When Barack Obama first ran for president, I did not support him. I wasn't very confident in the relatively young, well-spoken Illinois senator’s ability to lead due to his lack of experience, and I felt he needed to just “wait his turn” and defer to more seasoned candidates like Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Well, he didn’t wait, and he won the primary, and then the general election, in historic fashion. As the next four, and then eight years rolled along, there were many highs and lows. How many of each, of course, depends largely on who you ask. This is my own review of Obama’s presidency.
I’ll start with the issue that hits closest to home for me: the opening to Cuba. I definitely felt disappointed that President Obama engaged with the Cuban government without demanding much in return, most notably as it pertained to the promotion of human rights and democracy on the island. However, I recognize that the embargo has not achieved its intended purpose over the past 50+ years. And if this opening to Cuba results in more freedom and democracy for the Cuban people in the long run, I’ll estimate Obama’s actions to have been well worth it.
When it comes to the volatility in places like Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria, I honestly see President Obama’s predicament as having been stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place. The problems in that region are part of a continuum that stretches very far back before Obama and may unfortunately continue well past his presidency. It’s hard to argue that as president, Obama didn’t make mistakes when dealing with the Middle East, but it’s also important to understand the context of just how difficult the situation there has been, especially after the U.S. invaded Iraq under George W. Bush. The truth is that, in spite of how events unfolded over there during Obama’s presidency, and even with all the rhetoric from many of his critics saying that he was “too weak,” few Americans would have likely supported any kind of serious military escalation after our experience with the long, drawn-out wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Finally, we come to the Affordable Care Act, or ACA (a.k.a. Obamacare), which was, by most accounts, President Obama’s signature domestic achievement. The battle over the ACA also marked a pivotal moment in the evolution of my political views in a decidedly more progressive direction. This turning point centered around seeing Obama putting his political neck on the line for the sake of passing a law designed to help more people have access to life-saving health care. But my political metamorphosis didn’t just result in me turning toward something; it also resulted in me turning against something else. As I saw the Republicans so vehemently opposing the ACA while offering absolutely no alternative whatsoever, I realized how starkly different my worldview was from theirs when it came to the role of government in our lives. Sure, they threw around platitudes about “freedom” and “choice.” But that led me to some significant questions: How much “freedom” can a person really enjoy when that person can’t afford health care? How much “choice” does a person really have when that person can’t get health care due to a “pre-existing condition?” I realized that the government’s responsibility to defend and protect our right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” involves the citizens being able to, first and foremost, be healthy. I also realized that, even though capitalism may be the best wealth-creating economic system in history, it is fundamentally immoral for a society to put profit over the well-being of its people. And finally, I realized that a healthy society involves its most fortunate citizens contributing so that the least fortunate can, at the very least, live a life of dignity.
On the whole, I believe President Obama did the best he could, specifically if you take into account both the very difficult challenges he faced when he took office, and the overwhelming circumstances he endured while in it. After all, not many presidents have stared down an economic crisis right from Inauguration Day on the scale that Obama did. The fact that double-digit unemployment, a collapsed real estate market, failing banks, a stock market losing more than half its value, and a bankrupt auto industry now seem almost distant memories for so many is a testament to how far we came under Obama’s leadership. Many deserve credit for helping us climb our way out of the Great Recession, but it would be unfair to deny the president his due for enacting policies that contributed to that recovery.
A review of the president would be incomplete without mentioning the decency, grace, and unpretentiousness that he and his family consistently demonstrated throughout their entire time in the White House. Aside from anyone’s politics, there is little denying that President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and their daughters Malia and Sasha, represented our country in a way that should make all Americans very proud.
Although he ran a remarkably ethical and scandal-free administration, there were, undoubtedly, shortcomings for President Obama. Being the chief executive, Obama’s inability to work more closely with a very hostile Republican Congress is, in the end, one failure he must own. But with such a concerted and concentrated effort to undermine everything he attempted to do, it becomes harder to put it all on him, particularly when Obama had opponents who were determined not to work with him even when he proposed policies they favored. Regardless of how anyone may feel about Obama’s presidency, the bottom line is, any perceived failure or success by our leaders and representatives is our shared responsibility as citizens, and it is ultimately up to us, the American people, to hold our government accountable.
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