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Barack Hussein Obama II was the 44th president of the United States. Having left office with a 58% approval rating, he continues to enjoy the strong support of the Democratic voting base. His former associates, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, achieved considerable success in the Democratic primary, mainly because of their image as Obama’s heir. People across the political spectrum have expressed nostalgia for the Obama administration.
However, Obama has also been subjected to severe criticism; Cornel West notably accused him of being “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black muppet of corporate plutocrats". Many have also criticised Obama for the 542 drone strikes he authorised, which killed approximately 3,797 people - 324 of which were civilians, including children.
An entire book could be written about Obama's policy failings with regard to immigration, climate, regulation, labor, and weapons control. The Republican Party, offers an even harsher criticism of Obama, often focusing on analyzing foreign policy, which is overwhelmingly dictated by the executive branch.
The Republican Party eschewed bipartisanship for obstruction. Mitch McConnell, minority senate Republican leader, claimed the party's priority "[was] making sure president Obama [was] a one-term president.” This complicates a fair criticism of Obama’s domestic record, where analyzing Obama’s numerous foreign policy accomplishments can reveal his nature better. Unsurprisingly, unrestrained by congressional control, Obama’s most damning failures have come internationally.
Obama’s foreign policy was marred by an expansion of governmental power through illegal drone strikes. He claimed to have "put the fight against terrorism on a firmer legal footing”; in actuality, his drone strikes caused numerous civilian deaths, including those of U.S. citizens. Instead of specifically targeting terrorists, he initiated a "double tap" drone policy, meaning he struck twice in areas with high terrorist activity. Instead of solely targeting terrorists, he initiated a “double tap” drone policy, meaning he struck twice at high terrorist activity regions. This often affected innocent civilians and humanitarian workers; in one five-month period, 90% of those killed were not the intended targets.
Obama also implemented a similar “signature strike” policy that pursued targets based on suspicious behavior without identity verification. According to a senior official, a running joke in the CIA was that a group of men loading a truck with fertilizers could be bombmakers, as opposed to just farmers.
Drone strikes Left Obama with the blood of American hostages on his hands. The administration was able to claim extraordinarily low collateral deaths by counting military-age males in strike zones as combatants, unless this was posthumously proven otherwise. Infamously, the Obama administration once bombed a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz Province, Afghanistan. Reflecting to senior aides, Obama reportedly once said “Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.”
To his credit, Obama tried to rein in the drone strikes in 2013, after much public backlash, but the precedent had already been set. Obama, a charismatic speaker and leader, had normalized an unprecedented expansion of executive power that could wreak even more destructive havoc in the hands of demagogues. He had already normalised the bombing of brown people and their homelands.
Speaking about values such as "justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings", Obama once stated: “These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere.” There was, however, an apparent disconnect between his rhetoric and his policy on Yemen, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
Perhaps such a contradiction should not be surprising; the preservation of democracy, while simultaneously and unwaveringly upholding human rights, poses significant challenges. Noam Chomsky notes, “If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. By violation of the Nuremberg laws, I mean the same kind of crimes for which people were hanged in Nuremberg.”
Another problematic legacy as a Black president was his stance on race. Addressing the Black congregation of the Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama stated “We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception”, though he failed to provide the context of a criminal justice system that disproportionately targets Black males.
Refusing to use the bully pulpit, he stood silently as the justice system lynched Troy Davis. Obama’s silence reflects a president willing to “straddle the fence on issues important to African Americans.” When Baltimore protestors violently reacted to the death of Freddie Grey, a Black man killed by the police, he called them “thugs”. When Colin Kaepernick took a knee to protest police brutality, Obama cautioned Colin Kaepernick against the action, asking him to consider the pain he was causing military families.” Kaepernick had decided to kneel, rather than sit, on the advice of former green beret Nate Boyer, who suggested that kneeling would be more respectful towards the military.
When the Flint water crisis was at its zenith, Obama drank filtered water to assure Flint’s mostly-Black residents that the water flowing from their taps, which was contaminated with lead, was safe to drink. When Henry Louis Gates was arrested on suspicion of breaking into his home - an act of racial profiling - Obama stated: “I continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well." Throughout his presidency, Obama displayed a lack of urgency in confronting institutional racism and addressing issues from a systemic perspective.
My criticism stems from Obama’s moderate record, which has lent itself to criticisms from both the right and the left, exacerbating division and polarization. Noah Chomsky calls this effect “the manufacture of consent”: the systemic polarization of society to render collective action impossible, making voters uncritical of the elite. The unwillingness of the Democratic party to explicitly recognize the ideological radicalism of the Republican Party will not only hurt electoral politics, but also normalize extremist ideologies.
It is alternatively possible to understand Obama as a Black man who was able to attain power in a structure which had previously been dominated by whiteness. Obama is therefore respected by many for what he symbolised: Black success free of the constraints of whiteness. For many members of the Black community, seeing a Black person hold the highest office in the land was inspirational: a turning point in history given the country's past of marginalizing and persecuting Black people. Symbolically, Obama successfully navigated the powerful chambers of politics - a world dominated by white men - while retaining his Black identity. By embracing the complexities of these facets, a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of Obama, the U.S., and the nation's history can be attained.