First of all, I want to wish Happy Birthday to President Obama and his family. There is much to be grateful of for his and his family's presence in the White House for eight years.
I am moved to write this in the aftermath of the second night of the Democratic debates, where Cory Booker called Joe Biden out on his support of the mass deportations on Obama’s watch , and the subsequent round of chatter in the cable news bloviosphere condemning all criticism of Obama. Let us separate out two separate aspects of Obama’s role in our country’s life: Obama as individual, as persona, as symbolic exemplar one the one hand, and the 44th President as executive, as leader, and as policymaker.
I have very good feelings towards Obama the man, towards the Obamas as a family, and towards the persona, the figure, he was during his presidency. He very often said the right and powerful words as our comforter-in-chief, as our national spokesman, our representative to the world. And I do not feel his special place in history and in our hearts I only due to his being the first president of color. Even if he had been white, even if he had been preceded by another president of color, I feel his presidency would have stood out in history, as a time of integrity, grace, order, and inspiration. He showed us ( for the first time in decades) that a White House could be run without scandal or uproar, that a cabinet of scandal- and crime-free public servant could be assembled and work together on the country’s business.
For all this I am grateful for his presidency.
However, we must separate the person from the role, and the choices the 44th president made in office. The person who held the office from 2009 to 2017 accomplished many good things in office. I have a day job, and am not a full-time political historian, so please excuse me if I leave out any important accomplishments to Obama’s credit:
- His leadership saved the country form a full economic depression.
- The Affordable Care act was passed on his watch.
- A nuclear deal with Iran was concluded.
- He instituted DACA by executive order.
- Marriage equality became the law of the land.
At the same time, many Americans were still hurting, were left behind, were further oppressed and marginalized. We need to face this. Many people’s lives got worse during the 44th presidency. Imagine, in some alternative history, if we had had a president Jeb Bush, a Kasich, a McCain, or a Romney from 2009-17, and they had done the following
- Hired a bunch of Wall Street cronies for his cabinet.
- Did not even attempt to prosecute the Wall Street perpetrators who triggered the crash of 2008.
- The concentration of wealth and inequality continued to increase during his time in office, with no real measures taken to structurally reverse this.
- Deportations of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, many who had been here since childhood, on pretext of old and minor offenses, took place, such that this president was called the “deporter-in chief” within the Hispanic community.
- The administrative groundwork was laid, for Trump’s concentration camps to be immediately implemented.
- The forever wars in the Middle East continued apace, at an enormous cost of blood and treasure, and to no victory.
We would have condemned these policies (and others, I’m sure the list can be extended) as typical Republican greed and cruelty, and would have supported a true progressive to make a change in these hurtful policies.
We are all aware that Obama, for the last 6 years of his presidency, was met with absolute intransigence by a Republican-controlled house and Senate. There was a limit to what he could accomplish if no legislation could get passed. But he did have the bully pulpit. I feel he was often too reasonable, too cool, too mild, quite frankly too mealy-mouthed, in the face of a bunch of hateful, racist and stupid white men in Congress and the Senate. He could have made them own what they were doing. Imagine if his rhetoric as president had been as sharp and incisive as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez against Ryan and McConnell. Would many of us have felt more validated, less dispirited?
So, I think Booker was perfectly right to call out Biden for hiding behind Obama when convenient. However much good came from Obama, I think his beatification by the talking heads of mainstream media, an attempt to shut down all criticism, does no service to the progressive cause. If we are to inspire younger Americans and marginalized communities to be part of the political process, to campaign, to vote, we need an honest conversation about his legacy, both good and bad.