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The defeat of Obama’s ‘hope and change’ 19 Jan 2017

Outgoing United States President, Barack Obama, burst on the political scene with soaring speeches. During the 2008 presidential race, he electrified audiences both in the U.S. and abroad by his oratorical prowess. He espoused a genuine conviction that the world could be a better place if governments and patriotic citizens would connect with the better angels of our nature, to borrow the expression of former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
    
Obama went on to win two elections with at least 51% of the national popular vote, a feat no other president has achieved in five decades. But at the twilight of Obama's eventful presidency, we have to wonder if that time actually came – if that moment of hope that he vigorously campaigned about was ever realised.

On January 20, Donald Trump would be sworn into office as the 45th President of the United States. Among other things, his election was a stunning defeat of the ideals and fundamental truths such as empathy, moral sense and reason proclaimed in Obama's spoken manifesto. Trump embodies the politics of polarization Obama hoped to reform Washington from. In the irony of ironies, Obama’s most prominent antagonist is his successor – a man who fueled the bizarre conspiracy theory that the outgoing president is a non-natural born U.S. citizen, in an attempt to undermine his legitimacy.  

It is one of the admirable attributes of Obama to rise above any form of racism, whether blatant or the concealed type that birtherism represents. His focus has always been on more fundamentally important issues. As an African American, Obama was inspired by the civil-rights movement, and his days as community organiser in Chicago deepened his understanding of real issues that disenfranchised populations faced.

There are certainly significant achievements that Barack Obama can boast of as he leaves office. Whether or not he receives credit for it, he steered the U.S. out of its longest and worst economic recession since the Great Depression. Barring the scorched-earth opposition to his policy proposals by the Republican Party, a number of economists believe that the U.S. economy would have achieved more than the average 2% GDP growth rate recorded annually over the last eight years. Nevertheless, the country currently fares better than most of its peers in the developed world. 14 million jobs were added during Obama’s presidency. As of September 2016, there were 20 million fewer people who lacked health insurance. His signature healthcare reform, tax cuts and other policies have also helped to narrow the income gap.

As a former constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, Obama believed that some of the tactics deployed by the U.S. government to fight terrorism were eroding the country's moral authority. Therefore, he banned torture by the military. He set a timeline to end the war in Iraq and close the notorious prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. One of the ways he also sought to show his country’s moral responsibility was by pushing for nuclear disarmament and advocating for “a world without nuclear weapons.” His foreign policy legacy also includes the President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa; Power Africa; and Trade Africa. The Power Africa initiative has a goal of adding 30,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity to sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. So far, it has leveraged close to $43 billion in investment commitments from over 120 public and private sector partners.

Where Obama came up short, it was not because of scandals. He was largely above-board. His values are driven by erudition and the sincere belief in the goodness of the human nature. But in the overall scheme of things, the Obama ideology could not permeate the ossified structures of American politics. In other words, some of his ideas were unrealistic and flawed by over-optimism. In areas where he was constrained by the limits of executive powers, his proposals were defeated by the establishment in Washington – to which all presidents often have to be beholden. Consider the example of gun control. Obama's sensible call for government to urgently fight gun violence was met with feisty opposition. His proposal was construed as the president's malevolent scheme to take away the people's guns.

Obama does not believe in political particularism, the kind staunchly practiced by the GOP, focusing on narrow interests. But therein lies his undoing. Perhaps it is the reason some members of his party – ruing their losses in the last general election – are becoming adversarial towards him. Even though Obama is an ardent Democrat, he laboured to forge bipartisanship to achieve his policy objectives. Much of the time, he was seeking to build alliances – not just in his party – but also with a group of people whose primary goal was to make sure his administration was doomed. As a Republican populist anti-intellectual takes over the presidency this month, Obama can kiss some of his hard-fought legacies goodbye.

Although he failed to "fundamentally change the way Washington works," his approval rating after the 2016 election in which his party lost ground was around 56%, above the historical average of 53% for all U.S. presidents.

He will also be remembered for triumphing over racial stereotyping. Despite the symbolism of being the first African-American president of the U.S., no one is under the illusion that one black president is enough to eradicate centuries of racial bias. Obama will always be the quintessence of the American dream: The young idealistic African American who rose to the pinnacle of American power.