President Obama

obama is one of the most intellectual men ever to hold office. quite the contrast from his successor

his legacy will get quite the boost in years to come. he succeeded a president considered by many to be among the worst in history and his successor is without a doubt the most hated man ever to hold the office. that alone will make his legacy look a whole lot better

to an outsider, he seems like an OK president. but i often hear about how obama "made race relations worse." how exactly was he responsible for that? seems a lot like trump is more responsible for dividing people than anyone else based off of what i've seen

 

i hope trump proves everyone wrong for the good of america but just based on his actions since winning the election, i can see why so many americans have no faith in him

-his cabinet is easily the least qualified in history (if you're rich and supported trump, you're in!) not to mention shady choices (bannon, rfk jr, devos)
-handing out important positions to people in his family (kushner)
-the need to call out everyone who criticizes him on twitter as if he's a 12 year old girl. good luck dealing with that the next four years
-the whole russia thing is very, very sketchy

and has he really shown that he actually has any idea what he's doing? he seems to just dance around the questions everytime he's asked about important issues. for example, in his recent press conference he was asked about his plan for healthcare to which he danced around the question and responded with something along the lines of "we will have great healthcare."

aside from all this, i'd be pissed off about having pence as my VP. man that guy is a nutjob

 

Interesting dichotomy; I feel like 90% of my FB thinks Obama is absolutely perfect, zero mistakes, all 10's across the board, and would instantly delete anyone who remotely disagrees or even goes as far as to correct one remark without bias. Good to see level heads here.

 

I'm going to give Obama an extra point solely because he decided to commute Chelsea Manning at the end there.

What I liked:

- Came out in favor of gay marriage (It was kind of late, and bit political, but meh, whatever, still good on him)
- Instructed DOJ to ignore the distribution and use of marijuana at the state level.
- Remained supportive of a women's right to choose
- Ordering the the killing of Osama Bin Laden
- Normalized relationships with Cuba
- 2009 stimulus package (though it should have been bigger)
- The Iran nuclear deal
- Halted the construction of DAPL
- The Paris Climate Agreement
- Basically told Benjamin Netenyahu to **** off by abstaining to vote against UN Resolution 2334

What I didn't like:

- Gitmo still open
- Drone strikes
- Did not end wars in the Middle East fast enough
- Libya
- Violating habeas corpus
- Record deportations
- Didn't push for public option or single payer healthcare, instead settled on what is currently the Affordable Care Act
- Did not push for reinstating Glass Steagall, instead, settled for Dodd-Frank. Not adequate enough.
- Gave a **** about what the Republicans in Congress think (they were never going to like you anyways, you think Trump gives a **** about what Democrats think? Nope.)
- Merrick Garland
- Extended the Bush tax cuts
- TPP (Really hurt the Democratic Party and a big reason why his party lost in 2016)
- Somewhere during his 8 years, decided to become corporate.

Basically IMO, he could have went further and done more things, but decided not to, for whatever reason. And this was less forgivable during his 2nd term. It's not like he could have ran again, he should have just fought the Republicans literally on everything and pull a Bush and do a bunch of recess appointments and have the Republicans take him to court.

 

What did he deny about Israel? It's not like we cut funding to them and separated diplomatic relations. The U.S. is still pretty much butt buddies with Israel. If anything his rebuke of the Netenyahu administration was long over due. Just about everyone and their moms agree that a two-state solution is the best for both parties. Hezbollah should stop firing rockets into Israel, but Israel needs to stop settlement activity in Palestinian territory. Problem is that Netenyahu is a hardliner and a two state solution is a non-starter for him.

And with regard to Russia, I felt like Trump was their guy and did everything possible to help him win. They weren't manipulating voter ballots in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but they weren't on the sidelines either. That said, the U.S. has also interfered with the domestic politics of other countries before too, so at the end of the day it's whatever. This is just what countries do. I'm over it, Russia was like ranked a millionth among the list of reasons why Clinton lost.