Obama was generally ineffective after 2010 because he was cockblocked by the GOP. All in all I guess it's better than being impeached...
Good point about the GOP Congress putting up a wall against Obama getting substantial accomplishments after his first two years. I also disagree with Os on the comparison to Carter, who was a mess as president, although I voted for him twice. Where I really fault President Obama is in his foreign policy, both in the Middle East and in the South China Sea. He created a "red line" for Assad in Syria, and then did nothing worth mentioning when the dictator crossed it. That led to a lot of grief. Russia saw it as a sign of weakness from Obama and the US with consequences that we are still having to deal with. In the South China Sea, he royally pissed off an ally, the Philippines, when China bullied them at Scarborough Shoal, a possession of the Philippines. We could have easily sent elements of the 7th Fleet there to tell China to **** off and instead, Obama came up with a "diplomatic solution" that China saw as a green light to do as they wished in the region. The Philippines took it as a betrayal, which is what it was. This had consequences. China began creating illegal "island" military bases out of nothing. President Obama watched and did nothing. We knew exactly what China was doing from the beginning. We haven't spent billions on Defense Department satellites to give amateur astronomers something to gaze at.
I agree 100% with this assessment that the GOP did not work with Obama after the first two years. By parity of reasoning, however, one can make a similar argument about the Democratic Party not working with Trump after the 2016 election.
Well for the majority of his presidency he's had a GOP Congress and even today he still has the Senate.
They came together and passed a ton of COVID stimulus if that counts for anything. Democrats have also stated they would back an infrastructure bill if/when he could get his own party to agree to it. There's also the Patriot Act renewal that both parties seem to back even though people in general hate it.
I don't understand your point. The GOP controlled both the House and the Senate during trump's first 2 years. Can you point out what legislation the Democratic Party prevented from passing during those 2 years?
No Worries said: ↑ Obama's last 6 years were not very effective. The Republican controlled Congress did not want Obama to have any domestic legislative successes. It bugs me that Obama and his closest associates spent 6 years whining that: "You couldn't expect much because after all Obama was merely the president and after the first year he no longer had control of both Houses of Congress". Trump is despicable nut job, but he doesn't take the position that he is powerless and can't do much because he doesn't control both Houses of Congress.
There are certain things that Obama could not have done without Congress because, you know, the Constitution. There are also criticism about him not doing more about police brutality during his time in office or not speaking out forcefully enough. But he cannot just impose changes on the entirety of police culture by himself. No politician or business person or any other citizen can, and I think he at least tried, and at least did not actively sabotage stuff like the current White House occupant does. There are also plenty of things he did that were of questionable morality-- such as drone strikes killing civilians-- and it is certainly right to consider them. But then many other American Presidents in times of war had made decisions to kill.
the "parity of reasoning" is that Democrats have pretty much actively worked against Trump in much the same fashion as the GOP working actively against Obama, and that hostile activity occurred since Trump was elected. The practical upshot of that hostile activity was not primarily, as it was in Obama's case, legislative, so much as it was the antecedent to Trump's impeachment (and calls for impeachment started before Trump's inauguration). Again, "parity of reasoning" is just that: parity of reasoning, i.e., a parallel form of argument. Not "equivalence." I take it you and the others were arguing that Obama's ineffectiveness was caused by GOP hostility to Obama directly. I think that hostility has certainly been apparent among Democrats from Day One of Trump's presidency. And I don't fault Democrats for that hostility. Trump has been an ineffective president as well. The parity is the hostility, not the legislative outcomes per se.
He was a mere place holder with few accomplishment aside from the very important fact that he was black. Obama looks good when bracketed between the two stupidest presidents in the last century, Dubya and Trump.
Regardless of where any of us thinks Obama ranks among the 45 US Presidents, he is currently the one who is in the best position to speak to the current situation. I am glad he is at least doing something.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/obamas-blindspot-on-police-unions-and-police-abuse/ excerpt: Seeing President Trump’s ham-fisted response to protests and riots this week, some Americans might reasonably feel nostalgia for Barack Obama’s oratorical skill and cool presentation. But Mr. Obama’s call on Monday for police reform should bring them back harshly to the fact of the former president’s lack of substance. Writing on Medium, Mr. Obama urged voters to get involved in local politics because, he said, “It’s mayors and county executives that appoint most police chiefs and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with police unions.” What Mr. Obama did not point out is that most local government campaigns are dominated by government unions, including police associations. Here in Southern California — 1,924 miles from the place where a Minneapolis policeman killed George Floyd — police unions finance the campaigns for the state and local politicians who, if elected, will be called upon to supervise police. That’s a conflict of interest with sometimes fatal consequences. This is not a convenient issue of Left versus right. Political candidates of all kinds run the gauntlet of government-union power — teachers, firefighters and, yes, police — in order to win election and stay in office. Mr. Obama’s call to reform your local police department conveniently ignores the fact that reformers will inevitably run up against police-union power.
Police Unions have influence like other unions do, does this mean that they are unbeatable and no pro-police reform candidate can win?
