Trump Seals Obama's Legacy Print
By Timothy H. Lee
Thursday, November 10 2016
As even The Washington Post acknowledged, 'Barack Obama's Presidency Has Been a Very Good Thing for Republicans.'

"I will consider it a personal insult, an insult to my legacy, if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election.  You want to give me a good sendoff?  Go vote!" Barack Obama, September 18, 2016 

Sometime during election night, a humiliating and horrifying thought crept into Barack Obama's mind:  "This January, I will have to attend Donald Trump's inauguration." 

Perhaps most depressing for Obama, a man preternaturally inclined toward scapegoating others for his failures, he has only himself to blame. 

Recall that back in 2008, a cocksure Obama maintained very different expectations, aspiring to a presidency as "transformational" as Ronald Reagan's.  "Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, and a way that Bill Clinton did not," Obama pronounced.  "We want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that has been missing." 

Ironically, Obama's performance record ensured that Reagan remains the only president since Franklin Roosevelt who was so successful and so beloved that his party was awarded a third consecutive White House term.  Truman couldn't do it, Eisenhower couldn't do it, Johnson couldn't do it, Nixon couldn't do it, Clinton couldn't do it, Bush couldn't do it and now Obama couldn't do it. 

Only Reagan. 

Embarrassingly for Obama, this is also the first election since Eisenhower in 1952 in which a Republican enters the White House with his party controlling both houses of Congress.  Additionally, Republicans control at least 66% of state governors' houses (with one race in North Carolina unsettled) and more state legislative chambers than at any time since the 1920s. 

As even The Washington Post acknowledged, "Barack Obama's Presidency Has Been a Very Good Thing for Republicans." 

A leading reason is his namesake "achievement," ObamaCare.  Even before FBI Director James Comey reopened the investigation into Clinton's email misdeeds in late October, her poll numbers were rapidly descending amid news of skyrocketing healthcare costs and fewer choices for consumers. 

And given the fact that ObamaCare has remained widely unpopular since its inception, with Americans saying they prefer the healthcare system that preexisted it, repeal and replacement is probably the first order of business for the new Congress and Trump Administration in January. 

Just as significantly, Trump's election spoils Obama's judicial legacy. 

Gone is the possibility of a third Supreme Court appointment via his nominee Merrick Garland, presumably to be replaced by one of the outstanding names among Trump's list of potential nominees.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R - Kentucky) deserves commendation for his steadfast leadership in successfully blocking Obama's nominee despite liberal jeremiads. 

Obama's spoiled legacy also includes what is by far the worst deficit spending record in American history.  During his eight years in office, and despite maligning George W. Bush's comparatively small deficits as "unpatriotic" while running for office in 2008, Obama has essentially added as much debt as all previous presidents combined

And in terms of the economy, which remains Americans' primary issue of concern, Obama is now the only president in recorded U.S. history who never witnessed a single year of at least 3% annual economic growth during his tenure.  To place that in perspective, the U.S. has averaged 3.3% annual growth since World War II, but Obama averaged approximately 2% and never even reached that historical norm, let alone exceeded it in a way that someone aspiring to a Reaganesque legacy could be expected to achieve. 

Depressingly, the nation's first black president also somehow managed to see voter pessimism regarding race relations reach an all-time high.  His "us-versus-them" identity politics, including offensive comments like "typical white person" and "if I had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin," only had a boomerang effect. 

Now Trump and Republicans are the proverbial dog that just caught the car.  So what now? 

The first order of business is obviously repealing and replacing ObamaCare before it harms even more Americans. 

National security and defense revitalization also sit high atop our national to-do list. 

Obama's foreign policy legacy is one of diminished trust among our friends and diminished respect among our foes, and there's not a single significant theater on the globe where America stands better off today than when he entered office nearly eight years ago.  By ensuring sufficient military funding and restoring greater trust among military leaders, we can not only better safeguard American interests abroad, but simultaneously reassure allies and place potential enemies on notice that eight years of American weakness are at an end. 

On that note, embracing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and restoring the bust of Winston Churchill that Obama banned from the White House in a fit of pique would be a welcome start. 

Long-overdue tax reform is another critical agenda item, including reduction of our corporate tax rate that is the developed world's highest, lest even more corporations relocate their headquarters and jobs overseas in order to escape our oppressive rate and Byzantine complexity.  Better leadership within the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is also imperative, in order to revitalize technological and telecommunications investment and growth. 

And to the extent that liberals in Congress attempt to obstruct reform, another legacy that Obama may soon regret is his aggressive use of executive orders to enact change.  What Obama so often did through "pen and phone" can just as easily be undone in the same manner.  That was a risk he ran, and liberals can't be heard to complain about it should President Trump do the same thing. 

In that regard, Trump's bull-in-a-china shop manner may sometimes prove a feature, not a bug. 

In any event, this week's election of a man whom Obama repeatedly labeled unfit to even hold the office of president has reordered America's electoral map and doomed the legacy Obama hoped to preserve. 

Now it's time to reverse and remedy it.