election, Al Franken's win was not certified until June 30, 2009. Ted Kennedy died from his brain tumor on August 9, 2009. His last vote in the Senate was on July 9. Robert Byrd fell ill and HIS last vote was in December 24, 2009. Byrd and Kennedy literally had to drag themselves from their deathbeds to vote on rare occasions.
So, President Obama had a 60 vote majority in the Senate very sporadically during the first two years of his presidency. That is only if you count Joe Lieberman as an actual Democrat. Given that the insurance industry is headquartered in Connecticut, Leiberman was not exactly a willing participant in the restructuring of either the economy or the healthcare market. He voted AGAINST the amendment allowing people 55 and older to buy into Medicare.
Say what you want about how Obama used his political capital, but get your FACTS straight first He DID NOT have an unbroken two years of a sixty vote majority to make major changes. That's why they had to get the ACA passed through reconciliation. They only got the stimulus passed because Arlen Spector changed parties. They could not get ONE Republican to break ranks and vote for anything!!
1
Barack Obama's deep-seated need to win the approval of older men became evident whenever he knuckled under to the old republicans in Congress, even though they despised him more and more no matter what he did to please them. We need to rethink seriously the electing of people with unresolved Parental issues, but that condition is almost pandemic among Baby Boomers. Just look at Mrs. Clinton's obsession with fighting perceived bullies because of what her mother did to her at age 4, and Donald Trump's obsessive need to outshine his father.
https://drgabormate.com/trump-clinton-trauma/
Now an older man himself, Mr. Obama wags his finger at Americans and frequently scolds us, fashioning himself as our disappointed daddy - especially when he does a paid gig outside America. But he is still overly needy, as his lavish (even decadent) post-presidency lifestyle shows. I for one will not tolerate being lectured on my carbon footprint by a multi-millionaire who jets between his two Brobdingnagian mansions.
https://www.tmz.com/2019/08/22/barack-michelle-obama-buying-mega-mansion-marthas-vinyard/
No way.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
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Banks and SUV pushers got their bailout, all that really mattered, eh? Had Obama been the progressive we hoped for, he would have done something akin to the green new deal.
Convert those failed auto companies into high speed rail and wind industry...
2
Was Obama's neo-liberalism the problem? Not really. He's gone and we still have the "problem." Oligarchy has captured our Democracy and isn't going to give it up. While we bemoan the craven, rushed vote by Republicans to pass 'Tax Reform' that simply looted the Treasury and handed it to the .01%, too many have failed to see the hegemony of the Democratic Party.
Hillary Clinton was poised to do very similar tax cuts if she had won the election. Oligarchy is good at that. They've been winning for fifty years no matter who wins the elections.
Manjoo clearly sees the past, but "... it's time to demand more" is a rather lukewarm clarion call from the free press, isn't it?
It's time for the free press to get back to work. I see some oligarchy at work to push Elizabeth Warren into Obama's shoes, perhaps with Mayor Buttigieg as VP, which makes the package look like something big is going to change. It won't. She'll be co-opted with cash.
When Anderson Cooper, the richest journalist that ever lived, interviews Bernie Sanders for four and a half minutes, spends the last minute of it telling him how excited he is about his next guest, a female soccer star, and then spends forty-five minutes squealing, gushing and tossing his hour away, somebody scored a goal but it sure wasn't the American people.
If the White House is the first step, we should elect Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. But before that happens, the DNC would have to be purged of big money and oligarchy.
3
"schneo-liberalism"
You wouldn't want to try and define this neologism, would you?
Many of us are aware of the mistakes B.O. made and many of us also have 20-20 hindsight.
If you really want to find fault, consider a president who taught constitutional law and forgot about Art. 1, Sec. 2.
1
Sorry, Obama, as a black president was limited in what he could actually do. The Republicans were ready to lynch him (really, they were, powerful word, that could get this post deleted). We have seen the different things a white president can do, now, with Trump. For his every action, I ask what if Obama had done that. And, always, the answer if he would have been impeached.
OMG, a NYT opinion article that actually dares to criticize policies of the Democrats and Obama in particular!
I am actually grateful for ObamaCare as it has literally saved my life, and I'm not excusing the Republicans for their actions or lack of, but this article is exactly right on.
1
When assailing Obama's early economic policies name the names, please: Geitner & Summers.
3
All true, but ignores another Obama failure — only one person from a Wall Street bank was prosecuted for the plainly fraudulent deals and misrepresentations that lost billions for average Americans. He was Swiss, and hardly a major player. The SEC brought a civil case against only a very low level Goldman Sachs employee. He was a Frenchman. No American citizen employed by a major Wall Street financial institution was charged with wrongdoing. Having been bailed out by Obama, Wall Street resumed paying large bonuses by 2010 to the people who, singly and collectively, caused economic devastation around the world. Everyone, including especially Obama, came out smelling like a rose. The news media still doesn’t care. Not Trump and old news (though being repeated today).
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Columns like this—revisionist, hind-sight historical hot-takes without the actual responsibility of the moment—bother me immensely. And the point it arrives at—that we/Obama may have been in a position to “do better”—is so blatantly obvious that it’s boring. Everyone can “do better” always. It’s the ability to navigate with authority and a grounded sense of clarity in a dynamic, changing, fluid moment that is principal among our elected leaders. Obama proves this time and again.
while i agree with everything said in the opinion piece by Farhed he forgot to mention that Obama made his intentions known when he decided not to arrest anybody for the frauds committed in the financial markets. The frauds were clearly known yet he gave 3/4 of a trillion dollars to the fraudsters. This act stated his intentions.
3
In this Opinion, Farhad Manjoo, justifiably skewers Obama, It is an uncommon Opinion. Beginning with the Reagan presidency, remember the air controllers strike, unions were weakened and more and more manufacturing was leaving the USA. As time went by, technology flourished while unemployment grew, Main Streets were losing stores and customers, communities began to disappear and unemployment grew. The rich were getting richer and the middle-class was shrinking. Then bang, the awful recession hit. Who did it hurt most? At that terrible time, lo and behold, along came Mr. HOPE, Barack Hussein Obama. After so much disappointment and helplessness, most people were ready for HOPE. While Obama and his smart Wall Streeters were able to pull the country our of the recession and bail out some of the perpetrators, very little was done to help small businesses, union workers, manufacturing, and many other low wage workers. The folks that were comfortable before the recession were comfortable again but not many, particularly, in the Midwest and in the South. Manjoo doesn't connect Obama to Trump, but I do. After the failure of administration, after administration, Republicans and Democrats to work for large segments of the population, when Mr. Hope failed, too, that was it. 'Bomb it all down', 'tear Washington DC apart' and along came Trump to do just that. We have a mountain of hate and white supremacy to climb. What do we do about it Mr. Manjoo?
2
Obama did amazing things under unbelievable challenges, since he took office during an economic collapse and the greatest recession since the Great Depression.
It was unprecedented.
To use 20/20 hindsight to analyse may be a lesson for future leaders, but I do not see it as a valid way to criticize based on the enormous challenges we were faced with
Obama was truly one of the greatest Presidents of all time
Two weeks before he took office, the CBO report came out showing that the 2009 deficit was projected at 1.186 trillion
Obama had not even been sworn in. p 15
https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/111th-congress-2009-2010/reports/01-07-outlook.pdf
Th GOP immediately jumped on this, knowing that their base would not know that the fiscal year begins the prior Oct 1st and blamed the democrats for the huge deficits. This made it very difficult to pass the needed stimulus package and 3 republicans had to courted by making some cuts to the plan, since we did not yet have a super-majority
In order to get anything done, the democrats had to proceed with caution. Once they finally did get a super-majority, it did not last long and was dependent on one independent vote
Still under these conditions, Obama:
Stopped the collapse
Cut unemployment rate in half
Dream Act
Paris Agreement
ACA
Iran Deal
All while cutting our yearly deficits more than in half! p 2
https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51129-2016outlook.pdf
Amazing!
1
What happens to hope and change differed?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
They named a street (well, part of street) after Obama in, well, somewhere in South Central LA. Once they did I don't recall him ever visiting the street. Maybe if it was in Malibu or Beverly Hills he might have. The street dead ends. Maybe that says it all.
4
The US has bigger fish to fry than attempting to reverse engineer the Obama administration. Give it a rest and focus on the rampant corruption in the GOP. Please...
Finally, someone at the Times is willing to look with clear eyes at the Obama presidency. Thank you, Farhad Majoo, for eschewing the conventional wisdom -- uninformed by history or and honest analysis of Obama's presidency -- that Obama was a "liberal" and/or a "progressive."
My only quibble is the seemingly laudatory reference to Rahm Emmanuel, who as the Obama's first chief of staff and key liaison to Congress, was -- other than the president -- the person most responsible for Obama's weak-kneed first term agenda.
6
It's a bit unfair to make Obama the fall-guy for the Democratic Party's years-earlier sellout to corporate money and identity politics. You can see this today, when they complain and scream about meaningless nonsense and carefully avoid talking about issues (except for Ms. Warren) that will actually result in Wall Street heeling to public demands.
On the other hand...In office, Obama often would blow through Seattle to do fundraisers at billionaires' homes in Medina, WA (one of the richest zip codes in America). All the proletariat got out of those trips was traffic jams. Is it any surprise there aren't any unions today?
Manjoo nails the fact that Obama could have done virtually anything he wanted in that first year, and instead he complained that "Bush wouldn't let him do this or do that." It was all Bush's fault, but Obama and the Dems held all the levers of power. I had buyer's remorse voting for Obama at that time, when he somehow forgot all about the minimum wage, and I seriously considered voting for Romney in 2012 because of it.
I am deeply suspicious that Democrats don't really want to do anything about Trump's obscene power grabs today, because they hope to grab the levers of fascism to use themselves, in 2020. So they sue and complain, and hold meaningless hearings, and blow smoke in all the wrong places, hoping in 2021 they'll be sipping Riesling at Berchtesgaden with Eva Braun.
2
Farhad,
Either you’ve allowed your judgement to be overwhelmed by your strong preference for a progressive presidential nominee or your knowledge of the last 50 years of US politics, government, and our economy is surprisingly incomplete. And, describing the existential danger we found ourselves in at the start of the Great Recession as a serious crisis gone to waste because Obama did not restructure the American economy aggressively enough for your personal politics is coldly cavalier.
You claim “the Republican Party’s economic policies were widely thought to have caused the crisis.” Probably true if you limit the opinions included to only blindly partisan economists willing to exclude the Clinton years and, in particular, its government-led lowering of mortgage standards and inflating of housing prices.
Dismissing Obama’s $800 billion stimulus spend (with its government bailout of GM and its workers’ labor union) as “too small”, not because it was ineffective, but because it’s ameliorating impact was not fast enough for you is partisan nit-picking.
You advocate that we “relearn” the lessons of the past” before we nominate. Okay. And, I suggest you add another 20 years to your chosen 30 year timeframe of consideration and relearn the lesson of the 1972 presidential election when the very liberal, Democratic populist candidate lost in a disastrous landslide to a Republican perceived by many to be similarly-evil to the one Democrats will face in 2020.
This article is just another “take down” piece of Joe Biden using President Obama as a scapegoat. Since Biden faithfully defends Obama, what better way to undermine Biden than to smear our former President.
I remember Election Day in 2007, when my neighborhood was all upbeat with smiles having cast their votes for Barack Obama.
Our first African-American president despite all of the open bigotry and the ridiculous and unfounded attacks on his place of birth, which Trump continued to use in an attempt to discredit Obama throughout his presidency.
So, now, in order to further the potential democratic candidates who favor the socialist agenda, the author finds that discrediting Obama, he can then further Biden’s rivals.
Oh what a pity to dishonor the greatest president of my generation!
It is curious how a journalist like Mr. Manjoo, with no apparent expertise or education in economics, was provided such a large platform to expound upon Obama's policies to lift the country out of the abyss left by the Republicans in 2008 and beyond. It is equally curious how Mr. Manjoo utilized a thesis promoted in the book of another journalist (Stoller) with no apparent expertise on the subject matter either, to buttress support for arguments comprised of "he should have done more". The reality was Obama had a hostile Republican Congress, during a rapidly moving situation, with a politically powerful set of interest groups on Wall Street. Welcome to the realm of what can be accomplished in reality instead of aspirational Monday morning quarterbacking. Let's also remember, sources Krugman, Stiglitz and Galbraith (James) don't work in the real policy making world...they work in academia where the opinions, right or wrong, come with little accountability or subject matter expertise on the complexity of actual policy making in Congress. The 'Left" arguments Manjoo references cite little supporting evidence or workable solutions beyond bumper sticker slogans and fail to understand the context of the times within which Obama worked. Finally, Manjoo utilizes another "source", an ex-FCC Commissioner (Reed Hundt), as another "expert" on economic policy making. Really? Manjoo generates heat with his column but sheds no light.
2
Manjoo faults Obama for not following the advice of Krugman and Stieglitz...these 2 advised and praised Hugo Chavez economic policy in Venezuela. That turned out well. not.
Spot on, Farhood. Should be required reading for all considering who to vote for among the Dems
3
You read a book and now you think this? Do you remember those times? Nothing what you suggest could have happened and it was during a crisis, which you acknowledge. Must have been some book!
You missed Obama’s biggest failure of them all post crash. He failed to hold the banksters to account and fed the anger. He told us Jamie Dimon is a “smart guy” and had the Pritzger’s running the Commerce Dept. Yes we miss him but we only here about him on David Geffens’ yacht of George Clooney’s pad on Lake Cuomo or courtside at the NBA Finals. How sad.
4
Thank you for detailing exactly what always kept me from praising Obama’s time as president. He burted instead of hitting the easy home run...
4
Lots of complaints here that Republicans weren’t “nice.” Well, that’s just stupid. The opposition is never nice. It was the brilliance of Lyndon Johnson that he steamrolled the opposition to create the safety net and protections that we have enjoyed and that Republicans have attacked ever since. Obama was simply inexperienced, under-qualified and ultimately unable to exert substantive leadership.
2
It's so strange. This article actually is sane.
2
Just say it. Obama's less than half measures gave us Donald Trump. After Obama betrayed the country by siding with the banks and Wall Street, Trump was the middle finger to the Establishment that Obama had so carefully preserved. Obama's bold characterization of the Iraq war as a big mistake won him the Presidency. After taking office, he expand the war in Iraq and started five other wars around the world. Trump promised to end those wars and drain the swamp of corruption.
Do you see a pattern here? Both are Neoliberals who lied to get into office only to turn the keys of governing over to market forces, aka, their international corporate masters. One is likable, one is not, but they both play by the same rules.
3
Biggest mistake?
Hard to pick. That's a long list.
1
As we used to say, Right on!
1
Obama did a pretty good job balancing socialist and market solutions. Leftists are angry he wasn't more socialist. Rightists are angry he wasn't more free-market oriented. The author of this opinion piece is just another angry leftist ideologue. What this country needs is another good centrist President.
Isn't it fun to play Monday morning quarterback.
Would it be overly pedantic to note that Al Franken was seated on July 7, 2009 creating the Democrat filibuster proof majority (after extensive recount litigation making it all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court) and Ted Kennedy died on August 25, 2009, thus eliminated the filibuster proof majority 48 days later.
Does Mr. Manjoo really expect the Democrats to have engineered and passed a Second New Deal in seven weeks in the midst of the great financial crisis in 70 years?
1
"But Obama’s closest advisers declined to push Congress for anything more than $800 billion,..." Just 1 trillion more and it could have been fixed.
Now, let me get this straight. I was called a racist because I said Obama didn't know what he was doing. When in fact, Obama didn't know what he was doing. He could have done what Trump did. Reduce the tax to 15% (Trump cut it to 21%) and bring the $3T USD from overseas. He could have had a smoking hot recovery. Well, that's what all of racists would have done.
Obama could have turned the energy industry lose and we could have been energy independent 10 years ago. I'm still waiting to find out if Solyndra will hire me. Maybe they stopped hiring racists.
And, Hillary would be president right now. Woulda. Coulda. Shoulda.
The Democrats lost their way during the 70's when many of their policy decisions didn't work out the way they hoped and conservatives started their organized campaign to change the narrative. At the point when Reagan's "It's the government's fault" became the norm, Democrats stopped playing offense and went strictly on defense buying into and trying to refute whatever nonsense the Right generated. "Tax and spend", "soft on crime", "welfare queens", "socialists", weak on defense", "National debt exploders", "environment Nazis", "baby killers", "religion hating", "immigrant loving", "lacking family values", "business hating", etc., etc., were all used despite the facts. And stupidly media bought into "liberal bias" which tainted their voice to discount the lies generated by Conservatives.
It takes a lot to dispel the resentment that had been created toward the left and Obama had the additional problem of race. Your analysis doesn't include this very significant factor of why Obama failed. Even after starting two ridiculous wars and crashing the economy, it took less than two years for the Republicans to significantly damage the Democrats. How was that possible unless there was a significant part of this country that was trained to hate anything that even smelled liberal? This is the story that has yet to be told and everything over the past 50 years is effected by this truth. Obama had hope that a middle of the road presidency could unite this country but alas...
3
His biggest mistake was appointing Comey
Not even close
Yes, it's all Obama's fault.
Risible.
1
If in your lifetime, Sir, you learn nothing else, I hope you learn that everyone has to pick his/her battles.
Obama picked his. Was his aim perfect? Absolutely not. But were they self-serving and ego-driven. Again not.
He and his family never embarrassed us on the world stage. I miss their class everyday.
I would hope that if you’re ever in a position of power, you will reread and revisit your opinion piece printed here. Time changes us.
Obama was a constitutionalist. He taught on the subject. That said, why wouldn't you want to put faith in the best of what the constitution offered if you loved its profound and magical content. Even in 2008 that belief was still alive for true patriots. In the era of Trump and Mitch McConnell - no, it is gone. Sad.
Farhad Manjoo cannot fathom the constitution still meant something in 2008 to a highly educated but compassionate black man newly elected president.
McConnell signed, sealed and delivered the end of any reason to believe in the constitution. At least for the Republicans party. Farad Manjoo has a right to his opinion to a 20/20 look back of "what ifs". "Schneo liberlism" is cute, but unfortunately there is no turning back history in the wake of the two evil-geniuses that currently remain in power - Mitch and Donald.
2
Finally, the truth.
1
This is correct but it also ignores the fact that Obama was intimidated by being an African American. He knew that he could be no radical in what is a white dominated country and polity.
Anyone can be an "armchair quarterback" Manjoo. You are only fair at this due to your personal agenda of liberalism. The truth is that the market failed due to many factors. One was that a Democrat by the name of Barney Frank during the Bush presidency watered down the mortgage regulations to the extent that many unqualified borrowers obtained mortgages. The mistakes made by Obama can be called mistakes but it's difficult for an individual to make all the right decisions and at the right time. The liberals then decided to support Hilary and the rest are current events. Now the democrats will shoot themselves in the foot again by "calling and hoping" for an economic recession all because of their hate for Trump and conservative values.
A waste of ink, without a relationship to reality or facts.
2
Obama did what he does best...lazily .coast through 8 years of the presidency, taking the non-aggressive middle road, while he and Michelle cemented their popularity into mega celebrity status, and laughing all the way to the bank.
3
Let's discuss and argue and go around and around in order to avoid the truth, that Obama lacked the will and the passion to run the country. His whole life, like Trump's, has been about image. He has profited greatly by being the attractive, tame black man. Even the one great achievement of his administration, Obamacare, would not have happened if the New York Times hadn't called him out on it when he was about to give up yet again without a fight. For once he manned up and did the work he was elected to do. He could have been a great president if he had wanted to run the country. It is apparently his nature to be precisely what Trump proclaimed he could could get away with grabbing.
1
I wish the author would stick to writing about tech gadgets rather than some socialist revisionist history where president Obama wasn't left enough. According to the hard left crowd pretty much everyone is conservative except democratic or not so democratic socialists.
1
Obama will go down in history as the "guy who made Carter look great". No small feat.
2
The moral-economic feebleness was only one feature of Obama’s administration expediency. Indeed, when elected, Obama had Congress in his palm and the adoration of the American people. He could’ve taken that unprecedented leverage-of-power and strive to really change the world: from reviving Gorbachev-Reagan humanity-saving nuclear arms reductions agreements including a Senate-Confirmed treaty with Iran to forcing a stable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian moral-historical cesspool; from gradually establishing a stable universal health-care system to making sure the financial hierarchy will deeply internalize the punishments for dealing and cheating under conditions of “moral hazard”.
Instead, he calculatingly determined to concentrate on one goal – getting elected to a second term. Hence the hot-air nuclear-abolishment speeches, the policy of endowing Netanyahu with dozens of billions while letting him run amuck with the Iran nuclear incitement and conquer the American Congress, the un-encompassing and fragile Obama-Care program and the detestable leniency toward the makers of the financial meltdown and the politically expedient unrestrained backing of H. Clinton – and indeed he made it to the second term.
Cleo was especially generous to Obama; he (and his administration) let her down – Trump’s area is her strike back.
2
Obama was a callow youth the Republicans suckered to run for president to take out Hillary in the primary and lose the general election.
2
I invite anybody sneering at President Obama to stand up for half of what he did, and achieve ten percent as much.
And I’m sick unto death of languid leftists.
1
Your leadership is doing your party in. You don’t rally the troops, filing FOIAS into the investigation of Brett Kavanaugh, stating, you are determined to “set the record straight” in 2018, and then in 2019, as even more information comes forward, refuse an inquiry with an emphatic, “No!” You lost me, as I don’t know what her game is other than to make some in her own party fools.
Let's be clear: Obama brought us Trump. Farhad's column explains why.
2
Why is this article even in the paper? We have so many real and present dangers to cope with, the article serves as a knee jerk distraction, presenting an argument best left for the historians. If you want to publish articles saying “Trump is right.” Or “Trump is wrong” I will read them and agree or disagree as I see fit. Don’t waste attentional band width and distract people with old news.
Biggest mistake, jokes at Trump during the correspondent dinner. Who knew how thin skinned he was?
1
It’s also easier to criticize nearly ten years after the largest financial crisis since the Great Depression has been dug out of. Where was Mr Manjoo during the crisis?
1
This is the tragedy of American racism. FDR Managed to pull the New Deal out of his hat only because he was an Uber-WASP populist. That kind of a guy just doesn’t grow in trees (and may actually be evidence, along with Abraham Lincoln, of the old adage that God protects fools — and Americans).
Barack, bless his heart, is a striver. He’s Talented Tenth down to his bones, with just enough Booker T. In him to know that a successful black man in America can’t make too many waves. That caution and innate conservatism is what doomed us in 2008. It’s what brought us Trump in 2916, and may cause Elizabeth Warren — the best presidential candidate by far — to lose next Fall, simply because too many white folks will think that her plans might help too many black folks.
The whole thing is more tragic than anything that the Greeks or Shakespeare could contemplate.
2
Great writing Farhad Manjoo. I read Paul Krugman and others back then, and like Barbara Tuckman's "The Folly of Nations," they didn't listen. The Obama team didn't have the guts to do what was needed, when they had the power to do it.
Where was Joe Biden back then, on Obama’s biggest mistake while in office?
1
ain't hindsight great?
I don't know if this is allowed, but here's a link to a piece Matt Stoller wrote about Obama back in the summer of 2012. The title is "The Source of Barack Obama's Power to Trick Us Comes From Our Willingness To Be Tricked."
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/back-obama-the-cool-self-aware-irony-drenched-con-artist.html
Obama was handed a poisoned chalice. This armchair quarterbacking is useless. If people feel they can do better, they should run for office and make a difference.
I know that I was disappointed when Obama tacked to the center after he was elected, but I have a different take on the reason why he did that. I believe he was acutely aware, as a black man, of how history would judge him. If he had gone after the titans of Wall Street (white men), he would have been labeled as an angry, vengeful black man—a militant. His timidity was , in large part , an attempt to be treated fairly by historians.
This is arguably the dumberest article I have ever seen in the Times, and the comments are far worse. Seriously, it’s like a coffee klatsch for everybody who didn’t vote in 2010, or 2014, or 2016, and now desperately demands an alibi.
Good grief.
Yes, yes, yes, yes and finally: yes. Great work Farhad.
Unfortunately as good as he was Barack was not the president his time in office required.
1
It's easy to take pot shots at Obama three years into prevailing American carnage. From here, the pride I felt seeing him ascending onto Air Force One, is now always shattered by the sleazy image of the toxic agent orange rising with a fusillade of lies, incohence and chaos. What's even more deflating are the current democratic challengers. The party of Kennedy fronting Biden? As one famous New Yorker barked: You CAN'T be serious?
Of course, what this progressive author is arguing is that Obama and his hatchet man Rahm Emanuel should have rammed through a hardline socialist restructuring of the US economy in 2009, under the guise of an economic emergency.
But here's the telling thing--even Manjoo cannot bring himself to scratch out the word "socialism" in his article. He cites Sanders and Warren and calls them "progressives," calls their policies "Democratic populism," and other policy mush words, but he can't brace up his courage enough to call the fox a fox. Why? Because he knows, even after several years of left-wing media sycophancy for Sanders and AOC and their ilk, that their socialist dog won't hunt in the USA. And if Manjoo had given it any thought, he would recognize that if he himself won't utter the word "socialism" in 2019 for fear of its poison pill effect on the electorate, Obama would have been nuts to do it in 2009.
But the Democrats know that our crude President won't have any qualms about pulling out that tar brush if people like Warren or Sanders get nominated to oppose him. And it won't be pretty for them.
You are almost 100% right but you left out the other side of the equation. The mortgage corruption in open view never was punished. Obama never challenged the bankers and lawyers who constructed the house of sand that fell when garbage loans sold in bundles and rated AAA blew up in the 401-K's of average Americans and their homes were sold out from under them. Eric Holder hid from the robo-signing theft of bankers who should have already been in jail.
Like with the era of slavery, no truth and reconciliation commission exposed the corruption and a left -right divergence of the blame continues to this day.
Thus you had seething masses of people who never understood who was to blame and felt no one in government was looking out for their interests.
Warren, who was once a Republican may be the truth teller if she gets in. Even I. who already owns 10 Warren tee shirts is praying that she is genuine; that she shrinks Presidential inaugural balls and gets down to business of real change.
If we get another round of whitewashing the past, and corruption as usual, the next demagogue will be worse than the present orange monster.
2
Democratic Party = Mr. Rodgers
Republican Party = Dutch Schultz
Obama's dropping of his grassroots movement in 2009 was one of the most ridiculous thing I have seen done by a President in living memory on the American left.
A complete waste of a movement.
2
When will the Obamaniacs concede the abundant and conspicuous truth that their "FDR" was, is and ever shall be, a failed executive. Yes, right there in the Jimmy Carter wing of modern presidential history. Only Bill "I feel your pain" Clinton exceeds him in squandering opportunities to establish a legacy worth history's notice. Still, the hardcore Obama acolytes insist he was transformational. In fact, he's a footnote.
1
Blah blah blah! Once we had a thoughtful, cautious president. Now we have a loose cannon. Bernie Sanders is peddling Twinkie dust. Alexander Cortez is full of baloney. After the last 3 years, nobody in their right mind is interested in disruptive change. Let's stop dreaming and blathering about the Thomas Kincaid world we all would like to live in and get real.
"From this distance, the history favors Warren’s approach."
Insofar was Warren's approach goes, what you're doing is nothing more than second guessing Obama. There's no "history favoring Warren's approach". You've learned the NYT logic - Just like someone confirming a witness told a story, is corroboration of that story.
"They abandoned New Deal and "
The New Deal was abandoned by the Democratic party in the late 1960s. Let me know if you want the details. I can tell you it won't be the liberal narrative you've learned to repeat.
Well said
Good read
1
This is what President Obama promised as part of his 2008 Presidential Campaign.
Obama for President (2008):
https://youtu.be/GiB-Fs9HdyE
A very centrist message, I would say. He didn’t promise to be a Sanders or a Warren or an AOC to the country and so to criticize him for not being so, doesn’t make sense. Maybe a more appropriate headline for this article would have been that "Voters made a mistake of choosing Barack Obama as their 44th President".
And, this is from his 2012 Presidential Campaign talking about the promises he kept in his first term.
Obama Campaign Releases Video of Accomplishments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1juVpIhn1U&t=11s
By the way, I wonder if NYT published any such critical articles when President Obama was making the supposed “mistakes” in the first 6 months of his high-approval presidency.
I wish there was a way for Farhad (or NYT) to invite Obama to respond to this critique of his presidency - I guess that is not how it works. Monetarily or journalism-wise. Maybe, we will have to wait for Obama's memoir to hear his side of the story.
Irrespective, what matters most at this moment is how the Democratic presidential candidates plan to rescue the country from going downhill given the current political, social and economic climate. Unfortunately, Dems will again be left with cleaning up the mess what Trump presidency is creating. Maybe a reset of the system is the only way out of this debilitating rut.
Please go back to writing articles about how men should wear make up or we should call everyone "they". At least those ones are funny.
1
Let's keep in mind the truth that Manjoo doesn't write: That no one ever expected the Republicans to do anything to help the common man, to support major and desperately needed reforms, to rein in Wall Street, or to cooperate in any way with the Democrats.
It was, and remains, all on the Democrats.
1
If "ifs & buts were candy & nuts, we'd all have a merry christmas". While I agree that other things could have been prioritized, as a DC political novice, President Obama had no choice but to throw his lot in with Pelosi & Reid. They set the strategy & the agenda. Good things happened for the most part. Unfortunately they were so polarizing the majority/mandate was lost. President Obama made decisions that not only averted disaster for the globe but also sparked the current long term recovery.
Would you have done better Mr Manjoo?
1
Is this re-hashed cocktail party (sorry IPA slinging) talk from december 2016 Farhad? The corporate culture Obama brought to the White House and how, day one, the banks were allowed to stay too big to fail, made everyone realize, this is no radical president. Did his pollsters tell him he had to be palatably neo-liberal, so to last for two terms? Was it about nice optics, not deep change? Obamacare was great, but a gimme, long overdue
1
Farhad seems like a clever chap. So I will go to the point. A black man could not lead the Bernie 1930's socialist revolution in the US. For as little as he did (according to Farhad) he still was told " You lie" by a little South Carolina Republican congressman. See the little congressman would never had dared do this to LBJ even if his sin of civil rights to African Americans would certainly have offended the little congressman more. And also...LBJ may have walked up to him and punched him in the face. See... I'm not one of those liberal pantywaists that talks about "white privilege" but the little congressman had it and LBJ had it. Obama didn't.
This must be the first time I've read something penned by Farhad that I can agree with; Obama could have been bolder.
Had he been (like the Roosevelts), however, there have produced a bigger ethnic nationalists backlash. There would be self-appointed militia with big guns and in made up uniforms harassing ethnics, and widespread killings. Please do not underestimate the fury of white people when it comes to seeing a black man do well. Had be been too successful, it would be worse.
I.e., it was a very very restrained Obama that sent white anxiety so sky high, that eight years after a scandal free, successful presidency that had overcome a terrible recession that republicans unfailingly leave behind for others to clean up, Americans chose a rank idiot who promised to light a fire under everything good and decent about us. And oh my god they are still emerging from the netherworld, with tiki torches and big guns to shoot innocents. Such was the revulsion produced by a successful black president among people.
I.e., I am glad that Obama did what he did, picked a semi ambitious agenda; I wouldn't change anything, He too wondered whether he was in power 'too soon' in an America that would bend itself into a cruel pretzel trying to rid itself of his legacy but engaging in ripping and arson. He was right.
But, I do agree with your speculation. I too used to wonder why he was squandering away the first six months of the presidency.
1
everything makes sense looking backwards. does versailles lead to hitler's rise within a decade? who wouldn't buy apple at 12 (pre-imac/ipod/itunes/iphone)? was it obvious that hillary loses michigan in 2016. if bush and the neocons hadn't lied in 2003-04 and spoon fed us into a war that still reverberates around the globe would a million syrians have walked to europe and destabilize europe setting off rightist sentiments and resuling in brexit?
20/20 hindsight. monday morning quarterback. it all looks so easy.
so perhaps president obama's biggest opportunity was successfully making sure another worldwide 30s style economic depression didn't last for a decade.
did president obama know that his majority on the hill could be measured in months? doubtful. he was working. and he was successful.
everything makes senes looking backwards. it's click bait, BIG headlines, "I predicted this and that and only if you had listened".
but looking backwards is hardly a way to govern looking forwards.
2
Huge swaths of the country saw the market collapse and embraced....Atlas Shrugged. Good luck pushing a leftist agenda in this culture.
1
Obama’s big mistake was that he was born in Hawaii and not the South. He trusted the Republicans too much.
1
What purpose does this article serve at this point in time?
We never learn from history. Our political system is now completely driven by vested interests?
Such an article doesn’t add to our understanding at all. What a waste of ink and data bytes!
What most people fail to realize, especially his most blind supporters, is that Obama is a product of Chicago politics, which are probably the dirtiest in the history of American cities. He comes from the same tradition that produced the Daley dynasty and Rod Blagojevich, and probably a year doesn't go by without a local politician going to jail for corruption. Being the first African-American president may have fit a particular narrative for many white liberals, but in reality, nothing Obama's record (including ties to convicted Chicago slum lord Tony Rezko) suggested that he was going to govern as a progressive Democrat.
2
Every Times political Op-Ed neatly fits into 2 categories
1 - Don't vote for Democrats because they are actually just as bad as Republicans, perhaps worse ( this article )
2 - Trump is an evil dope but kind of a Rain Man like savant who magically stumbles into amazing solutions, so vote Republican ( see the Leonhardt Op-Ed on Iran for today's example )
It used to be frustrating, now it's just predictable and boring
I never tire of watching Democrats feed upon one another. Their behavior ranges from political cannibalism to self-induced political genocide. It makes for great entertainment. Valet! My lawn chair and beverage.........
2
Woulda coulda shoulda
Looking back and criticizing hardly seems worthy journalism
Focus your energy on looking forward
Is this guy kidding? The republicans, who vowed to make Obama a one term president, would have killed any legislation that he proposed, much less any major restructuring. Get real!!!
2
I pounded the pavements of North Philadelphia to get Obama elected and then I lost interest in his Presidency when I realized that he is not looking to clean-up Wall Street.
1
Elect Biden and we'll get another "bunt"
1
“Just as in the 1930s, the Republican Party’s economic policies were widely thought to have caused the crisis.”
By whom?
Hoover was a proud progressive, who raised taxes and believed in the power of government to direct the economy; it failed.
More recently, governmental insistence on “sub-prime” mortgages, in the name of “affordable housing” – were those GOP policies? – tanked the entire economy.
Yes, FDR – after running to Hoover’s right in 1932 – went wild. And failed spectacularly. Progressives Hoover and FDR turned a routine stock market burp and slowdown into catastrophe.
So did BHO. As was demonstrated in the early 1920s, the best thing to do when faced with a downturn is ... nothing. They end on their own. Instead, he blew deficits through the roof with massive spending, extended unemployment benefits, increases in food stamps, all the things leftists say improve down economies. And it all failed. From a spectacularly low baseline, he delivered the worst growth rates of any 8 year POTUS ever.
The left uses crises to advance policies which have absolutely nothing to do with the causes.
The last three years have proved that lower taxes, fewer regulations, better law enforcement, do precisely what their advocates said they would, to the great benefit of the poor and middle class.
BHO’s leftism, like FDR’s, produced disaster. But, alas, the leftist solution is always “more of the same”, because it’s ideology/faith, not facts, which guide the left.
Why now? Isn’t this article a few years late?
Upon assuming the Presidency, Obama summoned the TBTF bankers to the White House and told them he was all that stood between them and the mob with pitchforks. That's what the elite really think of us out here in the hinterlands, Folks! Rather than bust up the TBTF banks and prosecute their officers for fraud, he, instead,proceeded to bail them out with $27 trillion in easy money when $8 trillion would have paid off every mortage in America.
The ACA was bonanza for the health insurance industry and did nothing to curb drug price increases. The ACA should have included a public option but the healthcare lobby had too much influence.
Both parties during campaigns have promised large infrastructue projects to rebuild America but once elected the funds never materialize. Meanwhile, America crumbles while the rest of the civilized world builds bullet and Maglev trains. Remember when visiting America never to drink water out of the tap.
BTW, after winning thrNobel Peace Prize, Obama proceeded to sanction illegal drone warfare throughout the Middle East that killed countless innocent Moslems, many of whom were at wedding parties, festivals or tribal elder get togethers. In fact, the Obama admin killed via drone strike an American citizen and his teenage son without a trial or due process.
So the moderates are going to save us! Sure! History says otherwise!
1
Stoller's right. of course. Who was it who said: "Make no little plans…."? In the first twenty years after the Second World War the country invented a new middle class. For whites, FDR's dictum: "one-third of a nation, ill-housed..." was reversed. It's sad to acknowledge, but Rahm has been proved right and Obama proved wrong. Tant pis!
Excellent article. I would like every democrat to read it, particulary now, when Mr Obama and Ms Clinton are hanging in there, thinking they are very profundand their neoliberalism will fix Mr. Trump almost fascist traits
2
Thanks. You are actually being too gentle. So sick of the neo-liberal Obama adorers and Hamilton worshippers. Obama was never about nebulous "change". He was just another Democratic pol doing business as usual without any vision that I could make out.
2
Obama thought small & got small results. Elizabeth Warren - even then - thought big & will get big results.
1
Yes, Obama caved easily and he was naive about racisism among republicans. But, clearly, his greatest undoing was appointing an imbecile republican, james comey, to head the FBI. Obama was a terrible judge of character.
2
Though he made many huge mistakes, his biggest, by far, was backing what was probably the only person people loathed more than Trump - and despite his backing and her whining, she lost to an imbecile.
1
It is more complex and particular:
https://twitter.com/stephencrose/status/1174433379057643520?s=20
"Obama's economic policies are under fire from the Left." The policies of everyone except maybe Josef Stalin and Mao Tse Tung are under fire from the Left. This gets really old. The Times seems to be a journal of and for wistful centrist republicans like Brett Stephenson and dogmatic radicals of the left. What about the 80% of us who fall in between
I always thought Obama was one of the best Republican (light) presidents we ever had.
3
Obama was a decent and inspirational person (unlike the monster he helped put into the WH).
But he was never aggressive or assertive enough. He and Biden refused to take a public stance on the Russian interference. He refused to take bold action on climate. Missed many many opportunities. And he never used the bully pulpit or the power of the office.
1
Trump would agree. Four more. If we survive.
1
Let's be even clearer: the Obama administration years were a "lost time", for the economy, and the position of the U.S. in the world. Anyone who needs "advisor armies" for all issues is too weak for this office..., Preachers are better off in the Church.
4
Why not call this what it is: "Killing Obama"?
In this piece, like so many others inundating us from the new-left, we're being played by Corbin Trent and his small circle, all incredibly wealthy, white, and the actual people running the anti-Obama movement.
Justice Democrat rules are simple: Wealthy whites run everything; non-whites are mouthpieces and public faces of the movement.
As Thomas B. Edsall detailed in the Times, Justice Democrats are by far the smallest, whitest and most affluent part of the Democratic Party. They forcefully set a radical agenda most Democrats, especially blacks and Latinos, the most moderate Democrats, don't agree with.
Corbin Trent formed the Justice Democrats based on outrage culture using Cultural Revolution style warfare. His is a radical insurrectionist movement meant to destroy the Democratic Part as we know it. To do that Obama and his legacy must be destroyed.
When supposedly left-wing Democratic politicians and pundits attack President Obama it's a Justice Democrat talking point Ilhan Omar already made in saying President Obama was the same as Trump except he got away with "murder" because he was "pretty", and a smooth talker.
We witness here another salvo in the war Waleed Shahid, the group's spokesman, promised Justice Democrats would foment within the Democratic Party. It is a movement of true believing zealots and heretics. As zealots, they want to destroy the Democratic Party and Obama more than they want to defeat Trump.
2
I wonder if Obama cares now. He's got a few million from talks to Wall Street and $60 million (for him and his wife) on book deals, plus his congressional and presidential pensions, plus who knows what. Too bad about the millions of Americans that lost homes and jobs. Oh well.
3
Obama's greatest mistake was using all his capital and energy to push the ACA. He could have worked diligently to take control of Congress first but he didnt even campaign!! We kept asking where was he but there was no answer. It was truly the greatest waste of Presidential power ever seen
1
Thank you Farhad for contributing a paleo-liberal point of view which is out of step with the general tenor of The Times and apparently the general opinion of its readers. I very much agree. Obama led to Clinton who led to Trump.
1
Heck yeah Farhad! You’re starting to put it all together, and I think a lot of us are now. We need a reinvigorated left-liberalism in the dormant tradition of FDR and the Four Freedoms. Bernie himself is actually very skilled at invoking this tradition, and you see AOC and Warren doing it too with the Green *New Deal*, *Medicare* For All, and calls for “big, structural change.” By the way though, there are aspects of Hamilton’s thought which are incorporated into this tradition, including his more expansive conception of the General Welfare Clause.
4
Gradualism in policy making and public administration is not a sin.
Anything requiring legislation was always simply opposed by the Republicans who almost did not let George Bush pass TARP. Too much money they cried, what about the deficit. He compromised to get something done. Now the same R's pass huge tax cuts in stunning hypocrisy. Obama was in a tough spot no doubt and we certainly would have appreciated at least one prosecution of a culprit that caused the 2008 recession.
1
Bravo Farhad! Well said. And this is why--regardless of the horror of Trump--we do not want Joe Biden. True, he will be nicer than Trump, but nothing will change and the rich will get richer and Amazon will pay no taxes.
3
Tell me which laws were broken by a single major banking executive and make a legal case against them that would hold up in court. It’s a shame that people on both side of the aisle seem to have forgotten that we are a nation of laws and due process. This isn’t (yet) Venezuela where the president can simply throw somebody in jail if it’s politically expedient. Trump is driving us in that direction at alarming speed. But Obama would not play that game, and that is to his credit. My guess is that at least 9 of 10 people here, including the author of this article, would not be able to explain how the financial crisis was actually caused, who the players were, and where its roots lie. The “bailout” (TARP) was not an Obama policy, but netted the govt $15bn. Only losses were the auto bailout which was 100% done to save blue collar jobs. Other losses were from saving homeowners from losing homes after taking on loans they shouldn’t have. Obama’s policy, the ARRA, went entirely to be areas highlighted here- infrastructure, small businesses, worker training, education, health care, and unemployment benefits. Maybe it should have been larger, but $ is not the main barrier to infrastructure projects in the US, the issue is legal/regulatory. We don’t want trains over their property or power lines threatening wildlife habitat. Valid concerns. But it’s a complex issue. The great thing about counter factuals is that they can never be proven wrong. Hind sight is, indeed, always 20/20.
3
Let’s not forget that President Obama did not have the full support of the Blue Dog Democrats, among others.
This op-ed essay is spot on! I liked Obama, and voted for him enthusiastically in 2008.. But, as Farhad Manjoo writes, Obama made a yuuuuuge mistake only two months into his presidency, when he decided not to hold accountable the banks and investment firms that caused the economic meltdown of 2007-2008. Why? Personally, I think that Obama squandered the movement-like energy that had swept him into office, surrounded himself with a bunch of Ivy Leaguers, Wall Streeters, and former campaign aides, and then shut the door to the Oval Office, and governed like a neoliberal, Clintonian (!) Democrat instead of delivering on his promise of "Hope and Change." More than a decade later, here we sit, with Trump in the White House, while the Democratic "establishment" and many pundits tell us that Democrats MUST nominate a centrist in 2020. I, for one, will not fall for it.
4
@Panthiest. Barack was the house ... He served the 1% very well. Look at him now, has more money than he can count and his children and their children and probably as far as the eyes can see will not have a problem with money. He knew how to play the game for himself at the expense of the working class, notice I’m not saying middle class because there almost gone thanks to his policies,good job my man you’re up there with the 1%. Thank You
4
Obama bailed out the banks — who were supposed to bail out the bad mortgage holders. That was totally flawed because bankers care about only themselves.
Had Obama bailed out the bad mortgage holders, they would have saved the banks with their now solid investments. He and his staff were shortsighted, lazy, and toothless. I think those three attributes epitomized the Obama administration throughout.
2
And Mister's Obama and Clinton both sought approval of absent fathers, duly received from a policy concurrent republican party.
2
Obama should have dumped any notions of bi-partisanship after ONE year - not SIX. Biden's recent statements on knowing he can work with Republicans is a definite deal breaker.
1
Actually, Obama's biggest mistake was allowing us to think he was the principled liberal who won the election.
If mistake that was.
3
I remember weeping when I first read who Obama picked for his economic advisor—Lawrence Summers. I knew the jig was up as far as any hopes for a progressive economic agenda.
8
Before the Democrats adopted the policies of "neoliberalism," they had the successful presidencies of paleoliberals George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis.
Evidently, Mr. Manjoo has learned nothing from President Obama's terms in office. Here's what he should have learned: just because you can jam something through that is hated by the other side doesn't mean you should. America works best when our leaders seek consensus, such as when Republicans and Democrats came together in the 1980s to reform Social Security.
2
There are three villains here: the “too cool for school” Obama, Schumer and Pelosi. They found themselves in power due to a huge wave of revulsion at Republican rule and hope for the future. They didn’t pound the pavement and cold-call and cajole strangers. We did. More people who had never been involved in a political campaign in their lives signed up and worked to bring 2008 about. And after we won, we were ignored. Raul Emmanuel dismissed us as “the professional left.”
All our hard work and hope, and we got: a Republican health care plan that was a French kiss to the insurance “industry” and my money bailing out banksters who promptly socked it away without investing it. Pelosi and Schumer shrugging “What you gonna do?” Instead of playing hard ball with the traitors in the GOP (yes, traitors. People who kneecap the economy on purpose to gain votes in the midterms aren’t for the country they serve.)
Wasted time and effort, all of it.
3
“It is tricky to criticize Obama from the left in the Trump era”.
It’s not tricky but pointless and counterproductive.
3
The only issue I take with your column, is the revisionist false credit:
"Obama and his team responded to the recession with a set of smaller emergency measures designed to fix the immediate collapse of financial markets. They succeeded: The recession didn’t turn into a depression, markets were stabilized, and the United States began a period of long, slow growth."
In fact, the recession was largely over before obama had time to do anything at all (other than those infamous backroom meetings with pharmco he held in Feb 2009).
The recession officially ended in Q2 2009, again, before obama had time to direct his staff to house-break his new puppy.
2
The true crime was the way banks dictated that few if any could re-fi their home's mortgage for the decreased value after the crash. Myself, I lost my home to the bank only to see it sold to someone who paid 30% of what I had paid for it. But, so long as the banks were happy! Enter Trump.
2
I guess my memory is a bit better than many of those that write below. When President Obama took office we were faced with the very real probability of another Great Depression. We were embroiled in a incredibly stupid war in Iraq that was costing us trillions and which there was no easy way out of. We were also at war in Afghanistan with no clear exit. Our ability to respond to the financial crisis was hampered by the immense deficits incurred because of the wars. Despite the majority in both houses there was strong resistance to even the responses that were implemented. The fact that President Obama was able to effectively address all these issues and thereby avert another full blown depression, significantly reduce our footprint in the Middle East, and still pass legislation that greatly reduced the uninsured was a remarkable achievement. Even so the ACA has been under constant attack by the right for no discernable reason other than it was passed by Obama since it was a Republican plan to begin with. One can only imagine what the resistance would have been had he pushed for the radical programs advocated in this article. And let's also remember that support for addressing climate change has only recently garnered anything close to consensus even today. It was barely on the radar in 2008 for most people. So let's please be careful that we don't further destroy our chances at defeating the worst president the country has ever had by denigrating one of the best.
3
For all his good intentions, President Obama surrounded himself with NY “meritocrat” Wall Street types, as opposed to FDR’s cabinet that was populated by progressive thinkers with diverse experiences from the middle of the country . Mr.Obama blew it
The Obama “economic fixers” included meritocrats us h as Geithner, Larry Summers, Jack Lew, Rahm Emanuel, who all worked hard to protect Wall Street. The recovery was awesome for Wall Street, terrible for the middle class, thus Trump.
Consider how Stephen Cohen, the hedge funder, was found guilty of insider trading, paid a billion dollar fine, but was allowed to keep $9 billion dollars and keeps at it
So, now, what passes as the Democratic establishment insists the country is “centrist”, by which they mean keep the status quo, though middle class voters long for system-wide reform . VP Biden promises status quo, Senator Warren promises structural reforms, or capitalism with rules, but she’s the “radical Socialist”? Hu? It doesn’t it make sense, and it’s not supposed to. Senator Warren will modify some of her ideas, like universal Medicare for all, which one suspects will be expanded and encouraged, not forced.
4
I think Farhad is quite correct. 2008 was a major wasted opportunity to do something positive on the Rooseveltian scale. People were ready for it. Obama’s failure to act will forever assure his place among the good but not great presidents.
3
This article's author blames Obama for what he always was: an optimistic and moderate politician devoted to compromise and pragmatism as a vital tool for legislative success---and a president who every day of his tenure was made acutely aware that he was a Black person presiding over a nation that still refuses to reckon with the past and present racial degradation of people of color. If the very left had bothered to look at his pre-presidential record and beyond their disdain for the Clintons, they would have known what they were getting. Similar to Obama's right wing foes, many of Obama's most ardent fans now turned most vociferous critics viewed Obama through the prism of race---that the Black guy with the funny name and inspirational message was going to be a radical shakeup for America and bring about revolutionary change. Coming on the heels of the Bush economic meltdown, many Americans just wanted what they got: a fundamentally decent president who was dedicated to steady, dependable, responsible leadership with no drama. If he had one great fault, it was that he was TOO optimistic and confident of his rhetorical abilities to deliver America to true democratic transcendence. Now, look what we have.
1
This doesn't seem to compute or it is hopelessly muddled.
The problem is that Manjoo does not distinguish the amount between estimates of how big and increase in spending over ONE year and TWO years. The eyepopping $ 1.7 or $1.8 trillion favored by Christy Romer (Obama's advisers) was over TWO years. Here is Scheiber's quotation from Romer: "To achieve that magnitude of effective stimulus using a feasible combination of spending, taxes and transfers to states and localities would require package costing about $1.8 trillion over two years.”
So if the Obama administration's stimulus spent $800 billion in budget year 2009-2010, then it is basically the same as Romer's proposal.
Nor is there a huge difference between Obama's $800 billion and Krugman's $1 trillion.
I am also puzzled by Manjoo's bashing of neo-liberals. The hero (or heroine) of his story is or was a centrist. In a November 2008 paper, she and her husband concluded that tax cuts can increase economic output.
3
I've never heard anyone who wasn't a leftist/socialist use the term "neoliberalism."
It's like the term "cultural Marxism" - as soon as you see it, you can stop reading and assume the writer has an ideological agenda you've heard 100 times before.
Forget practicalities and pragmatism. Let's bash a first-term president for not revolutionizing our economy while simultaneously saving us for the worst crises since the Great Depression.
And it takes a certain level of chutzpah to refer to yourself with the plural "they." (Oh god, "they" wrote a whole op-ed about it.) Using a plural pronoun in place of a singular pronoun just creates a great deal of unnecessary confusion in the name of degendering language - which is an entirely reasonable goal to pursue, but for Christ's sake, just invent a non-binary singular pronoun.
I couldn’t agree more and I LOVE Obama. I just haven’t been as articulate as you. I especially feel if he (and GW) had gone hard on Wall Street during the global financial crisis and put those guys in jail rather than slapping them on the wrists and giving them bonuses, we might not be in the mess we’re in now.
It’s tricky to criticize someone so loved by many and I don’t think anyone could criticize his demeanor and grace. It’s just no one is perfect and yes, he let a good crisis go to waste.
Onward and outta here with this current mess.
1
No, Farhad; an opening gambit to his second term, without the blistering opposition from a hypocritical, ‘mean spirited’, Oppo party *may* very well have been the opportunity to set out, if not accomplish such goals but it seems you’ve forgotten or overlooked the nitty gritty of what he had to do at the time, i.e., get us out of the ditch that W & co had driven us into (with such reckless abandon)!!! Oh, & don’t forget that ‘health care thing’, the ACA, aka, Obamacare he accomplished ... something, how many Presidents *didn’t* achieve?!?
Obama wanted everyone to like him because he was the first black president and he wanted to come across as the answer for everyone to everything. Black people carry that cross based on the abject racism and criticism we are subjected to. We are too eager to please white people so they can see we are as smart and as interesting as they. I think finally black people know we could walk on water and we would still be subjected to the same crucifixion as Jesus Christ.
3
Obama was and is an empty suit. Clearly an opportunist with a gift of gab that only a car salesman can envy.
Eight years of zero results, finding that crossing the aisle was like parting the RedSea.
Made the USA a laugher overseas, disrespected by most foreign powers of any consequence and cockblocked domestically because of his blatant inability to do just about anything.
Of course,he will be remembered as the first black president with a whole bunch of asterisks after his name. Earned and we'll deserved.
2
Yes you have to remember where Obama came from. The University of Chicago. Basking in privileged, smug, self righteous, elite Ivy League-ism. Trust me, I am from the University of Chicago.
3
This article is nothing other than a thinly-veiled hit job on Joe Biden...by association he is also guilty of Obama's biggest mistake. Let's keep trashing Biden as this paper seems happy to do...as happy as you were trashing Hillary Clinton, in an attempt to not been seen as biased. Well, look where that got us...
1
Manjoo is just regurgitating the 'Obama Is Wrong' nonsense that was peddled by Hillary Clinton's health care plan- is- best folks like Paul Krugman.
Turns out it was Obama who, far from armchair columnizing, actually got laws passed - the Affordable Care Act - remember - and which Trump and Republicans have still been be unable to fully dismantle!
And then won election twice , by the largest popular margins, since Eisenhower.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton could not win, twice over. - still trying to blame Obama for that?!
Second-biggest, once President Obama threw the heroic Snowden under the bus.
1
Also did nothing for his most fervent supporter, Black folks>
2
Bigger even than dropping 67,000 bombs on 7 countries (according to the NY Times) during his tenure, killing...how many? Bigger than doing nothing to free the dark-skinned and poor from the terrorism visited upon them by the war on drug-users? Bigger than just wanting to get re-elected, along with most of the other US presidents? Think for yourself.
2
Once upon a time, the article of greatest importance was what appeared in the top right corner of the Times' front page. Now it is occupied by a know-nothing, who doesn't even know how little he knows, because the editors encourage him.
3
We saw through Obama almost immediately.
"Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton pulled out of the race to declare, on CNBC: "Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jun/14/barackobama.uselections2008
https://www.akpress.org/hopeless.html
2
So why are you criticizing Obama now while the GOPers are so desperate and looking for any and all reason to blast Obama?
I resent this article at this time.
3
How sad that the NYT wastes our time with this type of opinion. President Obama was more focused on racial inequality rather than financial inequality. So what? What if he had incurred substantially more debt, and that approach failed? We would be much worse off today. He was articulate and likable. He set a good example for our youth by being a good parent. Please stop looking for reasons to criticize him. He is no longer president.
Obama's biggest mistake? Let's not go there. Right now we have a thousand terrible mistakes, Trump. The worst president ever. The biggest toxic, swamp, corrupt administration we ever had. And you are really searching for irrational criticism and grumbles about one of our best ever.
Really smart, honest, good people in this country miss O and his family terribly. You can find something to nitpick anyone.
‘schneo-liberalism.’ That's a new one and quite a stretch. :-)
CHOSEN is an anagram of schneo. I think Warren is the one to schneo and stop nit-schnicking.
2
“The sluggish recovery in Obama’s first years led to a huge loss for Democrats in the 2010 midterms.“
What a bizarre misread of history. This was the era of the Tea Party, which was a backlash to the ACA, and arguably, to the fact that a black man sat in the White House. The idea that it’s linked to the foreclosure crisis is quite a stretch.
This author always has a problem with beginning with his ideology and then searching for facts to back it up.
3
Exactly.
1
Let's give Obama for having a scandal-free presidency.
However, he made five mistakes:
1. Bringing Salazar, Sibelius, and Napolitano from the hinterlands into his cabinet, leaving their seats up for grabs by his adversaries.
2. Syria. Need to say more?
3. The birther nonsense. Had Pelosi and Reid forced a vote, putting squeal-like-a-pig congressmen on record (McConnell and Boehner: "gosh, I cannot tell people what to think"), at least we would have a record of their treason. John McCain was born in the Panama Canal zone, yet confirmed as a U.S. citizen by the Senate. (Oh, right; he was SWM, and had a $100M wife (who inexplicably got away with wearing white to their wedding)).
4. The ACA debacle. Obamacare was basically what the Heritage Foundation proposed as an alternative to Hillarycare in 1993. He should have blown the dust off of the Heritage Foundation plan and demanded a bill within 90 days. ("Republicans, it's what YOU wanted!")
5. Merrick Garland. What a stooge. After so many years, Obama never figured out that Charlie Brown never got to kick the football. Obama should have nominated Denise Clayton -- an appeals court judge, from Kentucky, and African-American. Would McConnell have let her twist in the wind?
Whatever became of Democrats:Lyndon Johnson, Tip O'Neill, and yes, Bill Clinton? They morphed into Democrats that are well-liked by so-called progressives, but go on to lose decorously.
2020 is nearly upon us, and four more years of Trump.
2
I assume you want a President from a banana republic who can impose his policies by fiat. Our system of government has checks and balances. President Obama faced a Senate whose leader blatantly refused to process his judicial appointments. He had a Congress that was pretty determined to hinder his policies. When one takes those factors into account when has to wonder why the NY Times publishes such piffle.
Trump is Obama's legacy.
1
Dem voters left Obama twisting in the breeeze and gave up the legislature out of laziness
The failed again in 14.
Try mmaking changes without any support from the voters
OMG! I never thought I would see an article like this in the New York Times. I am 72. I don’t hold out much hope. And I am so tired of being told by Democrats that I have to love the sacred cow, Obama. But with an article like this being published in the NYT, I think I can almost die happy.
3
Farhad,
Obama’s greatest failure was he left his Black support
in the same condition as when he became President. They still have the Largest crime rate for their population, and remain on the lowest rung of the economic ladder.They deserved much better.
3
Alexander Hamilton fought on the field with George Washington and died in a dual with Aaron Burr defending his beliefs.It his guys like Mr.Manjoo that invoke his name for their own screeds that are the problem.
The first black President who, through his miserable, designed-to-fail HAMP, contributed to a huge loss of wealth among the black middle class.
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/12/obama-foreclosure-crisis-wealth-inequality
2
They -- as Farhad Manjoo likes to term themselves -- are trashing Obama only in order to promote the media's designated savior, Warren. Oh, well, you can't make a socialist omelette without breaking some lefty eggs.
This piece illustrates how far off the rational tracks Progressives have gone. May they continue to go far astray until they lose decisively in 2020. Then you will see a revival in the Dem Party of Bill Clinton's more moderate, triangulating policies.
1
The Obama's like the Clintons began as liberal democrate-socialist but fell into the trap of capitalism. Both family forgot where they came from. Hillary Clinton played hippie yet set her daughter up in a 1O million dollar apartment in New York. The Obama's new multi-million dollar homes in America's whitiest neighborhood represent everything in society Barrack stood against - don't take my word for it, read his (before he ran for office). Being "rich" is great but don't put it down as you're climbing the ladder to new heights cause you'll get a nose bleed.
2
I give Farhad Manjoo, a former technology reporter for the NYT, enormous credit for having the courage to write an opinion piece critical of President Obama in a paper that likes to throw red meat to its readers. I knew that Obama was not going to be a transformational president when he named Tim Geithner, a Wall Street insider, as his treasury secretary. President Obama was also a fan of Larry Summers, who, along with Robert Rubin, was responsible for the deregulation of the financial markets that directly led to the Big Recession. I wonder why Manjoo did not name the close advisers who were against the stronger stimulus, and I have to wonder if the names were removed by an editor, for fear of further antagonizing the NYT's avid readership. The other thing that Manjoo might have added was that no Wall Street titan was criminally prosecuted by Justice Secretary Eric Holder, another Obama insider. Instead, Goldman's Blankfein, surely one of the first whom should have been prosecuted, was invited to a White House dinner. And now we learn that President Obama is the proud owner of five multi-million dollar houses. Those of us who are honest with ourselves, despite our liberal leanings, know the way that he has chosen.
1
It's why you don't elect a no-name back benching junior senator from Illinois with no experience to be Leader of the Free World.
Bill Ayers had more to do with him getting positioned to be elected than Obama himself.
He was a puppet being run by the machine behind Chicago politics, but had no earthly reason for being President.
Even on issues of Constitutional Law where you'd think he'd have some knowledge? He instead brought hubris to the stage...running over the Constitution on a monthly basis to try to do through Executive Action what he couldn't do when he lost a Democrat super majority in the Senate and the House.
The thing that's good about Trump is he'll do a deal with anyone as long as it makes sense.
Too bad Democrats have wasted the last 3 years pushing Russia, Recession. Racism..instead of actually thinking about legislation they could pass that would help their constituents.
Obamanomics failed miserably, other than making the UAW filthy stinking rich..and the bankers..and health insurance firms..
Nobody went to jail for the 2007 collapse..and that...my friends..is Obama's legacy. (They were probably all donating to the Obama campaign)
4
Typical NEO-Marxist rhetoric using the "neoliberal" epithet to slime anyone who's not a socialist.
"But they could have done so much more."
Is it really fair to evaluate a president by means of clairvoyance? I find it quite strange the degree to which he seems to be vilified for failing to do things that he never claimed that he would do.
I believe that President Obama was smart enough to know that every single thing he did in office would trigger a histrionic rage reaction from White America (which he was quite correct about) and had to calculate the impact of that into his decisions.
I will close with a quote from the article that precedes the quote I posted: "Obama and his team responded to the recession with a set of smaller emergency measures designed to fix the immediate collapse of financial markets. They succeeded: The recession didn’t turn into a depression, markets were stabilized, and the United States began a period of long, slow growth."
Prevented a depression? That's all? Man, what a jerk.
1
Anyone who gave any scrutiny to his pre-2008 history wasn’t surprised by his actions as president.
Underneath the veneer of his “community organizer” campaign hype, was a corporatized, “New Democrat” in the Bill Clinton mold.
For him, it wasn’t missed opportunities- it was opportunities to earn the gratitude of the CEO class. And the payoffs started just months after leaving office - relaxing on Richard Branson’s private island.
The “community organize” Chicagoan who presided over the largest loss of black middle class wealth has been steadily adding to his own wealth ever since.
1
Two words: Merrick Garland
1
And let’s not overlook Obama’s failure to hold anyone at all responsible for the fraud that was the Iraq war, for the torture and human rights violations, for Abu Ghraib. No, we were supposed to forgive, forget, and — favorite centrists Dem words — “move on.” Mission accomplished? He was a great campaigner in 2008 and a decent man, but a terrible terrible politician. And we’re living through the results. But the point isn’t to cast blame, it’s to try to learn something for next time. Are the Democratic leaders paying attention? Or are they really going to force Biden down our throats? In which case... he will lose. Even if he wins.
2
Hindsight is always 20/20! What is missing is how many bold ideas can you achieve in a short period? Especially when the Republicans from day one did nothing but oppose everything President Obama wanted to do even programs that they themselves had proposed. Health care would have never passed if it had to compete with other “bold” measures. Now we have every “idea in the universe being proposed but unless you have someone who can defeat Tump you have nothing. Democratic voters know this and that is why the VP has led from day one.
2
It's time to give progressives a chance to run the country. Real progressives.
1
Excellent pierce its exactly this kind of lack of ambition during a true moment of change that defined the Obama Presidency and gave us trump. Obama had a true FDR moment, an opportunity to intact real change that presidents' could only dream of. Can you imagine what Clinton Gore or Warren would have been able to do in that position. In the end the only achievements were Obamacare a plan more to the right then Romney Care or even what the heritage foundation had proposed, An all out attack on civil liberties that made Bush seem like a card carrying ACLU member, and of course the drone kill list. MLK was truing in his grave in seeing who the first black president turned out to be. In the end Obama was more of a actor allowing people to project the man they wanted see
1
Obama’s biggest mistake was passing himself off as the next FDR when all he was was the next Bill Clinton. Neoliberals who betrayed the democrat party and the country.
1
This essay and its comments illustrate yet again the sad tendency of the left to eat their own best hopes.
Barack Obama was the left's best hope in 2008 and 2012. And in the real world, particularly in the matter of added regulation, especially of private property, he was plenty left.
Ask any farmer who tried to deal with 2015's executive order, "waters of the United States" that deemed every puddle "navigable" and subject to regulatory diktat!
For that matter, consider the assault on the rule of law by the "Dear Colleague" letter that demanded that colleges replace due process in court for those accused of sexual misconduct with ideological kangaroo courts run by administrators hired for that purpose!
What about the Title VII order about "disparate impact" that helped destroy order in public schools, demanding that discipline be meted out by racial or ethnic group, rather than to the individuals who actually disrupt the classrooms, robbing others of their chance to learn?
This is not far enough left for Manjoo?
I am trying to understand what makes the progressive left think that a massive expansion of government is what a majority of Americans want. Do we really want more commissars who are every bit as frustrating as corporate bureaucrats but with the police power of the state?
As a proud centrist, I WANT my representatives to keep tinkering incrementally around the edges to make things better than they are. I read history, and know revolutions rarely end well.
re: Why had Obama chosen this elitist path
I will leave it to Paul Krugman, to answer this question
"Look, with even a few mild words of reproof, Obama has lost a huge funding source from Wall Street. "
Source
https://www.ft.com/content/022acf50-a4d1-11e1-9a94-00144feabdc0
Politicians do not bite the hand that feeds them.
Disclosure
I voted for Obama twice. After voting for Sanders in the NY State primary
1
What a pleasure that the Times finally has one or more opinion columnists who don't see FDR/ LBJ Democrats as "radical leftists." Thank you Farhad Manjoo.
Support the proletariat in our class struggle comrade!
1
Trump is brilliant. He is doing everything his fascist supporters want - which is to ensure white supremacy and minority rot.
Obama was like all Democrats...believing in fantasies.
Farhad Manjoo, can’t wait to read your opinion about Donald Trump.
When the juggler is balancing balls of fire in the air, you could always throw another one at him.
Like Franklin Roosevelt? You're assuming he was up to the task. Obama couldn't carry half of FDR's water on his best day.
"He led from the rear." Need we say more.
1
Farhad, you should stick to talking about phones.
2
This is a hindsight article, a hit on Biden and an endorsement of Warren/Sanders policies which have a "Snowballs chance in Hell" of passing in their present form with a Republican Senate. The problem is the Democrats in Congress have no spines. The House knows what the Trump game plan is on responding to their request. Instead of waiting for the expected delays from the Trump administration they should use their power to arrest and detain folk who don't comply and let the courts have at it while keeping folk arrested detained. Obama was a "Show Horse" not a workhorse and an inexperienced political neophyte. Franklin Roosevelt was governor of NY for several years and had political experience and used his political experience to do things. Lyndon Johnson also used his political skills to get things done, albeit Vietnam was a disaster. Obama did not have those political skills when elected. His lack of accomplishments reflects the problems of someone taking on the office of President with limited political experience.
Not making excuses for President Obama's missed home run, but let's not forget that on day one of his presidency, Mitch McConnell and his party of unAmerican hypocrites declared a take no prisoners, scorched earth declaration of war against him. That war included the Roberts Court and the Fox Propaganda Network.
It's not that President Obama chose not to hit a home run, rather it's difficult to do so when the Republican team pitches spit balls, ump Roberts calls everything Republicans throw a strike and the Fox game broadcaster lies about...well everything.
I too wanted a bolder Obama presidency, but too many American people chose Tea Party hypocrites based on Fox lies.
3
When you get a mortgage, you have to have clear income to pay it. When Obama took office, any loan for stimulus he could take, he needed to pay. There was no clear income to make an astounding payment, but despair all over. A pragmatist was needed and he did what was needed at the moment. Is easy to look back now and say, oh, he could’ve done this. In the middle of a chaotic time, the best choice is pragmatism. I am sure that if taken that big loan for stimulus, he would be damn for taking too much national debt. As the Spanish saying states: Malo si boga, malo si no boga.
1
President Obama did his best with what he could, probably could've done more if given the chance. The fact that you are talking about Obama's mistakes are ridiculous at this time when we have a President who's insane!!! He chose an Elitist path? Really? And Trump giving the rich a tax break they don't need, cutting tax breaks to middle and lower income families, such as if your taxes are over 15,000, the max you can claim is 10,000, plus his new 2019 tax plan that's going to screw every person once they file their taxes. What did they say, we were going to be able to have that new kitchen we desire. Unlike the rich having a new kitchen is not the priority, having food on the table, health care, paying mortgage, children activities and college education is the priority. Who the hell has money to redo their kitchen?
This is a bit of revisionist history to support the left wing of the party in the primaries. The main problem faced by Obama is mentioned nowhere in the article—the unprecedented surge of Koch organization money that took over Congress in 2010. You can argue about how different, but it would certainly have been a different country otherwise.
It’s true that Obama should have asked for more stimulus money at the beginning, but much of the rest of the article is a convenient exercise in blaming moderates for actions they couldn’t take. It’s worth remembering that Obama had a hell of a time getting Obamacare put together and only got it passed by a bureaucratic maneuver, after an avalanche of Koch money replaced Ted Kennedy by Scott Brown. Hindsight is easy, but it would not have been so easy to recognize there were going to be only two years (in the time left over from the Obamacare fight) to get anything done.
One thing that particularly irks me about articles like this is that they’re so eager to go after party moderates that they let Republicans completely off the hook. The main reason for the slow recovery was that the Congressional Republicans wanted it that way. They shut down government so that things wouldn’t get better. We were all held hostage for the tax cuts delivered by Trump.
13
This opinion is blinded by inaccurate nostalgia, and fails to recognize the depth of economic disaster that Obama inherited as well as the impact of an intransigent GOP.
This opinion is also useless in the present moment.
9
Obama was clearly conflict averse. How can we say that? Easy, he never fought for anything, from the public option to Merrick Garland. He is a good man with incredible campaign skills who terribly miscalculated the mendacity of his political opposition. He never even mentioned Merrick Garland’s name at the 2016 convention.
258
I have a good friend who is a CEO at JP Morgan. He once said to me in an argument that “economics is not your strong suit”. I started reading — Richard Wolff, Michael Hudson, Mark Blyth, Piketty, David Harvey — to be able to back up some of my opinions. I became more and more convinced that neoliberals are wrong. And that as much as I liked Obama — he sold us out. The moneyed elite reaped their gains with the help of government policies. The government should be for the citizens, not the corporate class. I don’t think a democracy can survive the current system.
6
Now, I despised Obama - full disclosure. But I find it completely fascinating to watch liberals turn on a president who was arguably loved more than even Bill Clinton. Not like a lot of Dems occupied the White House the past 40 or so years. Sounds REALLY desperate to push that far-left agenda doesn't it?
4
Hindsight is a great thing.
3
Farhad Manjoo's biggest mistake rhymes with mom-unism -- it's an economic disaster and a political dead end. His thinking is so pernicious and yet so pervasive among leftists. It's quite simply maddening. There's a lot of talk about the New Deal, but Michael Grunwald, in his 2012 book, documents that the Recovery Act had a bigger economic impact. Reality always disappoints fantasists.
If voters rejected what Democrats proffered, what they really want, according to Manjoo, is actually more of it. If someone rejects strawberry cake, by God, give her two pieces. Manjoo's thinking has its parallel among those libertarians who imagined the Tea Party was about taxes. "People are rejecting Republicans because of spending!" Note, too, that the parallel extends in this way: Moderate critiques are entirely ignored.
As for what caused the Crisis, it's more complicated than "Republicans." It involves bad government policy, perverse incentives, as well as a saving glut in the East. As Benn Steil writes, "Dollars sent to China for merchandise came back overnight in the form of low-interest loans, and were then quickly recycled through the U.S. financial system to create more cheap credit. No force acted to reverse the growing Chinese trade surplus or U.S. deficits -- no dollar depreciation to make U.S. goods more competitive, and no gold outflow or Fed tightening to restrain the growth of U.S. credit. All forms of securitized credit -- in particular, those related to housing -- boomed."
1
Obama and Max Baucus made an independent out of me, a life long Democrat. Obama was one of Wall Street's favorite Democrats, along with the Clintons. I want the chance to vote for a Democrat that Wall Street hates and fears, like Elizabeth Warren.
7
This is a very honest assessment of the past failures of the Democratic party and is extremely persuasive to embolden progressives who are ready to take back the Democratic party and this nation. As much as I admire Obama, and helped with his campaign, I was saddened to see the strength of potential progress turn into wasted and missed opportunities that we my never reach again. We cannot be content with just holding on to what we still have. We must define the future and start moving forward to get there. If we continue to piecemeal and band-aid what is doable, achievable, affordable, etc. we continue to get further behind. The moderates need to get willing to leap forward and give voters a glimpse of what is possible if we all work together for a greater America, instead of being satisfied with what we can get for ourselves, and screw everyone else.
4
Everyone lauds FDR for his New Deal policies, forgetting that he, too, tended toward incrementalism, at least until Ameican voters elected a very liberal Congress in 1934. FDR's administration--frightened by candidates such as Upton Sinclair, who very nearly won the California governor's race--quickly moved to the left in 1935, with Social Security, the WPA, etc.
Obama gauged, correctly, as it turned out--given the rise of the Tea Party--that Americans were not ready to move farther left. In other words, both presidents correctly "read the room" and acted accordingly.
6
This is a well organized, well argued piece that I would recommend to anyone who wants to still appreciate the greatness of Barack Obama but at the same time concede his shortcomings. But just as it is necessary to critique his presidency for what it got wrong, it's also probably going to be necessary someday to reconsider his progressive legacy in a more positive light than most progressives see it. I very much appreciate the work that Bernie Sanders has done in turning the Democratic discourse leftward, and I'm overjoyed to see the support that he and Elizabeth Warren are enjoying in the Democratic primary. If they work it right, one of the two of them will be the nominee. The thing is, I don't really know if we would have ever gotten to this point without Obama leading the way. He compromised in really problematic ways but he WAS progressive and he was open about his aim to one day get to a single payer system, and to achieve greater racial and economic justice.
9
"For at least three decades, neoliberalism has brought the left economic half-measures and political despair. It’s time to demand more."
This is a great article and points out the problem with the policies of Democrats for decades. What it doesn't clearly address is how these policies have been tied to voter apathy and disillusionment.
When I talk to friends, acquaintances and strangers about voting and the state of politics more often than not they tell me they don't bother voting or vote rarely and never in local elections or for their representatives in D.C.
The reason given most often is that they don't believe anything politicians do has any connection to them and their everyday lives. They tell me it's all geared towards the wealthiest individuals and corporations so why bother. Hillary and Bill, Al Gore, Barack Obama and the rest of the Democratic party believed in this walk away from the middle and lower classes thinking that a global focus would somehow help everyone. Guess again, and look where we are today. We are sliding toward a 2nd or 3rd class existence for most Americans as the decimation of the middle class continues with little to no help in sight.
The once great society of Rome eventually fell apart as it followed a long slow downward slide much like our current trajectory.
Who is on the horizon to try and turn this around? Warren? Sanders? Yang? Anyone?
One thing for certain...It ain't old Uncle Joe and his record player.
6
This is ignoring the conservative Democrats who made up a crucial fraction of the Democrat's super majority. As it was, Obamacare barely made it through the Senate and only after plenty of compromise. A larger and more direct stimulus package would not have gotten through the Senate. Obama achieved as much as was realistically possible at the time.
6
Obama and the Clintons didn't invent American style neo-liberalism. That would have been Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party. But they did jump on board believing it to be the economic model of the future. It was being promoted by OECD, The World Bank, WTO, and conservative economists everywhere. The recovery exposed neo-liberalism's many weaknesses outline in Mr. Manjoo's essay. Trump is really trying to "fix" neo-liberalism. Going lighter on free trade and heavy on deregulation and tax cuts. But neo-liberalism can't be fixed. What you see is what you get. It needs to be abandoned in favor of a more democratic economic model that does not favor corporations and the wealthy that severely distorts the economy and society.
7
Monday morning QB-ing 10 years later, gotta love it. Perhaps the criticism is warranted, but perhaps the approach suggested by the author would have sent the US and world economies into a tailspin. We'll never know.
As well,as others here have pointed out, economice reform was not part of Obama's campaign platform. He used his political capital instead to bring us the ACA which has enraged the GOP ever since out of jealous envy.
5
Yes, but... The Clintons and Obama after them shifted to the right in order to win elections, after Carter, Mondale, Dukakis lost them using the same-old same-old Big-G strategies. It was the American People, not the Democrats, that made the country neoliberal.
6
This is Monday morning quarterbacking. Coulda Woulda Shoulda is easy ten years after the crisis. Obama's approach was to reverse the recession and put us on a path toward sustained growth. He did that. What should have happened next were the investments in infrastructure and clean energy that would have taken the American economy to a really solid place. But Mitch McConnel and co. were determined to kick Obama in the teeth at every chance. In the word of McConnel's master "Sad".
6
Here in the coastal PNW, various attempts have been made to enact the policies Warren/Sanders advocate and address climate change. Voters in Washington voted down a gas tax increase, and earlier this year the republican state senate caucus ran away to avoid passing a climate change bill. One of the senators threatened to shoot at troopers if they tried to bring him back to Oregon. If this can happen in environmentally conscious Oregon, just imagine what the reaction would be in the entire USA.
So, the author and others who think Obama could have done much more should reassess. And remember, all the leaders in the PNW are White. They still can’t get it done even without the burden of racism.
3
This isn’t about gadgets!
2
An excellent article and review of the Stoller book that reveals the illusion of the utopian years of the Obama administration and how we got the aberrant, darker dystopian Trump presidency. American voters need to look in a mirror so that in 2020 avoid the demagoguery and populism of opportunistic politicians interested in their own greedy agendas that perpetuate the injustices to our own people. Time to take our country back and reverse the course set in motion by Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama and Trump.
2
Please avoid using the term punditocracy. It implies a ruling authority that the punditry has no business assuming. Obama was relatively inexperienced and hamstrung in his first years. He retained many Republicans as economic adviser and as you point out the Democrats were hobbled by the repeated concessions to Republican cabal that started in Fords' cabinet led primarily by DIck Cheney and culminated with Newt Gingrich and destruction of decorum https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/.
There was little chance of congressional approval of the 800 billion bail out much less the 1.5 trillion that was needed. The types of structural reform that "could have been" accomplished require far more pain to the electorate than was experienced at the time. Perhaps we are prepared for it now and Warren's sincerity will break through the perception by the working class that impedes her. She is the best hope for the types of structural reform this article mentions.
5
I would rather have Obama back as President than the current occupant of he White House. Any day. But, Obama was timid, and let the repubs run over him. He did not forcefully put in place actions that the country needed, ie health care and adequate stimulus. He did not effectively manage Puerto Rico, which he allowed to deteriorate and become a mess. He did not insist that his nominee for Supreme Court receive a vote.
He was a leader who did not lead. He tried to find middle ground, before engaging with the other side. They would then pull policy very close to their own position.
I long for his return, which is why I'm OK, but only OK, with Uncle Joe. Great ideas take great leaders, not reactionary demagogues, to put them into place.
3
The column asserts "By the time Obama took office, job losses had accelerated so quickly that his advisers calculated the country would need $1.7 trillion in additional spending to get back to full employment. A handful of advisers favored a very large government stimulus of $1.2 trillion; some outside economists — Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, James Galbraith — also favored going to a trillion."
Please explain how Trump achieved full employment, or near full employment, without the Obama advisers' recommended expenditure of $1.2-1.7 trillion.
The headline writers are too cute by half. Why the ‘schneo-liberalism’ in the subcaption, instead of 'neoliberalsim' used in the column?
6
Just a hunch, but I think that has something to do with the fact that even with half measures, the expenditures, bailing out the auto companies, (loans that were paid back,) regulating the financial sector (although not nearly enough,) and other measures Obama took got us out of a major recession and a possible 2nd Great Depression, so that by the time Trump got into office the economy had more or less righted itself. I wouldn’t give Trump too much credit for any of that. His tax reform bill gave the economy a short boost, but that has already lost it steam. It’s funny how many people like yourself who support Trump can be so obtuse as to not recognize Obama’s policies, half measures though they may have been, led to a healthier economy and set the stage of the next presidency.
3
@Jared Trump inherited a growing economy, not a Great Recession. Get it?
2008 was also just 7 years removed from 9/11/2001, the world was very different then for more than just economic reasons.
2
Well argued but ignores HUGE aspect of issue, the Why.
Why did Obama and Bill Clinton before him lean center-right economically (aka neo-liberally)?
Hint: it wasn't because of how well-performing or how popular Big Government policy was at the time.
1
All true, except I believe we tend to underplay the resistance of Republicans, how even when they (narrowly) lacked majority in either House, the abuse hurled at Obama and the underhanded politicking we now know, was already at work. Ten minutes after passing Obamacare, Obama lost much real power to affect change.
6
I don't know if Obama believed in neoliberalism so much as he believed in taking the middle road and in compromise for the sake of compromise. Bill Clinton believed in neoliberalism as the means to an end.
Clinton was happy to hear the counsel unapologetic liberals - such as Hillary (at the time) and Labor secretary Robert Reich. If he had been President in 2008, I think he would have happily embraced the arguments put forth by people like Paul Krugman, Joseph Steiglitz and James Galbraith as to why we need a large stimulus. Obama, OTOH, was always drawn to people who seemed to hold out for a middle ground. He had a fondness for a type of conservatism that no longer existed. He and George H.W. Bush would have worked well together, but Bush senior was out of fashion with the Republican party even while he was in office.
4
We can always wish for more from our presidents--from various perspectives--and I share the view of others that Obama mortgaged some of our national standing with his approach to drone warfare.
But where neoliberalism is concerning, this column is Monday morning quarterbacking. Obama took over a scared, deeply divided nation and faced detractors who would seize on almost any misstep. Without a measure of basic trust and confidence in the economy, none of the bolder measures Manjoo envisions were remotely in the cards.
Would Obama would have enacted a bolder vision were he given the chance? Perhaps not, but that's beside the point now. Of far greater concern is the national and global threat posed by the undoing of Obama-era and earlier environmental standards, the shortsighted and callous disregard of hemispheric peace and security (as opposed to border security), and the inflaming of racial tensions.
America must have better in the next decade.
9
Obama is proof that status quo democrats are little different than republicans. They represent corporate America first, despite the hollow rhetoric. Somehow, jobs have become synonymous with corporations who have always exploited workers on behalf of Wall Street. We need a new agenda that puts workers first and investors second.
10
Super analysis. Obama was and is a good guy, but he totally misread the opposition and tried to achieve consensus during that brief period of democratic opportunity. Hence the timidity of all his programs. It’s time to create democracy for all the people (and corporations aren’t people no matter what the SC said).
6
Let’s not forget their utter failure to prosecute any of the executives of the big banks, hedge funds, and mortgage lending dynasties- they all got off scott free and are now making more ill gotten gains than ever. Warren objected to that too.
10
I’m not so certain what most of the observers realistically expected from the Obama Administration from the outset? In this country, even 10 years ago, there is a large portion of the population, strongly represented in Congress, though in the minority in 2009, completely juxtaposed in opinion and philosophy to the Democrats as to how active the federal government should be in the economy. A large portion of that segment reacted with hostility to any attempt by the government to intervene at all, instead advocating for large corporations and financial institutions to be allowed to fail, or at minimum be left to fend for themselves. The reality is there was only so much the President and the Democratically controlled Congress could get done that wouldn’t have been dismantled by now, or tying courts up across the country for a generation. The greatest Obama-Democratic achievement was the ACA, and that was a monster taking all of the energy of the short-lived, two branch majority of 2009-2010, and is still being fought out in courts and has been a primary target of the Trump Administration from day 1. The truth is Obama knew he had to navigate the middle-ground because of the powerful forces of opposition. Some measures had to be taken and were. Others just were not going to work over the long-term. The economy recovered, albeit slowly, and now Trump takes all of the credit for the fruits of Obama’s labors. That’s American politics at its best or worse, whichever you prefer.
3
I, almost, wholeheartedly agree with the picked comments and Manjoo's thesis of a squanderd opportunity. However, the passing of time lends itself to forgetting the entrenched attitudes of the Democratic senators and representatives that were obstructions to more serious action.
Senator Max Baucus of Montana, alone, held up the Affordable Care Act for months and nearly killed it, until Obama held his very public shaming session with Republicans and Democratic hold-outs to convince some of them to get on board. The actions of the administration and Congress were barely sufficient at the time and more, what we know see as more appropriate and serious actions, were just not possible at that time with the people involved.
3
President Obama delivered articulate and well crafted speeches with grace and humor, but he disdained the time and interpersonal skills it took to bring lawmakers on board for the implementation of legislation. Neither Geithner nor Holder could bring real leadership to their roles, but Mr. Obama was comfortable with them. The culprits who contributed to the meltdown were never called to account. Millions lost houses and faith in government, but most on Wall Street were spared!
13
This is spot on. Obama continued to cow to Wall Street and Timothy Geist. The economic frustration of Americans during the 2016 election was lost on Hilary. Trump tapped it and here we are. Trump lied about helping the middle class. Let's hope that Warren, when elected, carries out her promises.
10
Democrats abandoned the New Deal philosophy that valued work over the public dole beginning with the LBJ's war on poverty. Harry Lloyd Hopkins ran New Deal programs on the dignity of work, creating government jobs that helped lift people from begging on the street. The middle class and poor loved the programs, and the move by LBJ to attack poverty with welfare programs created justified contempt among the middle class that resonates today. Obama's timid stimulus package actually harmed small construction firms that didn't have the savings to under bid highway projects like the big boys. I'm glad those who advocate a New Green Deal understand Hopkin's belief that “Give a man a dole and you save his body and destroy his spirit,” he said. “Give him a job and pay him an assured wage, and you save both the body and the spirit.” Welfare is certainly cheaper but it costs far more in self-respect and pride, and has trapped at least a couple generations in poverty like Medicaid that requires people remain paupers for care. Medicare for All would allow poor people to earn whatever they can for their families without being beaten into poverty, so their kids can see the doctor.
5
I’m sharing this article with all of my (neo)liberal friends who, for years, have been giving me disapproving looks every time I make exactly the same points as those made in this article. Obama tried to play nice with ruthless Republicans and not only are we now paying the price but will continue to do so for a generation dominated by a radical right judiciary from the Supreme Court on down.
12
@Phil Brewer: You have, somehow, missed the point. As Mr. Manjoo correctly, and explicitly, notes right at the outset, Mr. Obama would "play nice" (as you so simplistically phrase it) with republicans even when he had absolutely no need to - such as when he took a public option off the table and thus turned the ACA into an insurance company give-away. When he did that, Obama had both houses of congress on his side.
I suggest you re-read the very first paragraph of this opinion piece.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
1
To suggest that the size of the stimulus package was a choice between "liberalism" and "neo-liberalism" is a straw man argument at best and pure partisan punditry at worst.
The $800bn stimulus accounted for ~5% of GDP; if they'd done an additional $200bn it would have added an additional 1.3% to GDP growth all things being equal. And while in hindsight that would have been positive for several reasons, there's no way that would have been enough to cause unemployment to fall below 8% in 2010 (let alone cause persistent GDP growth past 2010). Also, additional stimulus payments would have likely come the form of more tax cuts (due to the lack of "shovel ready" projects), hardly the stuff of "liberal" fantasies. On top of that, a larger stimulus would have likely made it politically impossible for Obamacare to be pushed forward. While it may have been preferable to "liberals" to have the higher stimulus, 23m insured people may now disagree.
Politics (and economics) are all about choices, and while I'm sure there were more optimal policy choices that could've been made, averting a second economic depression while also pushing the most comprehensive increase in health care coverage in a generations strikes me as a pretty good "liberal" outcome (and not just for "elites" whomever they're supposed to be). Politicians are (in theory) held to account for being able to thread the line on tough choices; hopefully journalists will be as well.
9
The thought that Obama could have brought more radical proposals to the table is a pipe dream. The reality is he was only able to pass the Affordable Health Care Act by dragging a dying independent Senator to the vote. Democrats should realize that while we need to move further to the left towards a more equitable society with greater income distribution the first priority is to elect a Democrat as president. While I feel Elizabeth Warren has the intelligence and energy to defeat Trump her far left leanings will drive a lot of moderates to vote for Trump or not vote at all. Her only chance falls on the millennials who are great at protesting, and complaining but I fear have no history of showing up on election days. Sadly Trumps hardcore right wing radicals will show up.
4
@Stan
Senator McCain cast the decisive Senate vote to save Obamacare during Trump's first year, not in 2010. Obama proposed a public option but jettisoned it almost immediately after insurance industry push-back. The Third Way philosophy undergirding both the Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank was that there is always a policy that can simultaneously serve both the people and the powerful and that we can navigate a path between corporate and quotidien interests so that we never have to answer labor's classic question of "whose side are you on?" What we have learned is that neoliberal half-measures don't address the structural causes of the problems they attempt to solve and are easily rolled back when the opposing party gains power. At some point, Democrats either have to take a stand or become irrelevant.
3
Thank you for this. I didn't understand the pearl-clutching that ensued after the Democrats running for the presidency criticized Obama's policies during the first debate. What, is a popular politician immune from criticism? Apparently Obama thinks so with his "circular firing squad" comment.
Obama had some successes and he made some mistakes. Like anyone. We shouldn't be afraid to examine ideas, debate policy and find fault with them if fault is to be found. This is what the debates are for. This notion that we should fall in line, lock-step, as the Republicans have done with Trump, will prevent the country from moving forward.
7
“It boils down to this: Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, was the product of a Democratic Party that had forgotten its history and legacy.”
It’s not so much that the party had forgotten as that the party had had its history and legacy beaten out of it by the 49-state presidential landslide debacles of 1972 and 1984. Reaganism had triumphed, voters had turned to the right, and the Democrats didn’t want to lose another election with big promises of big government. The same phenomenon was mirrored in the UK, with Tony Blair as the Labour response to the Thatcher revolution.
1
The danger of playing "could've should've" is believing the political situation of the present moment was also the political situation in the past moment. President Obama was barely able to pass the stimulus package he got through; to suggest that he should have pushed for the Rooseveltian home run pretends that the Democratic Congress of 2008 was philosophically the same as the Democratic House of 2019. It wasn't. And a push for a Rooseveltian home run would most certain have led to a bush league strikeout.
9
Even the supposedly "timid" changes Obama did implement, led to a Democratic blow-out in the 2010 midterms. NYT commentators, who especially like to talk to one another, exclusively, are absolutely convinced the entire USA is 100% behind open borders, Medicare for All, wealth taxes, student loan forgiveness, the Green New Deal etc. That is far from the case. It's not 1932 or even 1964. An aggressively redistributionist platform, if advocated, will decimate the Democratic Party at the national level in 2020, and keep it out of useful power (defined as control of White House and both Houses of Congress) for a decade or more, at least until Ivana seeks re-election.
2
Its conventional wisdom now to say the response to the Great Recession should have been more comprehensive. It is unfair to ignore the context and look at the TARP vote, which didn't come easily. In this case -- as was subsequently the case with the ACA-- Obama got as much as Congress was willing to give. Faulting him for not getting more distorts history.
8
Obama's biggest mistake was thinking that he could compromise with the Republicans, even after they had declared their intention of making him a one-term president.
This led him to propose the Heritage Foundation's plan with a public option as his original bargaining position. Surely the Republicans would "hand him a victory" by voting for the plan they had praised to the skies when Mitt Romney instituted it in Massachusetts.
We ended up with a few good features (no ban on preexisting conditions, no lifetime cap) but no public option--and not one Republican voted for it.
In my alternative history, Obama proposes single payer as his initial bargaining position and does what Ronald Reagan did when he wanted tax cuts: Go on TV, speak directly to the public in simple terms, and ask the viewers to send postcards to their House and Senate representatives. It is still impossible to pass single payer, but the public option stands without the requirement for private insurance.
When the Blue Dogs object, he goes to people like Joe Lieberman and says, in his best LBJ manner, "Nice Naval base you have there in Groton. It would be too bad if anything happened to it."
Sad to say, Obama lacked LBJ's hard-nosed horse trading skills.
Obama is smart and well-meaning, and his administration was scandal-free, but he was naive when it came to dealing with the Republicans and chose to pass a deeply flawed health care bill instead of holding out for something better.
10
@Pdxtran No one but LBJ had LBJ’s horse trading skills. Maureen Dowd used to criticize Obama for that too. I disliked and got sick of it then and dislike it equally now.
I don't disagree that Obama could've gone much bigger his first 2 years. But I don't think for a second that if he had, he would have won a second term. Maybe it would've been better if President Romney was on his second term and no President Trump. I don't know. But its highly unlikely that whatever reforms he had implemented would've survived the backlash. Even Obamacare is only holding on by a thread.
Obama understood what so many progressives do not. Change must be managed tightly. For it to be enduring, it must have buy-in and must succeed. That's leadership 101.
6
Thanks for this column! The failure of the Obama administration to make bold, substantive changes to our economy especially during his first five months - when Democrats had the majority in both houses of Congress AND the Presidency - set us up for Trump's victory in 2016. Of course Obama was a better president than W before him, and even W was better than what we have now, but not being as bad as (Iraq war) W or Trump does not a good president make.
His legacy was and is indeed "a crisis squandered". And that is too bad, because he was (and is) a person of great integrity and intelligence, and could have pulled it off, if he really wanted to.
5
Obama had two choices coming into office
Obamacare and the economy
The economy turned itself around, with a push from the Admin, it is the business cycle
Obamacare was the culmination of years of effort and w as a hugely heavy lift
I think he made the right choice
3
I guess a Republican House and senate played no part or the historical experience that credit bubbles require a decade for recovery.
6
This was not a blunder. It is the Democratic Party line. We will have more of this if Warren is the next president.
2
This is just a fancy way of saying that the Dems are as corrupt as the Reps. Neither really seem to care about the middle class. The banking system should have been taken out, turned upside down, and shaken for all it was worth. Anything less just proved that all either party cares about is keeping the healthy wealthy, and keeping the powerful powerful.
4
Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority, but this was not even enough to pass singlepayer health insurance, since many Democrats in congress were moderates, who have since been ousted. Forget doing major climate change legislation, or "restructuring" Wall Street. (well, the consumer financial protection bureau was an achievement). What does that even mean? Nationalizing banks?
This was not the national mood in 2008-2009. Although a crisis was unfolding, political instincts and appetites across the board of the electorate were largely as they had been 2-3 years earlier.
None of the policies suggested here had any chance of passing. Obama and his team aimed for the 800 billion stimulus, because they knew that was all they were going to get. Even this energized the tea party -- that movement had NOTHING to do with unemployment, it was purely about government spending and the debt. The tea party movement was about lowering taxes and spending, nothing else, and it gained huge traction because a huge portion of the population of the US was frightened by the ballooning debt, and would not have accepted a trillion dollar stimulous. A trillion is a a scary threshhold to cross. (this all sounds weird in hindsight, given what the current administration is doing, driving up the debt).
7
Because of the fractured nature of the Democratic party, President Obama never had a mandate to make the changes many of the responders said he could have made.
7
As I remember it, Obama was a realist. He was stymied most definitely by the Republicans, but a lot of Democrats just wouldn’t take a stand on anything. Obama begged for more relief for homeowners during the recession, his own party wouldn’t support him. He begged for gun control legislation, not coming. The whole Democratic Party was playing politics just as much as the Republicans instead of looking out for its citizens.
8
yup, thanks for this...i couldn't understand why obama and the democrats didn't do more when they had the chance. i was incredibly disappointed. and not a little angry. my brother called obama a "corporate dem" and i guess that was the case. too bad. opportunity squandered. and now, just look at us!
5
Perhaps if Obama had held more tightly to his ideals and fought harder to achieve them things would be different. But the fault lies not just with Obama. It also was the fault of recalcitrant democrats who feared attack from the right if they pushed harder for liberal reforms. Those attacks came anyways and the result was they lost their majority and under-achieved their goals.
5
And this is why his legacy is up for debate. First black president is definitely historic. No major wars started. Beyond that? I’m not sure there’s a lot to love. ACA set the goal of universal healthcare but is also woefully inadequate. Wealth and income inequality through the roof and true missed opportunities there as the author correctly states.
8
Interesting points and Obama could have done more, but presidents get too much credit and blame for the economy.
The recovery from global financial crisis has consistently disappointed forecasters not only in the U.S., but in Europe, as illustrated by its own issues with right wing populism.
What ails the U.S. goes well beyond what can be achieved with stimulus program or anti-trust. Those issues include the loss of middle skilled manufacturing jobs to an increasingly competent Asian manufacturing base; what Larry Summer calls secular economic stagnation; restrictive zoning codes that inflate the cost of housing in urban areas; a broken education system; and an absurdly inefficient and expensive medical system, just to name a few.
Yes, $900M in incremental stimulus would have eased the near term pain in 2009. But I doubt it would have reduced unemployment nearly as rapidly as forecast or helped much longer term given the US has had a cumulative GDP of something close to $170 trillion since 2008, according to Tradingeconomics.com, with $20 trillion in 2018 alone.
Finally, the group that did the most to help the wealthy was the Fed, which slashed interest rates and inflated the stock market. But raising interest rates is dangerous, so be careful for what you wish for.
1
Here in the coastal PNW, various attempts have been made to enact the policies Warren/Sanders advocate and address climate change. Voters in Washington voted down a gas tax increase, and earlier this year the republican state senate caucus ran away to avoid passing a climate change bill. One of the senators threatened to shoot at troopers if they tried to bring him back to Oregon. If this can happen in environmentally conscious Oregon, just imagine what the reaction would be in the entire USA.
So, the author and others who think Obama could have done much more should reassess. And remember, all the leaders in the PNW are White. They still can’t get it done even without the burden of racism.
2
So often commentators criticize Obama's "neoliberalism" as though it were his chosen path. They forget the harsh realities of the political environment in which he operated: When the Affordable Care Act was passed, I remember that he talked often about his reluctant compromise with the private insurance industry, but he said change would have to come incrementally, or it would never come at all. I believe that. The US is a fundamentally conservative country. A bill that upended the private insurance industry never would have passed, and many Democrats would not have supported that. The same with TARP. Does Manjoo not remember how much opposition there was even to that? If you're president you can't just wave a magic wand and do whatever you want. I don't blame Obama, but I do blame Democrats who care more about getting re-elected than doing the right thing.
5
Progressive ideas just don't work regardless of who proposes them. I used to hear that we should be more like Europe - but now we see what a disaster Europe's economy has become.
3
Perhaps, more than a little sadly, believing in Obama was America's biggest mistake. Many expected too much because, well, just because he promised too much. In the end, it was just too much talk and too little action. Too much style and too little substance. Much to do and little that got done. Then again, maybe it really was our fault for trusting him, for hoping in the "hope" that never was, and trusting it in a president that never was what he was.
6
"In the early days of his presidency, Barack Obama had the power to overhaul the economy, but instead he focused on smaller, less effective fixes."
Surprise, surprise. The candidate for Change has erstwhile proposed a sitdown with Iranian president, among other things. None of those has come to pass. Such is the reality in Washington and others like AOC who come after Obama have each found out now.
Having principles is a good, but oratory skills, social media following, and soaring words will only go so far. The job, be it the president or members in the Congress, is to govern, legislate, and execute. If you can't get anything done, then you fail. Obama thus struck a compromise to push through ACA which technically is *NOT* a healthcare reform, but really an insurance reform (forcing everyone to buy insurance but does nothing to the healthcare side). Even then, GOP clips his wings by forcing the public option off the table. With neither the House nor the Senate on his side, a president can only do so much (eg. executive actions like DACA).
So much hope and aspiration was riding on Obama's back. He's the first black president, only a few centuries after slavery was brought to this country. He still evokes resentment among white nationalists. Perhaps because of his symbolic significance, Obama has not seemed to do much for the black communities.
Admittedly I voted for McCain in 2008, but go with Obama in 2012. In hindsight, I still prefer McCain, but definitely not Romney.
1
Missing here is a big issue Obama campaigned on -- ending partisan bickering, working with Republicans. A large part of the five month filibuster-proof era was wasted trying to get Republicans on board. But to paraphrase Rush Limbaugh and Mitch McConnell, their goal wasn't solving America's problems it was seeing Obama fail and become a one-term president. If he had steamrolled them a lot more might have gotten accomplished. Isn't this the lesson of Obama's presidency? -- not have unrealistic hopes for bipartisanship?
11
I have no use for the term “neoliberal.” Its function appears to be only to divide us and exclude some people from the ranks of progressives because their ideology isn’t deemed sufficiently pure. I hoped reading this piece would show me that this wasn’t true, but I was wrong. Every time a progressive Democrat uses the term, I can practically see Putin smile.
6
@Linda and Michael
Neoliberal means a great deal to the people who have had it imposed on them, here and around the world.
Friedrich Hayek and his extremely wealthy sponsors defined and developed the concept of neoliberalism in a effort essentially to equate FDR’s economic policy to communism or fascism so that the wealthy could dominate, control and profit unfairly from “ free markets”. Like all propaganda, the term is intended to be simultaneously both misleading and derogatory. So, when liberals or progressives use that term, they are only shooting themselves in foot, as intended.
My wife and I are retired teachers. Another huge disappointment was Obama's education policy. When he campaigned he took pains to be seen with Linda Darling-Hammond, a leading educator who was speaking very clearly about the tragically misguided view of child development codified by No Child Left Behind, one of the worst laws ever written. We saw Obama speak in a small venue in Southern Oregon, and he took care to speak directly to us teachers and give us to understand that he would take care of us. And then in office he appointed a hack as Education Secretary, and doubled down on NCLB with the absurd "race to the top." It is part and parcel with the gist of the article.
7
Mr. Obama campaigned on reforming health care, and the ACA, flawed though it is, was a huge accomplishment, given the racist obstructionism of the GOP from the first day of his presidency. Millions of people got health coverage who didn't before, and the hyperinflation of health costs - though still awful - was slowed.
I'd say those on the left who criticize him are the epitome of `privileged'. I am a supporter of Ms. Warren, but if/when she becomes president, she will also have to work within the realities of our political system (which she is smart enough to understand).
9
The biggest mistake Obama made regarding the short and long-term economic situation he inherited was to appoint Geithner, Summers and their ilk to address problems they had been complicit in creating. When appointed by Obama, Geithner was just months away from having co-authored TARP which basically transferred the banker's downside to the public and did absolutely nothing to bring accountability to the financial industry. He was never going to drive any real change. In fact, he is presently profiting very nicely from the system he helped preserve.
4
I think what changed from the Roosevelt 2 era to Obama's was the ascendancy of Reagan who was immensely popular, Hoover not so. President Obama couldn't even get a public option included in the Affordable Care Act legislation. It was the best he could do. One commentator noted the blowback from the fact he was an black. I never realized how deep those feelings were until the Trump era. Trump made it obvious for all the see. By temperament and lack of much experience as a legislator (Roosevelt had been governor of NY and secretary of the Navy) meant he could not achieve lofty goals. Would love to see how much Warren will accomplish if she becomes president. Pay for all these programs--tax the rich, good luck with that. She never talks about how she could ever get such an agenda passed. I doubt there will ever be a new New Deal in my lifetime.
3
The article expresses my only major problem with Obama. Even his "groundbreaking universal health care law" was too much of a concession to the right, a fact which ultimately partly crippled its effectiveness. Big things like Social Security and Medicare can't really be done halfway; in my opinion, often one extreme or its "opposite" might both work where a half-hearted compromise fails.
Part of the stimulus, definitely, should have been a massive infrastructure bill.The country would have been clamoring to amend the law to allow Obama a third term if he had done that, and the Dems would still dominate Washington.
Letting the financial powers that caused the Recession off with a slap on the wrist is a bigger problem now because of what Obama DIDN'T do otherwise, while he had the chance.
Of course, Trump's policies are not really the opposite of Obama's. They are a negation, but not really a viable alternate path. Or rather, they are opposite in the way that self-serving, ignorant chaos is the opposite of a measured plan, even a flawed one, meant to benefit the masses.
5
Maybe it’s even simpler. Obama was a smart, eloquent, honest president. He just wasn’t a leader.
4
"But in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, as Stoller explains, Democrats altered their economic vision. "
Why did they do that? Bribery? Or were they besotted by economists with an axe to grind? This article is missing crucial information.
Hindsight is always 20/20. What was happening in the moment seems to be forgotten.
10
To historians the details will likely be encased in his only brief stint in the Senate, which didn’t provide sufficient political education, hence having to learn on the job. That, and his valiant attempts, and even some success, at being a good pragmatist, the latter in its philosophical sense, not as a synonym for practicality. On the whole he did a good job under the circumstances.
That last sentence I wouldn’t mind having on my tombstone.
7
I am a moderate Democrat and proud to be so. The only way this country will survive intact is for moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans (if there are any left in either party) to forge ahead. To lurch back and forth from either brand of populism will be a disaster and our country will never prosper again.
7
As a boy being raised by my grandparents in the late fifties, I didn't know what a Republican was; I only knew my grandparents wouldn't allow one on the property. It took me fifty plus years to realize why. Now I know. I wish more Dems did.
11
@Mark Merrill funny, that's exactly how I feel about Democrats!
1
Agreed. I believe that Obama was a very good president, whose hubris prevented him from reaching out to middle America to explain his policies. But he also seriously erred by focusing too much on stabilizing corporate institutions (and CEOs) while normal folks were buried. White middle America arrived at the ballot box in 2008 enthused to give a Black man the chance to be their president; and many lost their homes. And dignity. It was "trickle down" thinking; save the economy and less pain will accrue for normal folks. Trickle down never works because the rich always find ways to get richer. Would the pain have been worse if CEOs responsible for the collapse went to jail (or at least were prosecuted)? What if more of the dollars spent to prop up banks was used to prevent foreclosures? What if Obama had strong-armed Joe Lieberman to vote for a public option, to amend an otherwise corporate-protecting healthcare solution?
Obama's could have been a legacy rivaling FDR or Lyndon Johnson; and instead he inadvertently fueled greater divisions as disgusted middle America lost their shirts and rued the day they were duped for "change we can believe in." And despite his many strong accomplishments, he paved the way for election of the miscreant we now enjoy.
6
Obama's handling of the financial crisis and its aftermath - as well as his failure to prioritize climate legislation and the case for green growth in the wake of the Deepwater disaster -- have always eaten away at me. On climate, Obama just didn't get it until much later. On the financial crisis, Obama relied on expertise - Summers, Geithner, Bernanke - which was understandable and appropriate given his inexperience. But what I never understood is how and way he chose to appoint Summers over Volcker, who was his mentor and advisor during the campaign. Volcker had (and has) more credibility than any of these players and understood the need to hold the financial sector accountable and cull the leadership though failure. The Goldman bailout via AIG is the most glaring example. I expect when the full accounting of this era is given after the death of the main principals, we'll get a very different and even more unflattering picture of true influences on Obama's decision making at the time.
7
Mr. Manjoo, the Sanders-Warren plans for free everything are good political sound bites, but would quickly bankrupt us. We should expand socialist programs by building on what's working, not tear our society apart to start over. I have always been a Democrat, but I won't vote for Progressive chaos. We need a plan to revamp our entire tax system, not to simply tax the rich because we envy them. We need more programs that would create financial independence, but free tuition for everyone is impossible. We need college debt repayment, even if it's slow because it teaches financial responsibility. We need immigration, but we don't need open borders because we can't take everyone who wants to live here. Pretending the solutions are simple doesn't make it true.
6
@Daphne
Nothing in the Sanders plan is "free." It's paid for by fair taxation and reprioritizing of the budget, especially the unaccountable Pentagon budget.
3
Pretending the solutions aren’t what there doesn’t make them true either.
College loans were taken to make the best of a bad situation, not because they were a societally optimal solution. Federal loans, in case you don’t know, carry the HIGHEST interest rates. The US treasury is profiting from students. We might as well tell babies to buy their own diapers.
Universal healthcare would save Americans $1 trillion annually, and 50,000 lives besides. Ridding the country of private health insurance for primary medical care isn’t “tearing the country down” or whatever. It’s expanding an existing program by roughly 4x.
No Democrat advocates insecure borders, let alone “open borders”. But we don’t have to jail everyone who shows up asking for asylum, and we don’t want to live through the process of deporting 16 million people. Legalize them, fine them, and don’t make them citizens. Let them stay, because they will stay regardless, but bring them under the law.
Mr. Manjoo makes a very salient point. The march of the oligarchs has been largely unimpeded since Johnson's Great Society, and the Democratic Party has marched alongside them. There's been little effort to restructure the American economy—not by the Clintons, and I use the plural because Hilary Clinton showed little interest in distancing herself from the neoliberal consensus until Bernie Sanders' popularity made her reconsider her stance, and not by Barack Obama. President Obama's natural inclination ,ay have been embark on large-scale restructuring, but he failed to follow through. Even if the opposition made impossible substantive actions to breach the economic divide, he was unwilling to engage his enemies in the fight. Only now, when economic inequality has risen to obscene levels, do we find Democratic candidates ready to take on the status quo.
6
He had to work with a Republican Senate majority and Mitch McConnell. That is the problem any Democratic president will have to work with if we don't correct that.
12
It is foolhardy to think of renovating the house while there is a fire in the kitchen and the dining room. It is also much easier to criticize the actions taken more than ten years ago. Not to mention the total obstructive efforts of the Republicans for any of the measures President Obama wanted to pass. With a much more ambitious start, we might have even lost the ACA and the auto industry altogether.
10
Farhad Manjoo is right. When Obama left office, the Democratic Party was far, far weaker than it was when he began his presidency. The potential he threw away is unforgivable. Even Time Magazine expected him to be a new FDR:
http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20081124,00.html
11
This media myth that Pres. Obama somehow prevented even more damage from the Community Reinvestment Act disaster of 2007 needs to be exposed.
The economy would have begun a recovery after Pres. Bush handled the bond collapse no matter who occupied the Oval Office.
But the slow growth that was part of the Obama growth-of-government days put many poor workers out of jobs even when he was getting advice to reduce the heavy burden regulations placed on the workplace.
The amazing growth of stock prices under this Economy President could have begun under Obama had he wanted it to happen, but you have to elect Republicans to see jobs develop quickly.
2
You don’t understand economics and you misremember history. Other than that, you’re spot on.
The stimulus was insufficient. That was known at the time. The theory that the stimulus was counterproductive has the defect of not even being a theory: it is logically incoherent and has no historical basis. It is, however, a convenient argument for the plutocracy.
The stock market more than recovered its 2008 value before Obama left office. Seven of the 10 years of the current expansion happened under Obama. Crediting Trump for the economy is like crediting him for his wealth: it ignores what he started with, and how much he squandered.
7
@L osservatore
And we need to stop the media myth of job killing, burdensome regulation.
2
I agree that President Obama largely squandered the historic opportunity that he had in the first year of his Presidency. The opposition of the Republican minority in the Senate at the time frankly was no excuse for his overly cautious policies. FDR faced as much Republican opposition in his time, but he had the political skill and the personal temerity to roll over them with his “let us see what may or may not work” New Deal programs. As a result, FDR created the first truly national and multi-racial Democrat Party. The National Recovery Administration united Americans across old regional, religious, and even racial divides in a cooperative effort to bring inflation back into the dead economy. African Americans outside of the South migrated to the Democrat Party in response to these polices, and as a result we saw the beginning of the end of the Democrat Party as the “white man’s party” it had been since Andrew Jackson. President Obama faced a crisis almost as great, and he turned out to be the Anti-Roosevelt. President Obama’s timid and unimaginative neoliberalism fractured the New Deal consensus that had been Democrat Party orthodoxy until the triangulation tactics of President Clinton and his Svengali, Dick Morris. Obama finished what Clinton had started, and the result is a Democrat Party run by the elites on the coasts who play on ethnic grievances and hot button wedge issues to try to cobble together 270 electoral votes every four years.
9
Had Obama used his filibuster proof majority to enforce and expand workers rights to unionize pay would be higher, the middle class growing , and more Americans with healthcare that is tied to work. To say Obama and Democrats have forgotten their roots is an understatement.
7
Hindsight is wonderful, Mr. Manjoo.
I have strong a memory that Obama's problem, and that of the Congress, was to restore the economy, not restructure it.
Your article is a sales job for the Warren/Sanders policy proposals, which, as with your critique of BHO, fails to analyze the political realities of tripartite government, or even to acknowledge them. Ask yourself why Elizabeth Warren can't quite say out loud that Medicare for all means tax increases for all.
The other history I suggest you look at is the New Deal. FDR and the Congress, with eventual Supreme Court acquiesence, created a more regulated economy and some direct governement financial support for US citizens. But it was WWII, not FDR, that created the basis for the successful post war economy.
Best.
5
Greetings from the land of Biden. When I saw Obama speak at the Democratic convention in 2004 I thought I was seeing a future leader who would finally pay attention to the middle class. After his first term I realized that he was more Prufrock than firebrand. Obama, though I agree with the phrase "tepid" as an apt descriptor of his presidency, did finally break the color barrier and delivered a largely scandal-free, no-harm presidency. I am sure that it was not easy to be the first black president. He managed to cross the finish line standing and with honor, dignity and style. As to Joe Biden, I'm sorry to say, he does not belong in the Oval office. I think he carries the racist baggage of an old style upbringing. He is a benevolent racist, he just can't see black folk without talking about how we can "lift up" these communities. It is time to stop talking about uplift and time to address that we live in a racist nation, where people of color are systematically denied the advantages of whites. Biden served the corporations well, his fight to limit personal bankruptcies certainly benefited MBNA, one of his largest donors. I, for one, am sick of mealy mouthed storytellers who talk about their humble beginnings while licking the boots of the corporations. I'm ready for a President who might make Wall Street a little nervous. I support Elizabeth Warren.
8
Obama’s first term was squandered by not investing stimulus dollars into re-tooling the entire economy into a ferociously green, anti-global warming machine. People were out of work, infrastructure spending was sorely needed, and the Dems controlled every sector of Government. It was the perfect time to aggressively convert the entire US Govt to clean energy, incentivize private industry and agriculture to do the same, and put unemployed workers back to work installing solar, wind, and hydroelectric power, as well as a high tech electricity grid - and all three US automakers who were mortally suffering could have been compelled to convert to more efficient standards. None of the jobs generated would have been exportable, and would have generated so much return wealth to have paid for themselves - nevermind the healthcare cost savings from cleaner air, water, soil, etc.
Such revolutionary thinking would have catapulted the US ahead of the world in clean tech and industry, and would have paved the way for the rest of the world to follow suit. We would now be looking back upon those years as the turning point when humanity saved itself from the existential wrath of climate change.
(And after the economy had stabilized and Obama/Congress would have been hailed as heroes for all time, we could have offered healthcare to all.)
So yes, while I am VERY upset with Republicans, as a person of science, I save my most energetic anger towards a grand opportunity now tragically lost.
357
I agree with your observations. There is just one tiny little flaw in your argument. Such drastic measures, especially presented by an African American president, would have led to riots in the streets (I am exaggerating). The American general population is not ready for such change (yet). And since these changes take years, decades to achieve, the Dems would simply have disappeared with the next election. Not making excuses for Obama here. I just think that if a country isn't there yet, no meaningful change will come about. Enter somebody like Trump and everything gets dialed back, in fact further back than it had been for decades.
The US as a whole suffers from extreme short term thinking and that goes for the style of government as well.
89
@MFM Doc - Two thoughts:
"a person of science" is ratIionale, not energetically angry.
Republicans exist in name only.
I agree a grand opportunity was tragically lost, but it's lost, learn from the experience and campaign & vote for a progressive of your choice in the primaries & the November 2020 election.
38
@MFM Doc The cost of solar per watt has fallen by a factor of 10 over the past 10 years. This was to a large extent due to Obama putting aside over $90 billion for renewables, which jump started the renewable energy industry, but given the far higher costs 10 years ago, there was much less bang for the buck than nowadays. Perhaps Obama’s administration could have asked for more money for the recovery than the $892 billion it did ask for, to make more available for renewable energy.
18
Excellent article that very accurately describes the Obama administration's economic policies (and their consequences) in a nutshell. Soaring rhetoric for the masses followed by servitude to the elites instead. Obama may have been the last of the neoliberal "New" Democrats also known as "Republicans Lite." The political tone deafness displayed by trying to pass a new trade agreement in the middle of the last presidential election was astonishing. Only a democrat who supported many of the Reagan/Thatcher economic ideas of the 1980s could think that millions of angry workers wouldn't notice. He probably didn't even care thinking, like Bill Clinton did, that those people had nowhere else to go. Well, now we have Trump!
10
Obama’s main blunder was his initial idealistic insistence in being ‘bipartisan’ and working with the Republicans.
Republicans were not interested in working with Obama. They wanted to destroy him and make him into a one-term president.
That was his main blunder. Everything else follows.
59
@Deep Thought
Liberalism has won in America. Conservatives will finally get a “victory” when Roe v Wade is overturned but it will end up being a Pyrrhic victory once suburban moms revolt.
For me, the biggest mistake of President Obama was not to recognize abandonment of the Constitutional mandate, by McConnell and the Republican Senators, to duly advise and consent on the nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the empty seat on the Supreme Court.
Obama should have considered the inaction of the Senate as affirmation and insisted on seating Judge Garland, thereby provoking a Constitutional crisis, which it was.
The disastrous results of his timidity and inaction will be felt for years to come.
26
@Michael Richter: the President cannot seat a SCOTUS nominee without the Senate's confirmation … period.
And I am sure if Trump faces this next year, when Ruth Ginsburg dies or retires….you will be profoundly glad that the President CANNOT override the Senate!
No President is guaranteed his nominees will always be confirmed. And ONLY the Senate has the last word, and they have no timetable they must adhere to.
7
@Concerned Citizen
I cannot agree with your perspective.
Senators take a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution, which states that the Senate is mandated to advise and consent on the President's nominations.
Clearly, they did not do that.
It was a Constitutional crisis which Obama shied from.
Whether under those circumstances he had the right to seat his nominee would have been a judicial decision to be decided by the courts.
6
In a non-Trump country, Obama administration would have been hailed as one of the best in history.
The entire article has been necessary only because of the political and social divide encouraged by Trump and GOP and not exclusively focused on Obama admin policies or even the ones before that period. Unemployment had been decreasing since then. Trump admin has pretty much been a non-factor. Not a single policy of GOP has favored new job opportunities.
13
@forall if youre so sure of yourself, ask ANYBODY, red or blue, what they think of the fact that not a single banker went to jail for the 2008 crisis. ask them what they think of the bank bailouts vs the people who lost their homes.
not a single person, red or blue, is cool with how 2008 was handled. virtually everyone ive ever spoken with on the topic (and i know a lot of people on both sides of the spectrum) is in agreement that there should of been jailtime for recklessly endangering the economy.
8
@Ashley
You can’t put somebody in jail if they haven’t broken any laws, no matter what the consequences of their actions.
1
Yea. Somehow putting blue collar workers out of a job became cool. MIT PhD's telling him that this was the medicine needed to move the economy forward. Sigh. It's just so awful to contemplate how Trump tapped into the worst impulses of less well educated workers to snatch away a cohort that had every reason to belong firmly on the Democratic side. We may never recover.
19
@Rich888 technology put blue collar workers out of a job, not any particular administration. the self checkout machines in grocery stores led to a decrease in cashiers, etc.
7
More than the size of the economic stimulus, I think that allowing the malfeasance of the financial sector go unpunished is what led to the backlash that gave us Trump. It reinforced the idea that if you are one of the economic elites, there are no consequences. So, in Trump supporters' minds, why not burn the house down?
8
Obama had little background in finance and economics so he deferred to the neoliberals who created the conditions that led to the financial crisis. Putting the Robert Rubin/Larry Summers/Tim Geithner wing in charge of “fixing” the economy had predictable results: making the too big to fail problem worse and doing very little for the person on the street facing foreclosure and unemployment. Add to that the stated policy of Eric Holder not to prosecute Wall Street malfeasance and you have a very angry population convinced the system is rigged against them for the benefit of elites in NYC, DC, Boston and SF. And then comes Trump who brilliantly taps into this resentment and here we are today.
11
Yes, as regards domestic policy, though incomplete. Mr. Manjoo doesn't discuss President Obama's unwise and timewasting attempts to get along with Republicans who never had the slightest intention of getting along with him, and who'd made their attitude clear ahead of time. Also, there were similar mistakes in foreign policy. President Obama looks good mainly because he's a decent and intelligent human being whose presidency was sandwiched between the bad presidency of George W. Bush and the disastrous presidency of Donald Trump. That sets the bar pretty low.
5
Excellent and insightful column of a topic that doesn't get much analysis in a lot of mainstream media.
Not to diminish Farhad's previous work as a tech and consumer columnist, but ever since he's expanded his range of coverage, he's consistently written some of best columns in the Times's opinion section. Kudos to him and to the Times.
4
Whatever one thinks of Obama's tenure, it appears that he genuinely sought to govern a middle course and represent all Americans — until it became abundantly clear that the GOP wasn't willing to play the compromise game.
I've been wondering for years now what happened to convince so many politicians and their supporters that winning 50-percent plus one vote constituted a "mandate" to do whatever their partisans most desired, and to heck with the 50-percent minus one vote who begged to differ.
Some people hate the notion of compromise or splitting the difference, and indeed, it doesn't always result in the best policies. Nonetheless, the new norm of taking an election "win" (regardless of popular vote count) and running as far to one's side of the ledger as possible to grab as much as possible while in power is odious and counterproductive.
Essentially, we're a nation of kindergartners, still steeped in childish selfishness and lack of awareness of how to play nicely with others.
6
It was always clear that Obama wanted the presidency but never wanted to get his hands dirty with actually governing. He spent years blaming Bush for his problems. And we all remember his shovel ready projects that never happened.
5
The Great Recession was officially over in June 2009, far before anything Obama did could have had any effect. Like all stimuli, just like FDR’s in the 1930’s, the Obama stimulus failed. You have admire the Dems circular illogic. It would have worked if we had spent more. That statement can never be refuted because you can always say it no matter how much was spent.
1
Biggest mistake? For all of his greatness, there was more than a hint of aprés moi l’deluge in his departure (see yachting with Richard Branson). He was the head of the Democratic Party, had no love for the Clintons and knew Secretary Clinton was a poor campaigner. He should have done more to position the party for victory in 2016. His relative insouciance toward posterity was a far bigger mistake than saving our country from a depression.
2
From my perspective, it was the Democrats/Progressives who fought and destroyed Jimmy Carter from the day of his inauguration and handed us Reagan. The same pattern gave us Bush Jr. and Trump.
3
Obama's great failure was not as a policymaker but as a politician. He inherited a disaster, managed to stop the bleeding and reverse course and then somehow, after only two years, the voters wound up blaming the disaster on him. Having a Republican congress for his last six years greatly limited him, but the fact that he had a Republican congress at all was in large part his failure. He was far too slow to recognize the Republicans' scorched-earth strategy and adjust his political tactics accordingly.
5
@Eric Blair His great failure was blowing every single iota of political mandate on Obamacare rather than in a structural change to the economy. Huge friggin' mistake.
1
You forget that Mitch McConnell and the Republicans were doing everything they could to block legislation and make him a one term president regardless of the damage to the country and people. Also, there was a huge chunk of blue dog democrats that refused any liberal legislation and finding somthing they would agree on slowed down much of the legislation. The biggest mistake Obama made was not putting in the Fairness Doctrine again to prevent all the propaganda we have. Second biggest mistake was naming Comey FBI director as Comey violated the Hatch Act multiple times to put Trump into the White House.
3
No one was punished for deliberately pushing predatory loans, mostly on minorities - some people who caused the much smaller financial crisis in the late 80s were actually punished. Millions of abandoned pets died, either locked in houses (those who tried to save them were punished) or in animal shelters. Banks were bailed out; the poor were not. Most of us have never recovered from the 2008 crash.
Obamacare was another major failure - he failed to get rid of the middleman, the insurance company. Most people who really need Obamacare can't afford it; the rest of us had to fund it with huge payroll cuts. I got a $3700 pay cut (my monthly pay was $2600 at that time) to cover increased health premiums, even tho' I didn't get Obamacare.
He didn't stop the wars or close Gitmo, as promised.
He also signed the Monsanto Protection Act. The fact that Michelle Obama preached organic and healthy diets at us was ironic. Monsanto should have been shut down forever. Meanwhile, they continue to poison the world. I consider Monsanto a terrorist organization. Who knows how many people they have killed with their toxic poisons, or how many farmers they have destroyed.
Still, bad as he was, sandwiched between Bush Jr and Trump, anyone would look good. So Obama comes out as merely mediocre because he wasn't deliberately horrible.
6
Even though Obama had a clear majority in both houses, the Democrats do not stick together like the Republicans do.
He could barely get his health care program passed.
Those "democrats" from red states did not help the president.
It is tiring to blame the president for all his "failures".
4
This new fella obviously took the Trump University course on how the presidency works. In this fantasy world Obama can decree anything and all the Democrats will follow along. It conveniently forgets our "Blue Dog" friends who had to be dragged kicking in screaming to the table for the "modest" package Obama was able to cobble together. Reminds me of the old Seinfeld joke, "Thanks Superman for saving my life, but did you have to come through my wall. I'm renting here"
4
Totally agree - Obama could have New-Dealed Wall Street, or maybe just prosecuted a banker or two. Remember the S&L crisis? Thousands of criminal convictions. The evidence was everywhere in 2010, but there was no leadership.
Obama actually feared for his life; “I don’t want to end up like JFK,” he told advisors.
1
While you waste your time lamenting what did not happen,
or what maybe might have happened if....
we are facing, with absolute certainty a Corporate Plutocracy represented by this Republican Junto,
which exhibits opposition and contempt for majority-rule Democracy and our Constitution, while a corrupt Justice Dept. ignores Congressional subpoenas and a packed Supreme Court is ready to undo anything done....etc
Maybe we should be writing something about what can be done now, and how to get there now.
Now not yesterday.
3
The ship was almost sunk and Obama’s calculated actions saved the US. He did what had to be done. Rahm Emmanuel’s famous quote is all the more absurd considering how well he did as mayor of Chicago, a city that has been and still is a living crisis that he did not help and probably made worse.
2
Thank you. I never felt that Obama had a working grasp of Econ 1& 2, certainly nothing that conjured up the lessons from the Great Depression. Yes, he was better than Republican economic incompetence and cronyism, but his deference to Wall Street is still being felt.
5
If democrats have any sense, we should burnish Obama’s legacy, not tarnish it. Obama got through historic legislation that simply would not have passed if he had been more progressive. Obama was able to pass ACA/Obamacare by the skin of its teeth, using reconciliation in the senate. Making it more progressive would have resulted in the same fate as the doomed “Hillarycare” a decade earlier; on the rubble pile of failed legislation, and today we still would have people with pre-existing conditions rejected by insurance.
The democrats had a real “stable genius” in no drama Obama, and we’d do well, just as the republicans did with Reagan, to jockey to continue his legacy. Instead, this article takes pit shots from a left wing peanut gallery which hasn’t succeeded in major legislation since Jimmy Carter, and that’s not a legacy we should repeat.
2
I agree, more could have been done with the economic stimulus. but, if you think they could have passed a 1.7 trillion dollar package, you are loopy. they could have pressed for more, but they never would have gotten more than a couple billion, tops. also, a lot of folks were angry that wealthy individuals got covered by the government then paid themselves bonuses. then 2010 rolled around and the general public responded to passing the ACA act by putting the GOP in control. go figure that out.
Yes.
Obama was a good president, but the Democrats were half-hearted when they should have taken Wall Street apart for its abuses. Blame the economists, and the prevailing market culture.
5
A few commenters here state as fact the claim that the Tea Party movement came into being because Obama passed the Affordable Care Act. But many Tea Partiers had no clue that Obamacare and the ACA were the same thing, and didn't seem to know anything about the law anyway. In reality, the movement was simply a toxic brew of racial resentment and economic insecurity.
3
The years after 2008 were the hardest financial time of my life. I spent a year unemployed, and worked at severely under-paying jobs for many years afterward. I saw very clearly at the time the relentless sabotage by the Republican party against anything and everything President Obama tried to address these problems. Yet, it left an incredibly bitter taste in my mouth to read quotes from President Obama that his administration was there to "protect (Wall Street) from the pitchforks" and that Obama considered both Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon (who had just destroyed my financial life, and millions of others, for their own benefit) were people he considered "pretty savvy businessmen." There was no punishment for Wall Street. They destroyed our economy, scooped up assets for pennies on the dollar, were bailed out with our tax dollars, and received fines that were minuscule relative to the magnitude of damage they caused. They got a slap on the wrist, a pat on the head, and now we live in a new Gilded Age. I find a lot to admire about President Obama, and there are many things he did right (I'm a gay man. Marriage equality was momentous and a dream come true.) But I feel that his administration, and many at higher levels of the Democratic party were, and are, too dazzled by our neo-oligarchs, whether they be in finance or the tech industry. They focused on them at the expense of the majority of Americans, who are still struggling mightily. That has to change.
5
If I could recommend your post 100 times, I would.
1
The short comings of neoliberalism has been nicely captured in two recent books - (1) Winners take All, and (2) Meritocracy Trap. The traditional capitalism based on market and free trade has failed to deliver the results of welfare society and needs great overhaul and band aids of neoliberal policies can not do that. We need to redefine the purpose of corporations - not profit alone but profit and social goods. We need new covenant with our population = not individual freedom only but individual freedom coupled with individual responsibility to not do harms to society, country and nature. These are major shifts from the liberal democracies current mantras - it will shook the foundation of our constitution. Can we do that or we walk in the path of destruction will be our choice, and Democratic voters need to make that choice in the next election.
2
When Obama campaigned, he was an inspiration, but during his tenure, America morphed into a mediocre bureaucrat. His politics are prosaic policies, safe but not groundbreaking. Obama's image is rather that of an administrator who is mired with the European elites, such as the EU technocrats. They both generate a public distance that robs them the understanding of the social structure. In other words, Obama's ideals, may be 'a cog in the wheel' among the elites but are really disconnected at the grassroot level.
148
@Vivian
You mean before or after Moscow Mitch vowed that the only republican senate goal was to make sure Obama was a one term president?
35
@Vivian
Obama was a disappointment even during the campaign. He pledged to push merit pay for teachers and expand testing. He called for an expansion of the Iraq war into Afghanistan. He didn’t call for universal health care. His neoliberal, technocratic nature was quite apparent.
Once in office, he soon reneged on his few progressive promises — e.g., the public option, having the health care legislative debates on C-SPAN, infrastructure rebuilding, renewable energy, etc.
He had even, properly, labeled Hillary’s individual mandate plan as “un-American”, but then adopted it, anyway.
He never addressed economic inequality or environmental racism.
Worst of all, his approach was to propose policies that were already compromises, which were then watered down further or outright rejected by Republicans. He should have proposed bold programs and then tempered them.
He never went after those who had created the economic disaster and surrounded himself with Goldman Sachs and other investment broker and neoliberal economists.
The columnist is right on the money!
16
@The East Wind Touché !!!
1
Farhad, you think this is incisive criticism, but it is thickheaded conventional Democratic party thinking. You believe the world revolves around domestic economic concerns. Obama's biggest mistake was not what you think. His biggest mistake was not using his moment of maximum political clout to bend the history of the US and the world away from the unfolding climate disasters. The Paris Peace Accord and the Clean Power Plan were only shallow, temporary, executive branch-only gestures.
116
@Mike
Think of how mercilessly the GOP is fighting enlightened climate policies now, when the evidence is beyond overwhelming (except to anyone with sufficient economic motive to lie about it). How could the GOP have been persuaded to do ANYTHING during the Obama years? Not a pipeline in the world that could carry that pipe dream.
Paris, the Clean Power Plan, much else - considering the time and context, they stand as significant achievements.
21
@Steve's Weave - Green Classifieds
You are probably right. Too bad. He had to try it. That was our last best chance.
2degrees Celsius is already baked in. Can 3 degrees be far behind?
5
The GOP became the party of "SCORCHED EARTH" politics under Newt Gingrich, which is to take no prisoners, no compromise, and totally destroy the enemy, no matter how it was done, ie..lying, false propaganda, false labeling of the enemy, rallying extremist fears in the public, cheating, no compromise, no cooperation for the greater good of the country.
This scorched earth politics has continued to this day, and there is no relief in sight. The biggest trick the GOP has played on the public was "false labeling of the enemy and rallying extremist fears in the public." The GOP taught the conservative voter to detest the Clintons and to detest anything that smacked of liberalism. The GOP used highly targeted propaganda campaigns in the service of their scorched earth politics. That is where we are today, and the Democrats have not been effective in countering the false GOP narratives, and even seem oblivious of the need to counteract the GOP in this territory that the GOP has carved out for themselves. It was not Obama's fault. He did an outstanding job having been dealt the hand at the time of his election.
3
I was proud to have Barack Obama as my President.
And yet.
He lectured from a pulpit expecting people to do the rational thing instead of rolling up his sleeves, slapping backs, cajoling, pleading and exercising his power.
Barack Obama was great at selling himself and inspiring hope. But when it came time to grind the reality sausages of public policy he refused to get his hands dirty.
It wasn't just the financial crisis he wasted. He wasted the debt ceiling crisis and the red line crisis in Syria.
Had Obama fought for what we all believe he believed in, the world would be very different today.
274
@Mad Moderate
Gee, a complete economic collapse might have been a bit of distraction for Obama.
What is stunning is that in the midst of such chaos, Obama was able to get healthcare passed for millions of Americans.
11
@Mad Moderate, I was thrilled when BHO won the election and sat in my den watching he and Michelle dance at the inauguration with tears rolling down my checks. I felt really good thinking we had come into the light after eight years of Dubya. Boy was I wrong. And it was obvious in less than six months.
14
@Mad Moderate
Your last sentence sums up the Obama presidency nicely. He was not, is not, a liberal. He is a centrist Democrat who believed he could work with the GOP. The irony is that the GOP kept portraying him as a socialist. He had an opportunity to transform economic and foreign policy and he blew it.
15
Because the recovery from the Great Recession was handled so swiftly and quietly, while millions were still losing their jobs and houses to foreclosure, the public perception was that very little was being done. Obama and company failed to guide the public perception. Then, the bankers and Wall Street speculators were left off the legal hook as nothing happened, on to the next problem.
The "next problem" was health insurance? Clearly there was a vast need to expand access but how much of 2009 and '10 were taken up with clattering debates on Capitol Hill when much of the nation was suffering? To the casual observer, Obama had abandoned them in the middle of the worst economic crisis in almost a century.
Contrast this with FDR who took to the airwaves continually to assure citizens that their plight was not forgotten and being addressed continually in the halls of power. As history confirms. Roosevelt helped to lift the nation's spirit and, gradually, the economy followed.
Here is one reason this little slip up happened: those in and around power did not feel the hard slam, impact of the Great Recession. It was someone else's problem. If you had a well paying job, and kept it, if you could comfortably pay your mortgage and other bills, you kept right on going out to dinner and taking lux vacations.
The recession was out there, somewhere, not in your own home or life. The news reached official Washington but the blunt end hit was in Memphis, Dayton, Kankakee, Allentown...
2
What most people forgets is that inexperience was a major factor in Obama's early years too. He had no governing experience at the state level and spent less than four years in the senate. His inexperience played a part his missteps in his first two to fours years, too.
1
Wow, Farhad. Hindsight really is 20/20/ .
It was only a decade ago and you are throwing shade on Obama for ONLY expanding health coverage by 21 million people (rates a sentence) and expanding the federal match for Medicaid by tens of billions to protect health coverage many of the millions of unemployed whose states' Medicaid programs would have otherwise contracted (and thrown thousand more healthcare workers out of jobs.
The stimulus was smaller than it could have been because he saved a trillion dollars for health reform. The current crop of "progressive" Presidential candidates don't have to make choices.
Presidents do.
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@Jeff G.
As someone left out of Obama's Unaffordable Care Act because I don't qualify for the subsidy but can't afford the premiums, I don't need hindsight to realize how ineffectual he was.
This is a deeply disappointing article because it completely ignores the political realities Obama faced when he took office. Obama got no help from the Republicans when it came to passing a stimulus bill. He and his team got as large a stimulus as was politically possible. Many Democrats did not want to go higher.
Mr. Manjoo writes as if President Obama had full and unfettered ability to do exactly what he wanted in the early days of his first term. This is simply not true. The country was not ready or willing to accept massive structural changes to our economic system or to significant industries like the financial sector.
It's easy to criticize after a crisis has passed and to blame current problems on a supposed failure to act more boldly during the crisis. Such talk however is cheap and easy revisionist history.
5
The Democrats are guilty of triangulating and the appeasement of the Republican' messaging machine instead of giving the people a reason to vote for them with New Deal type programs.
Their failure to hit back and explain those GOP sound bites has, I believe, had the amazing effect of dumbing us down so much that we only think in simplistic "sound bites" with the ultimate irony that led to Trump.
No matter what, it is always better to assume people are intelligent enough to understand well expressed, clear ideas ...but then, of course, that takes honest politicians.
2
Obama's singular failure was not to recognize that the way Republicans work in Congress change dramatically. They went from opposition party to a non governing party... McConnell was and is the grim reaper who doesn't allow any small scrap of democracy to exist. Only party power not good governance.
2
Warren all the way. She is the right person for this time.
2
Monday morning quarterback talk here. Yes, Obama should have completed the bargains made on the behalf of Wall Street and the largest corporations asking for help by insisting on concessions that limit the wealthy and help Americans. Dodd-Frank was a good measure that like the ACA were reasonable fixes that were self inflicted "meet you half-way" with the dug in GOP who's only action was to racially charge an electorate against the Black President and lay plans to assault these measures. Had Obama or another candidate gone further progressively, the reaction by Boehner, Ryan, and Moscow Mitch that we've suffered through of late would have been proportionally and cruelly stronger. As we travel further from the Obama era, it is natural that his shine and newness will fade. But, growing shame and condemnation of the GOP in #44's time will and ought to stand out for what it was: The GOP was nd is racist and they further revealed their dislike of ordinary AMERICA.
1
Hmmm! Going from 1.3 M to 40 M is more than enough for me to know he did more than one thing wrong...
The biggest mistake was not lining up Democrats and using the two years of control to absolutely steamroll the Republicans.
2
I think you put your finger on an important point: to paraphrase Rob Emanuel... “historic moments can’t be wasted”. Think FDR. He was ready, experienced and wily...but moreover, he had the hutzpah to try... and in his many efforts to help Americans get back on their feet many of his initiatives are still inspiring to us today. The CCC, the WPA, the TVA...and so many others ...along with aggressive government enforcement efforts to curb WS / Big Business excess... its a blueprint for Joe Biden’s team to study and emulate...(have they?) along with Elizabeth Warren who I am certain has paid careful attention to the FDR model while crafting her many plans.
20/20 hindsight makes it easy to be critical of any leader including President Obama but the mess he was handed by GWB was beyond the pale. A more experienced President Obama, like FDR, might have been bolder... yes. Something for the voters in the upcoming presidential democratic primaries to keep in mind.... but experience isn’t enough it takes brilliance, bold vision and hutzpah, too, along abundant charm and genuine like ability.
2
Mr Manjoo may remember that Obama was a little busy pulling the US out of the biggest financial / bankruptcy ditch (created by the GOP and Bush) since the Great Depression.
If you don’t like the tax and government policies that moved jobs offshore and undermined workers rights to feed billions of dollars to hedge funds and Wall Street,
Look no further than the party that put the policies in place, the Republican Party. It’s always been a GOP con job hasn’t it?
Reagan and then Bush, with the GOP passing the laws, presided over the two largest transfer of wealth from working class people into the hands of the .5% in the history of this country and now you can see the predicable results.
Vote my friends, the Republican Party doesn’t care about anything but themselves.
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It's nice to finally see Obama getting the disrespect he so richly deserves. Never has such an unimaginative defender of the status quo been so often misconstrued as a man with vision.
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A parallel take that I find insightful is here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2019/august/the-case-against-obama
"he (Obama) ran on the promise of moving in a wholly new direction, claiming we needed not just new policies but a new mindset. Once elected, however, he governed on the basis of ‘pragmatism’, ‘little steps’ and ‘bipartisanship’. In the end, it was not Obama but Trump who answered the call for a wholly new direction, but in a disastrous way."
I don't see how anyone
Hindsight always offers other options but the racist culture that informs American politics was a stumbling block that acted against Obama pursuing a radical approach to the recklessness and incompetence of Wall Street. The election of Trump in 2016 has revealed the depth of the bigotry that has been normalized in this society.
Since the Citizens United decision delivered by the US Supreme Court, there is little indication that any of the two parties represent an alternative to the institutionalization of corporate governance as the de facto power behind the Oval office and the polarized Congress.
The problem lies not with Obama but with a political system in which Purdue Pharma was able to pave the way to enormous riches by helping to spawn a massive opioid crisis that enriched shareholders.
Corporate governance has emerged to fill the intellectual vacuum at both political and judicial levels.
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More than anything, I feel Dems lost the claim to moral clarity by failing to prosecute the bankers; and that allowed Trump to (insanely) claim the moral high ground, since the Dems were indeed in bed with the bankers...
Obama’s appointment of Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury and his failure to prosecute the Wall Street Shadow Banksters who caused the meltdown were huge errors.
1
Sorely lacking was also any punishment for war crimes and torture committed by the Bush administration.
Obviously dead or maimed people are not as important as financial losses.
1
Yes he had 60 votes, except for Lieberman. And not all those votes were reliable. Also who knew Kennedy was going to die so soon and the seat would be lost In Massachusetts for gods sake. We all thought he had more time. At least a year to put together a second package... ah but for 20/20 hindsight I’d have caught the rabbit if I hadn’t stopped to go..
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If healthcare reform was Obama’s signature achievement, why is it the central issue most Democrat candidates for 2020 are running on?
People need to wake up to the huge failure of the “Affordable” Care Act. Americans, uniquely in the developed world, are being fleeced by a healthcare system designed to impoverish them, and ambush them with insane hidden costs, and then ruin them when they struggle to pay.
Wow! In this opinion piece, Mr. Manjoo is expressing my very thoughts...not ones held only now, in proverbial 2019 hindsight, but at the very moment that Barack Obama was naming his economic team. I believed that Robert Rubin's (who I partially blamed for much that led to the 2007-2009 financial crisis) fingerprints were all over the decision to name Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers. Indeed, I recall stating to my mother, who was seated next to me during that infamous press conference, "Houston, we have a problem." And by that, I meant the foxes were being appointed to guard the chicken coop. The rest, as they say, is history AND now added kindling to the run away inequality with which we have been living. To be fair, I well recognize the, then, yet unstated but nevertheless strongly present racialized GOP antagonism to anything President Obama would propose.
BUT, in my view, Barack Hussein Obama was elected to be bold; he did have huge approval ratings (i.e., political capital) after all, and had told all of us "Yes We Can."!
1
You are wrong--these are all the democratic parties mistakes! Obama could not do anything without the congressional democrats and senators working in locked stepped with the president and the democrats were too gullible to believe and trying to negotiate with Republicans. Republicans now in control have shown utter disrespect for previous norms and would not allow Obama to put forth a Supreme Court Justice. In retrospect, the Democrat should have forced to all their policies like to Republicans have dismantled environmental protection, exploded to deficit to the benefit of corporations the rich and foreign investors, pack the courts with conservative right wing charges, overturned abortion right and allowed NRA to prevent any meaningful gun law changes. Hindsight is 2020!
How come people still don't know the policy from Obama was totally failed and disaster for the United States? The evidence was that the Democrats was defeated by Donald Trump.
I congratulate Farhad Manjoo on his reading factual analyses about what is going on in the politics, economy, and social culture of the U.S. and learning enough from them to be radicalized into a sensible social critic. I wish more would do the same, then we might get back to the (somewhat limited) people's democracy FDR helped create.
There are a lot of errors and debatable points in this piece, and the overall tone reeks of Green Lanternism
But, the big take home is that if Hillary had won, this is how we would be talking about Obama - as the timid guy who didn't stand up for true liberal values
Some things that I think are wrong
no mention GM bailout, many blue dog dems means senate maj wasn't that big, ACA was a big deal, the financial crisis was actually much worse then we recall - we came close to a melt down
Obama did not create conditions for Trump's election. Hillary did that with her elitism.
1
President Obama froze the economy with his fixation on Obamacare. Small businesses had no details and thus were unable to plan. Banks wouldn't loan them money because there were no cost projections for the obligations they suddenly faced. That was the situation I, and thousands of other job creators, found themselves in! Government spending doesn't create jobs, but government created uncertainty could and did halt the needed recovery! And for what? So 10 million illegals could get free healthcare while 10 millions Americans were forced off of plans that liked and could afford.
Respectfully, I disagree with many of your unfair complaints about President Obama and also find that some of your historical perspective is off. FDR and the congresses that enacted his legislative proposals did so to save capitalism not to create a socialistic democracy. The New Deal granted the federal government power to tame the abuses of unfettered capitalism and to provide safety nets. And, it wasn’t FDR’s New Deal that got us out of the Great Depression. The depression ended with the production needs of the war, the economic profits from the Marshall Plan and the G.I. bill that created the solid American middle class of the 20th century.
After LBJ and the Great Society, how many Democratic presidents have there been? Two before Obama: Carter and Clinton. How does that fact demonstrate a political appetite for revolutionary change? Has it been established that Obama’s first term senate majority was filibuster proof on all the policy changes you say he should have accomplished?
The revolutionary path made sell well in the primaries. However, having done campaign work for Democratic candidates in purple districts in 2018, there is going to be an unenthusiastic reception from those voters who gave the house but not senate back to the Dems if the platform, for example, calls for Medicare for all versus a public option. And, I don’t see how a revolutionary platform has coattails to deliver the senate.
I will read Matt Stoller’s book.
There's a bit of revisionist thinking here: Instead of using the opportunity to implement a sweeping infrastructure program( a la Roosevelt's New Deal) which would have employed hundreds of thousands and would have been palatable to Republicans, the Dems instead dusted off every long-forgotten social program they could find and put it in the bill( their idea of infrastructure was the reseeding of the Washington Mall if I recall correctly). Of course, an infrastructure program would have substantially ceded the recovery to the private sector which was a non-starter for the Dems. As such, the Republicans pushed back and limited the size of the stimulus package.
2
Unlike most other voters, I knew going in that Obama was a Centrist and not a liberal or progressive. So I was surprised that the ACA was passed, not surprised that the banks and Wall Street weren’t penalized for nearly bringing down the world economy, and surprised again that he didn’t use us, his base, to coerce the then Democratic Congress to pass more laws to reverse some of the damage done by Republicans. This time around I’ll support a real progressive, Bernie Sanders, and hope he’ll use us to bully Centrist Democrats into creating laws that benefit all of us.
"If he’d been in the mood to press the case, Obama might have found widespread public appetite for the sort of aggressive, interventionist restructuring of the American economy that Franklin D. Roosevelt conjured with the New Deal."
While in office, president Obama was never driven by moods; that is, he was not a Donald Trump.
At the start of his first term, Mr. Obama was acutely cognizant of the fact that the US economy was in a fragile state and a single wrong step could have led to a disaster. In short, it was not the time to experiment with the country's economy. As he commented later, his basic philosophy was "not to do anything stupid."
Don't you wish Mr. Trump was following a similar axiom?
3
Obama’s biggest mistake was drinking his own kool aid. He failed to understand that we really are blue states and red states. He failed to appreciate the great divide that stifles our potential.
Maybe Obama wasn’t aware that Mitch McConnell’s stated goal in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression was to make him a one-term President. Maybe Obama didn’t realize the nation’s wellbeing wasn’t as important to Republicans as it was to him.
Maybe it was hubris. Maybe Obama thought he was so beloved Republicans wouldn’t dare challenge Ted Kennedy’s seat. In any case, failing to fiercely campaign for the Democratic nominee for the open MA Senate seat from the start as if his presidency depended on it was Obama’s biggest mistake. And it emboldened Republicans who realized Obama was a President who could be confronted and challenged, even with racist taunts.
Thank god for President Obama and Obamacare! Without it, I would have kept working in a job that (let's be kind) didn't exactly inspire me to hate my weekends and long for Monday mornings. Instead, I got to retire early (by seven years). As a direct consequence of our Obamacare subsidy, my wife and I went from paying $60K per year in federal taxes to receiving $60K per year in federal largesse. So thanks, Barry, for playing small ball. We couldn't be happier that you did and I bet there are plenty of others just like us scattered around retirement communities throughout the country.
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@Earl W. My wife and I had the opposite experience with ACA. We're small business owners, a mom and pop shop. We had to purchase two insurance policies as employees of our company and were being buried in 25-30K in yearly premiums and expenses. We thought ACA may offer some relief, so I had our insurance agent look into ACA plans. She created a spreadsheet that showed the Big Blues and others will cover our doctors and medicine at less cost, so we ditched our commercial insurance for ACA. ACA kept insurance companies in the driver's seat, and the information they gave our insurance agent and millions of other Americans was a fraud. Our docs weren't covered, so we basically had a top dollar, high deductible plan until we became old enough for Medicare that provided us with the treatments we couldn't get with our commercial insurance and certainly not with ACA. We could have gotten subsidies one year, but we're too proud to take welfare. Just as well because our income the following year meant we would have had to repay the government for the welfare we could have received the year before.
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@Earl W.
What god do you suggest should we thank for Obama? Baal, Mammon or Mars? Or all three? On thing for which we can thank for Obama (and Ms. Clinton) is Donald Trump, who, perhaps, thinks of himself as a god. I wonder which.
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@Earl W.
Wow 60K a year in taxes. Must be nice to have a tax bill larger than the median household income. The ACA was better nothing but is pretty affordable for households btwn 50k-70k. $700/month after taxes for bare-bones insurance.
So now I kissed my dreams good-bye have a miserable job with good medical- not great pay. And I need the medical more than ever because I'm in therapy to combat depression and anger that comes with a meaningless existence.
Though, I fully admit I could be missing your sarcasm.
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This is an incredibly naive article (in a political sense) because it ignores one divisive factor in America: Race
To put it bluntly, Obama is Black. Right wingers were already decrying "Communism" as soon as Obama was elected, portraying him as a foreign-born Kenyan who wanted to destroy America. If Obama tried all the things this article suggested, corporate America would have united with the American Right to set off a white, working class uprising.
The irony is that if Trump wanted to try the same economic populist measures, he could get away with it, because he would receive a ton of support from white, working class voters--enough to nullify opposition from the Republican establishment and corporate America. Of course he won't, because he's a fraud.
The interaction between racial and economic attitudes is both complex and toxic in America (Mr. Edsall's columns do a good job of examining this).
Mr. Manjoo's blind spot is assuming that America is a colorblind society.
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@Scott
Obama's timidity in governing with the same sweeping progressive principles on which he campaigned in 2008 may well have been due to his being the first black President and a belief that his race precluded him from getting too far out in front of conventional wisdom. But Obama himself said on more than one occassion during his Presidency that opposition claims that he was a far left ideologue were way off base, and that his own political proclivities were more in line with moderate Republicans. He certainly governed that way, which was in keeping with how the Democratic Party has generally approached governance since they ditched the New Deal for neoliberalism after the Reagan landslides. Unfortunately, that failure to push back against Republican corporatism helped to create the historic, polarizing wealth gap that made a Donald Trump presidency possible. Few if any Democrats thinking they had a real choice to make during the 2008 primary campaign could have predicted that a Barack Obama administration or a Hillary Clinton one would actually turn out to be one and the same.
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@Scott “...corporate America would have united with the American Right to set off a white, working class uprising.“
I mean, they did anyway, maybe without corporate America because neoliberalism.
There was never a way for the first black president to win over everyone, but the point of this piece is that if he had fought harder for the working class, the Democratic Party would’ve solidified their support.
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@Scott
Right on!
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FM’s comments about Obama’s restrained economic policy is well-taken. But I suspect that Obama was shaped not by “elitism” but by the sting of Sarah Palin’s characterizing him as a “community organizer.” That was a label that hinted at the conservative populism that was to crest in the Tea Party movement and the GOP wave in the 2010 midterms. Would liberal populism have been successful in countering conservative populism during Obama’s first term? Perhaps, but Obama’s options may not have been as open and politically risk-free as FM suggests.
2
How old are you?! Do the names Humphrey, Dukakis and McGovern mean anything to you? How about one-term Carter? To win, Clinton had to run as a "new Democrat" ("the era of big government is over").
$700 Billion stimulus too small? Read the accounts of the financial crash by Paulson, Summers or Geithner!
Politics, as the say, is the art of the possible.
4
After Obamacare He never could have gotten anything past this do nothing congress ,no matter how good the idea. Do not blame Obama for the obstruction you see.
4
To minimize the epicness of Obama's role in history is small-minded.
We don't have to agree on policy, but the fundamental effect individuals have on the narrative arc of human progress is--I think--where our wide-eyed lens should focus.
All this divisiveness of decent and talented people is what makes us trudging through the muck--falling prey to those literally bringing us back of the dark ages.
4
Sorry -
but you put far too much blame on Obama and far too little on the American people - who did ''the infamous drubbing'' for what they considered his ''going too far''.
And the belief that he lost because he didn't go ''all the way'' - and changed into some kind of ''neoliberal'' is just delusional.
-(if you would know ''the American People'') and I say that as somebody who will go aaaall the way with ''the Squad''.
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His biggest mistake is a tough one to pick. Not holding anyone accountable for torture threw whatever remained of our claim to a moral high ground into the cesspool of history. Was it not holding anyone on Wall Street accountable for widespread criminality? Democrats Chris Dodd and Barney Frank helped him obliterate the Party's integrity on that front, which helped create the Tea Party and can arguably be said to have brought us Trump.
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@Joe only people who were held responsible for their poor decisions were home owners. Yet, I still believe that Obama did what he could in our toxic political environment designed for rich to have 100% power.
5
I posted about this on the Elizabeth Warren article.The Liberals failed abysmally in their policies towards the working class people and helped the well educated,another word for elitists.This is one big reason they voted for Trump and will again.Democrats and Liberals have abandoned us a long time ago.I still vote for them reluctantly.They will vote for Trump because they hate Liberals.They feel Liberals don’t care about their issues.They played by the rules worked hard and have little show for it.Trump and the right wing media know how to exploit their anger.Liberals are interested in social justice causes the poor or wealthy.Though as George Bailey talked about the people who did most of the living and dying,Liberals ignore us today and condemn our culture.We hunt,raise our children to be respectful of others.We have gay,transgender family members,biracial marriages,children and grandchildren,mixed religious marriages.Yet the left treats us with contempt.If Liberals want their votes they are gonna have to prove themselves by speaking with and too,not at and down!
2
I questioned, like many Americans, why Obama behaved softly immediately after the great Recession. My guess was he was in desparate need of the Wall Street to stop the breakdown of the whole financial system. Thereafter, I guess he set a priority of many megapolicy goals - health care insurance, reduction of nuclear heads with Russia, and realignment of US policies on Middle East. Then he lost momentum largely due to the senator from Kenturky who has not put gun control discussions on the floor since then. However, I believe he did best in 2008. He did nothing on K Street. He did almost nothing on education. He did some on immigration. A recovery from 2008 was great enough. Nobody knows what would happen when he put several Wall Street executives in jail.
1
Obama's biggest mistake was hoping for compromise with Republicans. He watered down the ACA, he watered down his attempts to combat climate change, he watered down his economic bailout and he watered down his infrastructure proposals only to have every overture rejected at every turn. He should have gone ahead and done what he wanted to without consulting or considering Republicans, because the only thing they wanted was to make him a one-term president.
2
While technically accurate, I think this is a misleading version of history that completely removes context. It is easy to look back and point out Mr. Obama's shortcomings. He certainly could have pushed harder for more impactful changes. Yet, Manjoo fails to address the unprecedented and intense scrutiny that Mr. Obama faced. Scrutiny unlike that experienced by presidents before and after him. Instead of placing the blame solely on Obama, we should also look at the role societal attitudes played in his ability to effectuate large-scale change.
4
You've outlined well his biggest mistake in an overall sense.
I would add the failure to hold George W. Bush and company accountable for the Iraq War debacle (Obama unbelievably dismissed this by saying "that's behind us").
And on a searingly personal level for Obama, after Sandy Hook the failure to strike while the iron was hot and the NRA reeling. Instead sending Joe Biden off to study the situation and report back, by which time the NRA had recovered and recalibrated.
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@srwdm
We have had a decade of mass shootings. Odds are approximately nothing was politically possible, and certainly nothing with a large impact.
9
@srwdm
I agree with your first point. But as with Ford and Nixon the show must go on and hearings and impeachments are such messy affairs.
1
@srwdm, It goes against protocol to have the sitting president (Obama) going after a past president (W). Hence, I'm not sure what you expect Obama to have done to "hold George W Bush and company account for the Iraq War debacle". If anything, it should've been Congress who should've gone after W, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the gang because Congress was the one who was misled with misinformation.
SandyHook was indeed a missed opportunity. I oftentimes wonder why is it that GOP presidents can railroad through legislation, SCOTUS nominations, and most stinky cabinet nominations, yet Dems seem so impotent in comparison. Why are Dems always so ever tentative, like the dance around NRA?
9
These recountings of the history of that time often make me cringe. Obama wanted more stimulus, and also a public option for the ACA. But so many forget that the TARP and the stimulus needed significant compromise for passage at all, and the ACA passed by a single vote. The notion that Obama had it in his power to do significantly more in either case is revisionist to say the least. What he did was almost a miracle, not a waste of an opportunity, and accusing him of being too "neoliberal" seems ridiculous.
6
I'm sure that we can find something that EVERY past President did going back to Wilson. OK, but this is NOW, not yesterday of 2 decades or a century. We can find failure on everyone, but today is 2019. Look ahead now back to find blame.
2
I think you’re being too tough on BHO on this. I remember at the time biting my nails in fear i’d lose everything and being somewhat relieved when the stimulus was passed. I also remember that Obama at first sought a larger package but trimmed it down when it was apparent the votes weren’t there. True the Dems had a 60 seat supermajority but that included a handful of Blue-dog Democrats like Max Baucus who voted with Republicans much of the time. In other words, Obama needed cooperation to get anything passed. Hence the difficulty in getting the ACA through Congress. Under the circumstances I think he did the best he could. He showed leadership, perhaps not as much as I would hope for in an ideal world, but far better than we’re getting today. A depression was averted and the economy improved. Just think what improvements could have occurred under a more cooperative Republican Party. Or maybe a stronger and more clever politician with more experience could have accomplished more. Alas, we’ll never know.
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@Akhenaton When people say "he could have done so much more," I wish they would explain how they think President Obama could have overcome the lockstep Republican voting bloc that opposed virtually everything he proposed. The Tea Party kept Boehner and Cantor from taking even baby steps to compromise with Obama, much less support his initiatives. He could have been a contemporary Roosevelt when all he did was rescue an economy in freefall and put it back on track while enacting a health reform bill that helped tens of millions of Americans, enacting financial reform, and putting in place a bunch of other targeted reforms that, if you wanted to disparage, I guess you'd call "neo-liberal."
51
@Akhenaton
See, you don’t know that he could have done more. I don’t know that he did the best he could either. There are too many variables to know the truth. I’m looking at the results, which could have always been better in hindsight. But at least the economy improved. That’s an overall positive result, which Trump now considers his own.
20
@MsB Had you lost your job because of Wall Street's malfeasance, its draining of my retirement plan, and the subsequent loss of my house (using savings for three years to stay afloat and then ran out of money), you would think this article is too easy on Mr. Obama, whom I would prefer to Mr. Trump, by the way. He could have done so much more. "He did the best he could." No, he didn't. He could have been a contemporary Roosevelt; instead, he came up short for the middle and lower classes.
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Obama was a far better campaigner than he was a leader. He is not a model for future Democratic presidents, and it is a mistake to mythologize his presidency. His reforms were at best tactical and superficial, leaving failed structures in place. Under Obama, the wealthy got bailouts, bonuses, and tax cuts, while ordinary law-abiding citizens lost jobs, livelihoods, homes, and savings. The lesson of his presidency is that corporate centrism is not the antidote to extremism, it is the precursor and enabler. We need more articles like this one in the mainstream press, which has been far too timid in critically evaluating the Obama presidency. I can only hope that the Democratic party leaders and candidates are paying attention.
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@Ann Agreed. Much as I like Obama the person, I was first at first surprised, then shocked, then depressed, and finally angry as it became clear he would pursue no real penalties for those who gamed the system and emerged, unscathed, all the better for it. Had he done so, had he really dropped the hammer on the banksters, he would have at least robbed Trump of the opportunity to exploit this misery and sense of betrayal. True support by Democrats of ordinary people, whose income derives from a simple paycheck that has steadily lost value for decades, is long, long, long overdue.
59
@Ann: Campaigning and governing are two different universes.
12
@Steve Bolger@Ann They sure are but not is not an answer to the weakness of his "reforms" and programs. He had incredibly majority of Congress and Country. He should have gone over the heads of Congress to push real change as outlined in these comments. It was amazing lack of experience in dealing with members of Congress and powerful people in Washington. He was only in Senate for 18 months before running. He was a state senator just before that. Really ? Think about that when we look at 2020. A mayor of a SMALL city; a member of the House? These do not make a president in our modern times.
24
One of the things that is so outstanding regarding the early Obama years is the complete lack of any trials or convictions for Wall St. malfeasance during the Great Recession. Rigging LIBOR, selling toxic CDOs, betting against your own customer, kickbacks to the ratings agencies, etc, etc. Not a single trail and criminal conviction. To me, this says it all. There was no desire to hold the powerful financial banks and corporations, and the individuals who profitted from these crimes, to any sort of account. A few fines with no admission of guilt was the best the AG could do. Politicians don't want to hold the financial firms and the top 1% to account, want to become the to top 1%. The wealth accumulation of the Clintons and now Obama contrast greatly with the post-presidential aims of a Jimmy Carter, or a Dwight Eisenhower.
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@Shoshon - That and the "let's move on", look ahead stance taken with regard to the monstrous lies told by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neocons that led us into an illegal, horribly costly war (personally profitable for these three and others) and ongoing destruction in the ME. These people committed war crimes in pursuit of $$$, power, and US hegemony, yet they're living the good life. One of them even received a new heart at taxpayer expense yet the families of dead and walking wounded military are still not adequately compensated.
84
@Shoshon
Not only was there a lack of trials, Almighty O repeatedly stated the justice department was pursuing these prosecutions but they were big and complex so took time.
Low and behold, he was straight up lying.
Not one single DOJ employee was ever assigned to anything related to the financial crisis.
Obama made a decision to let them all walk but rather than announcing that he fed us a line hoping we'd eventually forget.
He was the wrong president for the time.
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@Shoshon
While you're correct that no marquee names in the financial sector were tried and convicted, it's an endlessly repeated myth that "a few fines with no admission of guilt was the best the AG could do."
From the Financial Times:
"In the US prosecutors have won convictions of 324 mortgage lenders, loan officers, real estate brokers, developers and others who were at the front end of a chain of events that contributed to the crisis, according to Sigtarp, the federal agency overseeing government bailout funds."
https://www.ft.com/content/de173cc6-7c79-11e7-ab01-a13271d1ee9c
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