THE ANALYST IN CHIEF
Jack Rakove | Stanford University
Barack Obama entered the presidency with modest personal experience of governance and a bold, if terribly naive, vision of how American politics might operate. The Democratic majority that elected him had to choose between two images of their candidate. The more popular one cast him as a natural supporter of all the liberal causes that had gone into exile as Republicans controlled the presidency or one or both houses of Congress; the other portrayed Obama as a coolly analytic thinker, one who resisted easy solutions and was comfortable wrestling with complex problems. Over the course of his presidency, the model of the analytical leader proved the better description of the political leader Obama became. His efforts to coopt ideas that had flourished in Republican and conservative circles as the basis for comprehensive health care legislation could not overcome the deep, bitter and even racist opposition and antipathy that his presidency faced. On other issues, his willingness to compromise with Republicans proved equally futile, for his presidency coincided with and indeed encouraged a remarkable epoch of internal turmoil among the opposition that will take several more elections to sort out. Under these conditions, the adoption of the Affordable Care Act remains his most visible domestic achievement. Yet the analytical dimensions of his presidency, most evident in his conduct of foreign policy, provide another legacy for historians to admire. Like other presidents, Obama found the daily reporting of the national security situation to be a profoundly educational experience—but also one for which his analytical intelligence was well suited. Ending the American involvement in Iraq, avoiding the catastrophe of the Syrian civil war and even pushing a stubborn Israeli government toward negotiations were important marks of this intelligence. On balance, Obama’s presidency was less transformative than his supporters hoped it might be. But given the political hand Obama was dealt by the economic catastrophe of 2008 and the turmoil of his opponents, it is difficult to see how he could have been much more effective, even had he enjoyed the superior political skills of his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton. Perhaps most important, the very fact of his election as the nation’s first African-American president remains a milestone in the history of the republic.
HE ENDED THE WARS, BUT…
James Goldgeier | American University
In the paragraph dedicated to Barack Obama’s presidency, one sentence will encapsulate his foreign policy: He ended the wars he inherited and avoided new ones. From 1989 to 2001, the United States averaged one major military intervention every 18 months. In the years that followed, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan consumed significant American blood and treasure. The Clinton and Bush administrations believed the use of U.S. military force was essential to American leadership and actively intervened to save populations and promote human rights and democracy abroad. Obama dramatically changed that narrative with a far less assertive foreign policy in places like Syria. His last-minute decision to intervene in Libya, while “leading from behind,” is the exception that proves the rule. His supporters say Obama turned the page on the Bush administration’s headlong rush into a foolish war in Iraq, extricated the United States from a failed war in Afghanistan and avoided new quagmires. His critics argue Obama made military intervention an all-or-nothing proposition, thus leaving the Syrian people, among others, to a terrible fate. Overall, the president has yet to outline a national security strategy for the United States that includes a clear statement of U.S. priorities, a realistic assessment of resources and a vision for post-hegemonic American leadership. “I don’t really even need George Kennan right now,” Obama declared recently to the New Yorker’s David Remnick. Actually, he does—but not for a bumper sticker slogan like “containment.” Rather, the president needs to articulate a long-term strategy for American leadership in an increasingly complex world.
HE’S NO LBJ
James T. Kloppenberg | Harvard University
When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, he faced a severe financial crisis, wildly unrealistic expectations from his supporters and bitter opposition from conservative critics. Three notable achievements marked his presidency: An $800 billion economic stimulus package, opposed by moderate Democrats and almost all Republicans, prevented the recession from becoming a depression. Landmark health care legislation, which Democrats had been trying to enact for a century, became law. Long and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan came to an end. Of course, something unanticipated could happen in the next two years, and decades must pass before historians can assess Obama’s legacy with any confidence. Yet three predictions seem safe. First, those who expected him to arrest spiraling economic inequality, wipe away decades of animosity against all forms of government social provision or expunge the centuries-old stain of racism will be disappointed. Second, those for whom this mixed-race former community organizer and law professor embodied of all they hate about the new America will be distressed that, despite their best efforts, the economy grew modestly throughout his presidency, universal health insurance survived all attempts to scuttle it and many Americans came to realize that U.S. military intervention cannot solve all the world’s problems. Finally, historians will see more clearly than many contemporaries that although Obama accomplished less than his predecessors FDR and LBJ, he confronted an even more deeply polarized political culture and never enjoyed the overwhelming Democratic congressional majorities that made possible their most notable achievements.
IN A WORD, OBAMACARE
Lizabeth Cohen | Harvard University
Democratic President Barack Hussein Obama, served two terms (2008-2016) as the 44th president of the United States. His election as the biracial son of a white American mother and Kenyan father was historic for putting the first African-American in the White House. Ironically, in a neck-and-neck race for the Democratic nomination, he defeated Hilary Rodham Clinton, who would also have made history had she won the election, in her case as the first woman president. Obama’s election marked a new level of achievement in the long and troubled legacy of slavery in America, though racial prejudice still fueled a disturbing portion of the American citizenry’s opposition to the president. Obama faced many challenges upon taking office, most inherited from his predecessor, particularly a recession more devastating than any since the Great Depression of the 1930s and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that had proved draining of men and resources and seemingly unwinnable. He threaded a careful path in attacking these problems, bold in some ways (such as bailing out the bankrupt Detroit auto industry and withdrawing American troops from Iraq) and moderate in others (disappointing his liberal supporters, for example, who hoped for much more re-regulation of Wall Street after the recession). His signature legislative victory was the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), which had the potential to expand significantly the capacity of the American welfare state but whose adoption was plagued with political compromises and whose implementation suffered from serious errors. This pattern of good intentions waylaid by a polarized and uncooperative Congress (due particularly to the paralysis of the Republican Party induced by its right-wing “Tea Party” faction), combined with the legislative inexperience and personal remoteness of the president characterized much of Obama’s time in office. While he will always be remembered in history as the president who proved through his election that American democracy worked, he will also go down as a president whose effectiveness was limited by obstacles to American democracy that he proved unable to overcome, either through force of personality or skill as a lawmaker. In terms of where Obama will stack up against his 20th-century predecessors, I would put him closest to Bill Clinton. In terms of the sweeping legacy of his policies, he was no Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan, but if Obamacare proves successful in the long run, his sponsorship of it will secure him an important place in American history.