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Obama: Worst President Ever? (1 Viewer)

Is Obama the worst president ever?

  • Yes

    Votes: 185 33.6%

  • No

    Votes: 365 66.4%
  • Total voters
    550
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Statorama said:
You're really going to try and come from the point that not one person thought he was the best ever?  The best thing that happened to the Presidency?  The best thing that happened to the country?

Dude, whatever.  If you want to live with that victory in your mind, go ahead and high five yourself bro.  Raise the roof and do a touchdown dance.  No way I'm subjecting myself into searching "Obama is the best ever" or posting any of the lies associated with that assertion.  I lived during the era of adoration of that MFer like he was some kind of messianic figure that was going to save us all.
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:lmao:

 
badmojo1006 said:
Jesus, lighten up. I will admit that some of Obama's policies didn't work, but a bad person rotten to the core? Wow.

Disagree with his policies all you want I may agree with you on a couple. But he is a good person
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Obama is a good person? Oh brother...

Get out from under this guy's lies and persuasiveness.   The man is a brilliant speaker.  Haven't heard many better. Obama knows that.  It's why so many people fall for him.   Doesn't make him truthful.  You can say he's a politician and no worse than the rest.  I'd take that.  But a good person?  That's way way way way off. 

 
He's an honorable person, he's the guy who was the face of America abroad and I can't think of a better representative of my country.  You people acting like you know if he's a "good" person or not need to get a new hobby.

 
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Obama’s main legacy: the collapse of the Democratic Party


By Rich Lowry

In the course of about six hours, what was supposed to be a Republican existential crisis turned into a Republican wave.

What was supposed to be a victory of the coalition of the ascendant became a dispiriting rout of the coalition that didn’t show up.

What was supposed to be the crowning political achievement of Barack Obama’s presidency set the predicate for the unraveling of his legacy.

Since before he was elected president, Obama put down as a marker the transformational example of Ronald Reagan. That entailed moving the political center of gravity of the country in his direction; winning re-election; and cementing his standing by securing a de facto third term for a Democratic successor.

As of 7 p.m. Tuesday, the Reagan standard looked to be in Obama’s grasp. His approval rating stood above 50 percent. He campaigned vigorously, and apparently effectively, in front of adoring crowds. The last round of public polling and the exit polls on Election Day showed Hillary Clinton getting over the top, and her victory seemed likely to precipitate an ugly, self-destructive Republican civil war.

By the wee hours of Wednesday, this scenario turned to ashes and Obama could only survey the wreckage of the Democratic Party, and by extension, his highest ambition.

Obama is a once-in-a-generation political athlete who will always be remembered as the nation’s first African-American president. But a goodly portion of what he has labored for over two terms could now wash out with the political tide.

His party has been devastated beneath him. It began in 2010, when Republicans took the House by winning 63 seats, the biggest pickup since 1948, and six seats in the Senate. In 2014, Republicans gained another 13 House seats and took control of the Senate. Democrats lost more than 900 state legislative seats in this period.

This was chalked up to the midterm effect, the product of a smaller, more Republican-leaning electorate in nonpresidential years. Well, on Tuesday night, the GOP won Senate races in blue states. It minimized losses in the House. It picked up more governorships, including in Vermont, and made striking gains in state legislatures from Kentucky to Connecticut.

All in a presidential year. The GOP controls the presidency, the US Senate and House, and roughly two-thirds of the country’s governorships and state legislatures. The Democrats are now, judging by the scorecard of major offices, the nation’s minority party.

What happened? From the beginning, Obama pushed the left-most plausible agenda without regard to political consequences. His signature initiative, ObamaCare, was forced through Congress despite its manifest unpopularity and with the crucial assistance of obvious falsehoods (i.e., that it would reduce premiums and people could keep their doctors).

When Obama’s initial legislative overreach cost him his congressional majorities, he proceeded with executive overreach, especially on environmental regulation and immigration. His attitude was that everyone had to get with his program and that if they didn’t, they were either stupid or spiteful. He believed less in the usual political arts of compromise and personal relationships than in the irresistible power of his own words.

Having made no real effort at party-building and after a series of disastrous midterms where his campaigning basically saved no one, he had no protégé to turn to in order to try to win his third term. The political bench was empty. He had to reach back to his vanquished rival, Hillary Clinton, whose inadequacies he had exposed in the 2008 primaries and who was almost comically ill-suited to energizing the Obama coalition.

Those voters were considered Obama’s enduring political contribution — an ever-growing bloc of minorities, millennials and the college-educated who would swamp older white voters and constitute an ideological ratchet, turning the country’s politics steadily to the left.

In its first big post-Obama test, the coalition failed. Now many of the president’s substantive achievements are under threat from a unified Republican government, especially ObamaCare, which is in a semi-crisis, and his vast number of unilateral actions. President Trump will pick up his own pen and phone.

President Obama’s party is lurching toward its own bloodletting after losing to perhaps the least likely presidential candidate in all of American history.

We now know that President Obama’s larger project has come a cropper. He is no Ronald Reagan, not even close.
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Joe Summer said:
There are more Democrats than Republicans in this country, but the Democratic party has apparently collapsed.
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A lot of those Democrats just voted Republican. 

Pelosi just got re-elected.

And the Dempcratic party has no leadership, I hope they choose Warren and move even further away from real Americans,

 
GrandpaRox said:
A lot of those Democrats just voted Republican. 

Pelosi just got re-elected.

And the Dempcratic party has no leadership, I hope they choose Warren and move even further away from real Americans,
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Warren sounds ok to lead people where we need to be going, and will go...... in due time.

 
RBM said:
In 6 years they've had one, ONE, significant victory. Sounds like a collapse to me. 
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Congrats?  Regardless of who wins/loses the cycle always reverses.  Bragging that your side is winning really accomplishes nothing.

 
Right now it seems that the Democratic party is led by elites that are deaf to the cries of what should be their constituency and allowed a con man to steal their base.  The good news though is that the Republicans have been infiltrated by the alt-right which should drive some nails in that coffin over the long haul.  Here's hoping two years of complete GOP control don't cause too much long term damage which can't be corrected by a midterm adjustment.

 
Don't Noonan said:
fatguyinalittlecoat said:
I don't know if he's the best ever, but I think Obama has been the best President of my lifetime (born 1973) and it isn't really very close.
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Born in 1974 and I think Obama has been the worst President of my lifetime. 
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Wow, worse than the guy who had the worst terrorist attack on US soil, the worst economic collapse in 80 years and the one of the worst foreign policy decisions in US history.  That's some accomplishment.

 
It is news that a National Review editor thinks that the Dem Party "collapsed" under Obama because of this election but little mention of the GOP under Trump? Nice revisionism, heirs to Buckley.

 
saintfool said:
It is news that a National Review editor thinks that the Dem Party "collapsed" under Obama because of this election but little mention of the GOP under Trump? Nice revisionism, heirs to Buckley.
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Because of this election?  How about because under Obama the Dems have lost every branch of gov't plus a load of state govts. 

 
RBM said:
Because of this election?  How about because under Obama the Dems have lost every branch of gov't plus a load of state govts. 
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Meh. First term, GOP was worried about a permanent Dem majority and Dems bought into it to an extent. Now, GOP is talking about a GOP permanent majority. I guess these voter fraud legislation are helping. I guess gerrymandering is working too. And certainly "dark money" is helping - and goes a whole lot further - in state and local elections. Congratulations! You have found a way to game the system!

 
saintfool said:
Meh. First term, GOP was worried about a permanent Dem majority and Dems bought into it to an extent. Now, GOP is talking about a GOP permanent majority. I guess these voter fraud legislation are helping. I guess gerrymandering is working too. And certainly "dark money" is helping - and goes a whole lot further - in state and local elections. Congratulations! You have found a way to game the system!
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:lmao:  Excuse after excuse to cover for your hero, the epic failure. 

 
saintfool said:
Meh. First term, GOP was worried about a permanent Dem majority and Dems bought into it to an extent. Now, GOP is talking about a GOP permanent majority. I guess these voter fraud legislation are helping. I guess gerrymandering is working too. And certainly "dark money" is helping - and goes a whole lot further - in state and local elections. Congratulations! You have found a way to game the system!
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Wow...just wow :lmao:

 
RBM said:
:lmao:  Excuse after excuse to cover for your hero, the epic failure. 
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Republicans were rewarded for4 blowing up government. Completely denied him anything they could even when it was good for the country. Cynical as it gets and jack asses like you cackle with glee.

 
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Jackstraw said:
Republicans were rewarded for4 blowing up government. Completely denied him anything they could even when it was good for the country. Cynical as it gets and jack asses like you cackle with glee.
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Your hero's legacy is that he destroyed his own party with his ineptitude. He sucked and the American people have spoken. Now go curl up and cry. 

 
Reagan was never able to make a dent in Democrat control of the House and lost the Senate by the end of his second term after 6 years of holding it. The public seems to gravitate towards divided gov't, either by design or just the extra scrutiny that comes from being the governing party. 

If you had told me eight years ago that:

  • Gay Marriage would be legal in all 50 states and protected by the Supreme Court
  • Marijuana would be legal in more than half of the states
  • The rate of uninsured Americans would be lower than any time in history
  • The budget deficit would be more than cut in half, while unemployment would fall below 5%
with the trade-off of Republican control after those eight years, I would definitely have taken it. One of the things I think historians will look back on during this time is how so much social liberalization happened in such a short time, and how much that influenced the nationalist/populist wave following it. Lots of interesting parallels to the 1920s.  

 
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Arsenal of Doom said:
If you had told me eight years ago that:

  • Gay Marriage would be legal in all 50 states and protected by the Supreme Court
  • Marijuana would be legal in more than half of the states
  • The rate of uninsured Americans would be lower than any time in history
  • The budget deficit would be more than cut in half, while unemployment would fall below 5%
with the trade-off of Republican control after those eight years, I would definitely have taken it.
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The problem is that it isn't clear how many of those changes are permanent.  I mean, if Republicans slash health care and bust up legal pot and balloon the deficit it doesn't feel like we've done all that much.   Flipping back and forth between parties every eight years often just means spinning our wheels and not really going anywhere.

And if Trump gets to appoint a few Supreme Court justices, I'm pretty sure the deal you're describing is a bad one for liberals.

 
fatguyinalittlecoat said:
The problem is that it isn't clear how many of those changes are permanent.  I mean, if Republicans slash health care and bust up legal pot and balloon the deficit it doesn't feel like we've done all that much.   Flipping back and forth between parties every eight years often just means spinning our wheels and not really going anywhere.

And if Trump gets to appoint a few Supreme Court justices, I'm pretty sure the deal you're describing is a bad one for liberals.
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Part of what makes it so interesting is that gay marriage rights and legalization were ground-up movements as opposed to driven by legislation. My sense is that the backlash would be pretty severe if Republicans try to leverage their majority to intervene, or have the AG go after States on marijuana now that so many have legalized.  

Some degree of change is obviously going to happen on healthcare but I never thought or hoped we were at the end-state there. The next Republican move is going to be interesting. Do they scale back access in a way that causes the uninsured rate to jump back up? If they do I think it brings the focus of attention back to universal coverage.  They may end up largely keeping the ACA framework in place. Either way I think we end up with universal coverage at some point down the line. 

One of the most predictable outcomes of the next 4 years will be exploding deficits. Not at all ideal considering it will largely be fueled by tax cuts for the 1%, but at least it will provide the amusement of Republicans doing mental gymnastics to justify their budget hypocrisy. We'll also end up with another data point demonstrating that tax cuts aren't self-funding for the next time it comes up. 

The Supreme Court is worrying, but the only seat we know for sure Trump will fill is Scalia's and remember that the court with Scalia on it upheld ACA twice and found gay marriage as Constitutionally protected right. Even on gun control, Heller honestly isn't a terrible ruling. Democrats can also shut down any nomination they want by filibuster. 

 
Compare:

The unemployment rate in January 2009 vs. November 2016: 10.3% vs.4.7% Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

The DOW, same time frame: 7,949 vs.19,251 Source: DJIA Over Time, CNN Money

Home foreclosures dropped from 3.4 million in 2009 to 1.1 million in 2015 Source: Home Foreclosure Statistics

Feel free to check the labor participation rate and wages on the Bureau of Labor statistics site, for those who like to claim all the jobs are McJobs. That's not true. 

These aren't "lamestream media" sites.

On those statistics alone, I would argue Obama is not the worst of all time.

For those saying he's an evil person, where in the world does that come from? He doesn't tweet angrily, seems to like sports, raised two good daughters while being POTUS. What in the actual ####? Even if he's not the greatest, the thread question is Obama, worst ever? So the answer is no.

 
Grace Under Pressure said:
Compare:

The unemployment rate in January 2009 vs. November 2016: 10.3% vs.4.7% Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

The DOW, same time frame: 7,949 vs.19,251 Source: DJIA Over Time, CNN Money

Home foreclosures dropped from 3.4 million in 2009 to 1.1 million in 2015 Source: Home Foreclosure Statistics

Feel free to check the labor participation rate and wages on the Bureau of Labor statistics site, for those who like to claim all the jobs are McJobs. That's not true. 

These aren't "lamestream media" sites.

On those statistics alone, I would argue Obama is not the worst of all time.

For those saying he's an evil person, where in the world does that come from? He doesn't tweet angrily, seems to like sports, raised two good daughters while being POTUS. What in the actual ####? Even if he's not the greatest, the thread question is Obama, worst ever? So the answer is no.
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Seems like more fake news to me

 
Did anyone watch the Vice (HBO) special on Obama's presidency? Vice usually has a pretty liberal take on things but I thought they did a fair job of showing both sides with interviews with Boehner and other conservatives.

One question raised that I thought was interesting was how different things might have been if Obama would have been able to get a bipartisan compromise on the stimulus bill. They seemed to make the point that the lack of a compromise ended up fueling the Tea Party and the strong vitriol against Obama. There may have been a small window there for us to actually have a well functioning government but things spiraled out of control.  Of course, both sides blamed each other for the failure to get a compromise.  But I wonder if something could have been worked out.

 
Has any President ever continually criticized the President-elect as Obama is doing?  This guy is going down swinging and dividing with everything he has left in him.   Doesn't matter the consequences.  He wants America to rebel against Trump.  Divider.  Staying true to himself. 

 
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flapgreen said:
Has any President ever continually criticized the President-elect as Obama is doing?  This guy is going down swinging and dividing with everything he has left in him.   Doesn't matter the consequences.  He wants America to rebel against Trump.  Divider.  Staying true to himself. 
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I don't get this impression at all. There are many more valid criticisms of Trump than Obama has weighed in on.

Ironic of you to post that given the thread title and the fact that you probably voted yes

 
Juxtatarot said:
Did anyone watch the Vice (HBO) special on Obama's presidency? Vice usually has a pretty liberal take on things but I thought they did a fair job of showing both sides with interviews with Boehner and other conservatives.

One question raised that I thought was interesting was how different things might have been if Obama would have been able to get a bipartisan compromise on the stimulus bill. They seemed to make the point that the lack of a compromise ended up fueling the Tea Party and the strong vitriol against Obama. There may have been a small window there for us to actually have a well functioning government but things spiraled out of control.  Of course, both sides blamed each other for the failure to get a compromise.  But I wonder if something could have been worked out.
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Being the President is hard.  One of the things that makes it hard is that you have to be the ultimate dealmaker.  I'm so glad that he never figured out concepts like win/win or else we would have been stuck with all kinds of ridiculous nonsense.  

My job is nowhere near as difficult as being President, but it requires people skills to get things done.  Sometimes it's as simple as making someone feel like the most important person in the room, or just listening to someone that feels neglected.  Reading the room isn't that hard.  But Obama is an incredibly competitive person.  He doesn't just want to beat you on the court, he wants to break your ankles with a slick crossover, throw a bucket of confetti on the crowd, and toss the ball off the backboard and slam it home.

 
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