Obama’s Legacy Has Already Been Destroyed

Obama’s Legacy Has Already Been Destroyed

By Andrew Sullivan


In one respect, it seems to me, the presidency of Donald Trump has been remarkably successful. In 17 months, he has effectively erased Barack Obama’s two-term legacy.
I don’t want to say or face this. I still want to believe my colleague, Jonathan Chait, whose thesis is that the changes Obama made in his difficult but tenacious eight years in office are too great to reverse. And there are a couple of shifts that do indeed seem to be as permanent as anything is in politics: marriage equality and legal cannabis. But neither, one recalls, was a signature goal of Obama. He began as an alleged opponent of marriage equality, even though, of course, he was ************. He wouldn’t touch the marijuana issue in his entire term and even at one point dismissed it as trivial. As for the rest, in specific policy terms, Trump and the Republican Congress have succeeded in undoing Obama’s work to an extent I barely anticipated.
~Snip~
Nothing could be further from the left’s current vision, which is that the very concept of post-racial integration is an illusion designed to mask the reality of an eternal “white supremacy.” Today’s left-liberal consensus is that Obama, however revered he may still be as president, was and is absurdly naïve in this respect: that there is no recovery from the original sin, no possible redemption, and certainly no space for the concept of an individual citizenship that transcends race and can unite Americans. There is no freedom here. There is just oppression. The question is merely about who oppresses whom.

Source: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/obamas-legacy-has-already-been-destroyed.html


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President Trump has accomplished more in sixteen months than what had been done in the last 28 years. The last four presidents have failed us, America is in denial that we are in decline like the rest of the Western Industrialized countries. Twelve years of Republican rule sixteen years of Democrat rule have lead us to this point, we have only ourselves to blame. In twenty-eight years they have nearly tarnished and destroyed ever American Institution, By Design. We now stand at a crossroad we can continue on the spiraling path downward or we can join together and Make America Great Again.
Andrew Sullivan, like most other blind leftists, lives in his own world, his own bubble full of lies. Objectivity is a word he does not understand. Truth is a concept he does not understand. Especially now, like all leftists, he has to double down on everything because it's about "winning". Yet day after day the Trump Presidency reminds them that they lost, a concept entirely unacceptable. They must deny and destroy at all costs because their pathetic loss is just too painful!
But not long ago I seem to remember both sides lamenting about "entrenched politicians" and how career politicians were the problem. If only we could get a "citizen" politician, a doctor, a business man, anyone except a lawyer to stir things up in Washington. These were the desires of folks on both sides of the aisle.
Yet now we have it, an outsider, an underdog, a man, a President all on his own, fighting ALL of them, and winning! THAT is the American way and we should ALL get behind him as we always do with all underdogs, as Americans! especially those traitorous "Republicans" in Congress, those RINOs who make me sicker than the Progressive Socialist liberals.

 

Obama’s legacy was destroyed the moment he walked out the door. And good riddance.

 

Obama's entire legacy was built on straw blocks and was bound to crumble as soon as a breeze blew.

The man really didn't do anything foundational and as Trump has shown, its all easily reversed with the wave of a pen.

Obama lauded these as great accomplishments when really they were just set pieces in his show. Unlike someone such as FDR who laid his policy in congress and the supreme court, Obama's were nothing more than words on a piece of paper held together with only his signature.

In 20 years when children open the history book to learn about Obama the only thing they will glean is that he was America's first black president.

That is all.

What a complete waste of eight years.

I mean, he didn't even necessarily make things worse, certainly didn't make anything better, its like he was a placeholder for two terms until a real president came in.

 

Actually Obama's legacy has only begun. In fact, the whole Trump (who lost the popular vote by 2,864,974) fiasco had more to do with the racist backlash of a dying culture than anything else.

A close look at the demographics shows that once my parent's generation finishes dying off the Republicans are going to be short quite a few voters.

Ever wonder why grandkids are so much better at setting up things like computers and televisions than their grandparents? Turns out because of advances in heath and nutrition, the children can have IQ's 20 points higher than their grandparents. And statistics show that the more intelligent a person is, the less likely they will have religious beliefs or fall for conservative rhetoric.

 

...hope and change my butt!

 

LOL, President Obama's legacy is very much intact. Indeed, the opposite is true, as the current buffoon-in-chief desperately tries to erase the legacy of Obama, Obama only rises in stature. Hell, Trump is even making George W look good.....

Nope, Trump the buffoon will go down as the most destructive, divisive, worst and most nonsensical president of all time......and this assumes he can finish his current term.

http://news.gallup.com/poll/226994/obama-first-retrospective-job-approval-rating.aspx

 

Pathetic. There was no racist backlash. Not enough to matter anyway. There aren't enough people left in the Republican party that give a tinkers damn what color you are to make that work. The backlash came from the small business community. It came from people who were sick of seeing both parties write breaks for the megacorps into their increasingly complex tax codes and rules and regulations that made their already difficult job all but impossible. It came from people sick to death of government interference in their every day lives on a scale the founders couldn't even have conceived of. King George would have relished the sort of controls modern bureaucracies inflict on those subject to their endless whims.

And kids smarter than their parents? Don't make me laugh. Being more capable with a computer doesn't make one smarter it just makes you more capable with a computer. And intelligence with out morality just makes one more dangerous to those around him or her. And please no two nutritionists seem to agree about anything that hasn't been known for around fifty years.

 

History will decide Obama's legacy. Historians tell us that you can't get an accurate rating or ranking of a president until 20 years after he leaves office. This not only gives it time for the partisanship to die down, but also for history to determine the long term effects any president's policies had on this nation. Viewing Obama today or trying to determine his legacy or ranking among all the presidents is more knee jerk and partisan reaction than one of substance.

Hillary didn't lose because of a racist backlash. If he did one would expect more whites would have voted for Trump than whites voted for Romney. That didn't happen. Trump received 57% of the white vote, Romney 59%. Hillary lost because of her laziness, her inept campaign strategy, he inability to energize her supporters who were more ho hum. She lost because of Sanders supporters backlash who became angry over the DNC and the state Democratic Party leaders jury rigging the Democratic Primaries in Hillary's favor. The numbers prove all the above. It's almost like Hillary took the election for granted. That being next in line was enough, that she didn't have to really work for it.

Racist? More blacks, Hispanics, Asians voted for Trump than voted for Romney. Hillary's share of those group's fell from 3-5 points from Obama's total in 2012 as Hillary failed to install enthusiasm in them to get out and vote for her. What we had in 2016 was two major party candidates disliked and unwanted to become this nation's next president by America as a whole. Disliked and unwanted can be seen in that Trump was viewed unfavorably by 62% of all Americans, Clinton by 60%. Americans who viewed them in a positive light, favorable marks of 36% and 38% set the record for the lowest favorable rating since Gallup and Pew Research began keeping track of these things back during FDR. The previous lowest record holder was Barry Goldwater back in 1964 at 43%, G.H.W. Bush was in second place for the lowest at 46% in 1992. No other major party candidate since FDR has had a favorable rating of 50% or below other than Trump, Hillary Clinton, Goldwater and the elder Bush.

I call the 2016 election the anti election as more votes were cast against candidates than for a candidate. People for the most part outside of the avid Clinton and Trump supporters voted for the candidate they least wanted to lose, not win, least wanted to lose. The Republicans tried handing the Oval Office to the Democrats on a silver platter by nominating Trump. But the Democrats threw that silver platter back in the Republican's face by nominating Hillary Clinton, someone America disliked as much as Trump.

Still, a bit of work on her part on the campaign trail, not being so lazy. Paying some attention to her backyard, the so called blue wall, a revised campaign strategy, she would be president today. Hillary lost the election herself. The numbers prove that. Not a racist backlash.

 

Yeah. Just look at all the genius Liberals in Illinois

A proposal to levy a statewide 1 percent residential property tax would vault Illinoisans’ property tax burden to the highest of all 50 states.


The latest prescription for curing Illinois’ pension woes without reform? Crowning Illinois homeowners as the No. 1 property taxpayers in the nation.


Economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago released a report May 7 suggesting a 1 percent statewide residential property tax, on top of the property tax bills Illinoisans already pay. The revenue from this new property tax would go entirely toward paying down the state’s pension debt. (The report’s authors peg that debt at roughly $130 billion. Moody’s Investors Service has estimated it may be more than $250 billion.)


Under the plan, owners of homes worth $250,000 would pay an additional $2,500 in property taxes for the next 30 years.

https://www.illinoispolicy.org/prop...est-in-the-nation-to-pay-state-pension-debts/

Doncha just love self-described geniuses. Not only have they figured out how to bankrupt a state, but by driving down home values they now can ensure that no one will escape their grip.

 

Someone isn’t keeping up with the polls. Millennials are shifting away from the alt left in droves. And it is a well established trend that the older a person gets (you know because they actually get real world experience instead of just the brainwashing from their gender studies professor) they become more conservative. There will be a period in the next few years where there is a much larger percentage of liberals in the country. But when the millennials all grow up guess what that huge percentage will turn into? Oh wait, you weren’t aware of the fact that the demographics are always shifting like the tide, did you?

And of course like all alt leftists you have to throw in that absolute horseshit about how “trump only won cause of da wacists!” Freaking pathetic. But keep it up all the same. Every time one of you libs say that trump gains another vote in 2020.

 

Kind of funny, your explanation. That the backlash came from the small business community and people tired of breaks given to large corporations? Have you not been paying attention, everything that Trump and the Republican congress has done has been done to give the wealthiest even more breaks, all the while removing protections for workers and consumers. Complex tax codes and rules and regulation that make jobs impossible? Are you living in the real world? I run a small business and I find navigating the tax codes and other regulations rather easy, like child's play.


I know we are supposed to pretend that the Republican party doesn't harbor racists, but you know, I've got ears and eyes. The homosexuals gaining marital parity, I'm sure, just added fuel to the fire.

PS Over the past year I've notice your writing style has shifted to match the current conservative orthodoxy style. Pathetic.

 

Trump lost the popular vote by 2,864,974.

 

Kind of funny, the tired old claim that people become more conservative as they age. Or even funnier the alt left reference, as if there is anything on the left that is as bat crazy as the self described alt-right. Or the brainwashing by a gender studies professor. he he ha ha ho ho. And you are accusing others of not having real world experiences!

I just can't imagine getting old and senile enough to turn conservative. As Thomas Jefferson put it, once your eyes have been opened it is very difficult to once again close them.

 

All that shows is people in southern California are idiots.

 

Unfortunately, nothing will ever repair the mess Obama caused in Lybia and Syria.

 

Along the entire west coast Trump lost handily. Just think, those "idiots" from California are among those that have made it possible for you to come onto the internet and call them idiots. If you take all the liberals out of the electronic/computer revolution, all that you'd have left would be a bunch of conservatives standing around sticking sticks in the dirt.

While we are at it, of all the congressional districts, the blue ones typically exceed twice the economic activity of red ones.

 

It's better not to act as leftists, they're the one who love to use insults. Unfortunately, a lot of leftists are smart, that's not the problem, the problem is there irrationality. Being smart doesn't prevent to be crazy, far from it, a lot of smart people I met where delusionnal.

However, with the time leftist become more and more delusionnal, they're dreadful. That will be maybe a good lessons historian of future time will take from our epoch :
Fanaticism and irrationality isn't the trait only of religion.
There is nothing worst that people who advance with good intentions to destroy societies (communism & multiculturalism).

 

From the Sullivan article...........

In economic policy, Obama’s slow winnowing of the deficit even in times of sluggish growth has been completely reversed. We too easily forget that the biggest accomplishment of Trump’s term in office so far — a massive increase in debt in a time of robust economic growth — is the inverse of Obama’s studied sense of fiscal responsibility.

The fiscal vandalism is also a massive U-turn in terms of redistribution. If Obama managed to shift resources, ever so incrementally, toward the middle class and the poor (by allowing Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy to expire, by bringing millions of the working poor into health insurance), Trump has done the opposite, by doubling down on unprecedented economic inequality, and borrowing unimaginable sums to disproportionately benefit the unimaginably wealthy. On trade, Trump ended Obama’s central initiative in Asia, the TPP.

On the environment, the issue I suspect that will loom far, far larger in retrospect, Obama used his executive regulatory powers in an attempt to nudge and coax the economy away from carbon. Almost all of that regulation has now gone out the window, thanks to Scott Pruitt’s diligent fanaticism.

In foreign policy, Trump has been even more effective. In less than two years, he has wrecked an Atlantic alliance that every president has defended and advanced since the Second World War, and that Obama nurtured. No European government can or should trust America from now on: They know they’re on their own.

Now look where we are: a U.S. policy clearly committed de facto to the Israeli goal of annexation of the entire West Bank, and of intensified apartheid. The “peace plan” is essentially a way to force Palestinians into ever tighter Bantustans in an ever-more theocratic and authoritarian Jewish state. And the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action has more deeply entangled the U.S. in the Muslim religious war, by throwing in our lot completely with the Sunnis. We are now committed to a permanent presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, if only to resist Iran’s proxies and the Taliban.

Health care? Again, we’d like to believe that the Republican failure to repeal Obamacare means that Obama wins in the end. In fact, he loses. The GOP would have had to face electoral calamity if they were clearly seen as the party gleefully throwing tens of millions off their insurance. They somehow ducked this form of accountability (despite themselves), and were yet able to so cripple the ACA afterwards that it is now headed toward a death spiral they will escape the blame for.

More profoundly, Trump has managed to shift our cultural politics. He has baited the left to occupying new territory, thereby cementing his triumph. What drives Trump is racial essentialism, a rage at the post-racial, integrative center that the mixed-race Obama represented.
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In review, Drumpf's "accomplishments" include epic fiscal irresponsibility, adding to economic inequality, accelerating the scientifically proven effect of burning fossil fuels, alienated allies making our alliances weaker, put Iran on a path of developing a nuclear weapon, ruined our credibility as a peace broker in the ME, failed to deliver on promises to make healthcare better and more affordable, and heightened tensions surrounding race in the US.

 

So? That doesn't excuse Hillary for being lazy, developing a ho hum inept campaign strategy and the rest. Are you say the fact she won the popular vote voids all the reason and numbers as to why she lost the election? Any other Democrat would have won by 10 million and probably garnered 400 electoral votes. Candidates matter.

 

Untrue. We still have transgender bathrooms.

 

I preferred writing letters to magazines and newspapers anyway.

The written word. It's a dying art.

 

The Republican hubris is overblown considering Trump lost the popular vote. When conservatives go on about how everyone is turning conservative, well, not really.

 

I'll buy that. There was no mandate. Even so, the fact remains that Hillary's loss was Hillary's own fault. All the excuse making doesn't take away Hillary's laziness, her inept campaign strategy along with numerous other reason. Among them was her inability to energize her supporters. I noticed most were ho hum about her campaign, while Trump supporters were installed with enthusiasm, energy, willing to go to the four corners of the earth for him. There was a lot less avid Trump Supporters, but in the end, that didn't matter.

 

President Obama showed America and the World that America is the Leader of Democracy.

In stark contrast to the appearance of the corrupt Administration that is attempting to destroy American values and tear apart Allies.

 

I voted for Bernie.

Nonetheless, Trump is a Republican made disaster. Marko Rubio could have handily beaten Hillary and we wouldn't have to deal with the crazy train and side shows.