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xkcd #2875: 2024
(imgs.xkcd.com)
Alt text:
It wasn't originally constitutionally required, but presidents who served two terms have traditionally followed George Washington's example and gotten false teeth.
Obama did do a great job compared to everyone within 8 years on either side of him.
If he'd done a great job, the Dems would have maintained their majorities and Hillary would have won the Presidency.
He did a shit job. He sold out to the big banks. He failed to implement democractic reforms and protect civil rights. He undermined public education, health care, and social welfare. He continued to funnel hundred of billions of dollars to military contractors, heightened tensions in Europe and the Middle East, and ultimately gave us the socio-economic conditions that made Trump a viable candidate for the Presidency.
But he talked good. So, for some reason, we overlook all of that.
He wasn't perfect, sure. But I think you're simultaneously giving him too much and too little credit.
Presidents are figureheads. They get blamed for a lot of trailing indicators they have little control over, and are limited by the particular congresses they have to deal with.
Recently, for example, Biden was pretty limited by the fact that any climate legislation has to get voted on by Joe Manchin.
Obama's policies were impacted by what he thought he could pass.
Look at healthcare, for example. Obama was 32 when universal healthcare blew up pretty spectacularly in Clinton's first year in office. Insurance companies, in particular, spent tens of millions on very successful FUD ad campaigns. Unions were against it, because they often negotiate for "cadillac plans". Much like how Trump moved on after 'repeal and replace' failed dramatically, Clinton did as well.
Obamacare had the advantage that it wasn't an existential threat to the insurance industry. Obamacare was deliberately something Obama thought he could successfully pass, while still being an incremental improvement. And, of course, it did actually pass.
Could Obama have passed Medicare for all instead, or would we have just seen a repeat of Clinton's failure? Honestly, it's impossible to know for sure.
He wasn't good.
The Clintons weren't advancing universal health care in '93. They advocated a network of regional private plans that would compete for membership under a single regulatory framework. They flatly rejected universal Medicaid expansion. Far from threatening private industry, it was designed as a means of guaranteeing poorer regional networks could thrive with state support (much in the same way Medicare Plan C and the privatized Veterans Care and the privatization of the USPS ultimately are just kick backs to local business owners).
One of the better aspects of the Obama plan was to simply up the qualified enrollment numbers of Medicaid. This was the only part of ACA that really worked. And it was only shoe-horned in to contain costs, as subsidized memberships in private plans had enormous administrative overhead that was normally covered by employers.
But, again, efforts to simply open up Medicaid enrollment to the general population was killed from within the Democratic Party. Even as written, the bill allowed individual states to block Medicaid expansion piecemeal. The private insurance industry had to be protected, both under Hillary's plan and under Obama's.
If Obama and Clinton had supported Ned Lamont, the Democratic nominee for CT Senate, back when he won the primary in 2006, their odds certainly would have been better. But Obama and Clinton and their good friend Joe Lieberman had no intention of passing Medicare for All, because they were all - quite literally - heavily invested in the well being of the insurance industry.
Hillary wasn't likable. The DNC is to blame for pushing an unlikable, unpopular candidate. They'd rather lose with Hillary, than win with Bernie, so that's what they did. That is not new behavior for them. Plus trump resonated with a lot of fed up idiots, so he got votes. Thankfully he didn't get enough votes the second time around.
She had an enormous base of support and a rabid following for decades. She's at least as likeable as Donald Trump.
The DNC does what the donors tell them. And Hillary commanded one of the most successful donor-bundling operations in the party's history. In no small part because so many people liked her.
That's true. But Bernie also had a huge hurdle of likeability to overcome. He had at least as many dings on his score card, being an East Coast Jewish Man who once said nice things about Fidel Castro. Dude was DOA in Florida on that resume alone.
Where Hillary fucked up (and where Bernie had a lot of potential) was in the Midwest. And all that is thanks to NAFTA. The Democratic Party is still wrestling with the ghost of 1993 and Bill's decision to move ahead with NAFTA after campaigning against it. Obama fucked Hillary horribly when he pushed ahead with the TPP, which dredged up all those skeletons and gave everyone in the Midwest flash-backs to the de-industrialization of the prior decade.
Trump was able to campaign on "America First" against a Democratic Party that is far too in-bed with international business interests to say anything in defense of domestic labor. Bernie could have countered that, which is the main reason why he was the preferred candidate against Trump.
But then, four years later, Joe Biden takes the stage and makes all the same "pro-labor" noises that Bernie is making. Plus COVID. Plus liberals being too terrified of Trump to contemplate anyone but the safest of safe bets.
I'm all for hating on Obama, but Hillary lost it herself. Obama did a good enough job that Bernie would have won.