Obama Defends His Legacy on Twitter, But What Is He Really Going to Leave Behind?

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by Amna El Tawil
You can easily compare politics to storytelling and fairytales. Storytellers use their talent, amazing vocabulary and writing skills, to depict a certain event and take you to the world of imagination. Politicians are almost the same; they portray the world of peace, unity, kindness, economic and financial prosperity while doing nothing to achieve that. Basically, they tell us what they assume we want to hear. However, we live in an era when everything stays documented and their words come to haunt them eventually. The thing about leaders of nations, including the US, is that they always bring something good and bad at the same time. There’s always something that we, the general public, can learn from their positive and negative actions. That was my very first thought when I read Barack Obama’s tweets wherein he defended his legacy. Also, it got me wonder – what is he really leaving behind?
 
On Sunday evening, Barack Obama took to Twitter to talk about his honor to serve the citizens of the US and defend his legacy. He started the seven-message series of tweets by saying: “As we look ahead to the future, I wanted to take a moment to look back on the remarkable progress that you made possible these past 8 years.”
 


 
Obama also mentioned “the longest streak of job growth in our history” and said that “after decades of rising health care costs, today nearly every American now has access to the financial security of affordable health care.”
 

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He concluded his series of tweets by tweeting: “It’s been the privilege of my life to serve as your President. I look forward to standing with you as a citizen. Happy New Year everybody.”
 


Obama is also set to deliver a final speech from Chicago on January 10 at McCormick Place, a hulking convention center overlooking Lake Michigan.
 
Further commentary: While the current president praises the economic progress things aren’t as “pink” as they’re portrayed to be. If we compare the status of the economy today with economy eight years ago, it’s easy to conclude some things did improve. For instance, the US aren’t in a recession anymore. That said, just because the progress is evident it doesn’t mean everything’s okay, there are no worries economy-wise and we’re witnessing some sort of prosperity under Obama. If flowers in your garden didn’t grow properly and suddenly you notice some of them are coming along, does that mean everything is fine now? Of course, it doesn’t! End of commentary
 
Michael Paarlberg of The Guardian wrote that although Obama did avert financial catastrophe, his economic legacy is mediocre at best. He said: “The chief accomplishment Obama has been touting is job growth: somewhere between 9.3 and 13.6m new jobs over two terms, depending how you measure it, with unemployment falling from 10% at the height of the recession to 5% today…But job growth isn’t everything. Job quality matters a lot, and wage figures paint a less rosy picture. Real median hourly wages have risen as well, but barely: just 7% over the past 7 years. One can see this in where job growth is happening. Those jobs projected by the Labor Department to grow the most over the next decade are concentrated in low wage service industries: personal care aides (median income, $20,980), fast food workers ($18,910), retail salespeople ($21,780), customer service reps ($31,720). A greater share of jobs today are part-time than before the recession. Then there’s the question of how well those gains have been distributed. Over half of all income growth between 2009 and 2014 went to the top 1% of all income earners, who saw their incomes rise 27%, while the bottom 99% got a raise of 4%, according to Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez. Median household incomes have only recovered to what they were in 1996, meaning for the vast majority of Americans, the recovery has been one in name only.”
 
The mediocre economy isn’t the only Obama’s legacy, the awful foreign policy is yet another thing he leaves behind. The Washington Post wrote: “The president may have inherited some difficult circumstances, but he consistently misplayed his hand and made matters worse — everywhere.
 
The Obama presidency opened in 2009 with an insult to Britain via the clumsy handling of the removal of Winston Churchill’s bust from the Oval Office… One secretary of state engineered a so-called pivot to Asia that no one in Asia noticed, demolished Libya and missed an opportunity to harness the potential of the Arab Spring. To make matters worse, Obama has capitulated to and strengthened enemy regimes in Iran and Cuba.”
 
Further commentary: Obama came to the White House playing a good guy who wants to please everyone. This type of foreign policy doesn’t work, which is why it led to a series of bad decisions with Libya and Syria being the “mistakes” that will haunt Obama and his administration forever. I get it, he didn’t actually inherit good relations with other countries, but it’s not like he improved them during these eight years. End of commentary.
 
Probably the most pronounced legacy of President Obama is a deeply divided country with severe racial tensions. The Washington Times reported results of the Rasmussen poll on racial tensions in the United States: “60% of respondents said race relations have deteriorated under Mr. Obama, the highest mark since he was elected eight years ago. That number is up 18 points since 2014, when 42% said the relationship between the races had worsened. Just 9% said race relations have gotten better under the first black president, and 28% said they have stayed about the same.
White respondents were more likely than minorities to say that race relations have gotten worse. 66% of whites responded that race relations have worsened under Mr. Obama, compared to 51% of minorities, including 38% of black respondents. A plurality of black respondents, 49%, said race relations are about the same. Republicans and Democrats are also sharply divided over the state of race relations. 84% percent of Republicans and 67% of unaffiliated voters said things have worsened under Mr. Obama, compared to 32% of Democrats.”
 
Further commentary: I can’t remember when was the last time I checked the news without reading or watching reports about racial tensions in the US. There were riots and clashes with police, online abuse on a racial basis, and so on. While Obama may fail to admit that his administration led to these racial tensions, it’s impossible to deny the fact that things got out of the hand and it’s up to the incoming president to deal with these problems now. End of commentary

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3 thoughts on “Obama Defends His Legacy on Twitter, But What Is He Really Going to Leave Behind?”

  2. He has NO legacy regardless of how hard he peddles his lies. His only legacy really is that he FAILED to turn America into a Communist Country no matter how hard he TRIED.

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