(ThyBlackMan.com) The election of President Obama will go down in history forever. Not just because he is the Nation’s first Black President. Not just because he took over governing the country at a time when the country seemed ungovernable. And not just because he has passed legislation to divide the country across more political lines than what we have ever been used. President Barack Hussein Obama II will make history for all of this, but his legacy may be that of Lincoln or FDR, one where it is written that he governed from a point of personal belief and tried to add it to already established National values.
It’s not just the killing of Osama bin Laden, the controversial assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, or the continuation of the Bush era drone program without shame or regret. On issues of national defense President Obama has been as ruthless as Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney ever were. Winning a nobel peace prize while justifying a 20-thousand strong troop surge without seeing conflict, binary or dichotomy is hard to pull off. Yet this President when it came to keeping America safe was a walking contradiction as much as our 
wars were. He advocated for peace but approved murder and assassination. He ended the war in Iraq, aided the end of the brief civil war in Libya, and continues to oversee the never-ending war in Afghanistan — coming upon its 11th year — all the while pontificating a message of bringing the troops home for good, helping them to get jobs, and approving more programs so U.S. veterans will never be homeless again.
When it comes to defending the country against all enemies foreign and domestic this President is a vigilante cowboy in Gandhi’s clothing. His legacy is twofold; cold and calculating yet hopeful for peace. It is forceful and at this juncture of re-election his greatest asset.
However, the same cannot be said for his handling of the economy. Even with an economic advisory council the President could not get policies passed that would jumpstart our economy and reset the economy to the point before disaster. Perhaps because there is no reset button and what we are experiencing now is the trailer for the harsh reality we and the generations behind us will face in the future.
We face a time where income inequality is as great as it ever has been in this country. The poor resent the rich, the rich are aloof, and those few stragglers considered stuck in the middle are told to pick a side. Women still fight for fair pay despite the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. College graduates are guaranteed nothing when they graduate save for their degrees. Men and women who’ve worked since they were 21 are finding that at 67 they need to keep on going. And children who are trying to learn the value of a dollar are learning instead in this country you have no value if you have no dollars.
Meanwhile, those who can afford to be aloof are. With the stock market nearly fully recovered the super rich can afford to make $9 billion mistakes and act as if the loss was only $2 billion or $2. They can afford to say this country does not have a wealth gap and the redistribution of wealth is un-American and this notion of class warfare — dreamed up by the left and exploited by the right — is an election year stunt instead of reality lower class Americans face every time they pay 25 percent in taxes when the super rich only pay 15.
On the economy President Obama’s legacy is seen as one that has benefitted the rich while shirking the poor and forgetting minorities. He is seen as the one who authorized the rescue of Wall Street when in reality he is the President who made sure the country made a profit off of the investment in private banks. He rescued Detroit and is the President who oversaw the return of GM as the number one automaker in the world despite Toyota’s continued progress after UA.
This President tried jumpstarting the economy with Cash for Clunkers, Cash for Appliances, a mortgage modification program and many other provisions of a $787 billion stimulus. But try as he might these programs were not enough. Cash injection and tax cuts were not enough. This economy is both the fault of Presidential administrations and Americans trying to live dreams they could not attain. President Bush is no more to blame for his lax regulation policies than is President Clinton who relaxed standards that had been on the books since 1933. President Obama is no more to blame for failing to re-regulate Wall Street with Dodd-Frank and the Volcker Rule than is President Bush who allowed banks access to $700 billion without regulation, oversight or a repayment plan.
The strength of the economy will be a testament to the strength of American citizens. Those who create jobs when none exist; inventing more than apps, social networks, and blogs that make money solely from advertising revenue. Those who provide new services and create new goods that we’ve never had but just can’t seem to live without.
Restoring the strength of this economy is not just the job of the man in the Oval Office but the jobs of those who agree and disagree with him. Unfortunately, the man in the Oval office will be blamed for not doing enough even when he’s done all he can under current Congressional conditions. Americans who have yet to come up with the next big thing will be blamed by one party for being too dependent on government benefits and handouts creating a culture of laziness instead of entrepreneurship and ingenuity.
Our economy as we know it, powered by small business and bankrupted by big banks is one that no one President will come out as a leader in. Economic legacies from now on will be written by scholars more than 70 years after the fact. Those who will be able to examine all the factors and come up with a solution that alludes us today. President Obama’s economic legacy is he didn’t do enough. What remains to be seen is if he really could have done more.
A major component of President Obama’s legacy is still being engineered. While his narrow victory on health care Thursday will make history it also raises new questions of where the Nation’s health care will be in 50 years. If we look at this country’s track record on government operated programs we do have something to fear. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are good for the people who enjoy their benefits these programs are also taxing on the American people. They will also be out of money in a decade. Will the same happen to the Affordable Care Act even if their is a continuous supply of income for the law coming in through healthy people paying into a system they don’t yet need. The Affordable Care Act is a legal and Presidential victory but only history will show if it is good humanitarian politics.
President Obama will also be judged on his commitment to education and to Black and Brown people, those he inherently represents.
While the President has made exceptions to President Bush’s seminal No Child Left Behind Act, President Obama has yet to replace it or reform it so American students don’t fall behind their global peers. Students in states across the country no longer have to meet English and Math proficiency requirements come 2014 which takes pressure off of stressed out teachers struggling to teach to a test, but students now have no other standards to measure up to. Our education system is still wholly flawed and this President in his first term has yet to make the Nation’s children a priority.
Likewise, one of the President’s biggest criticisms is he has not done enough for minorities. Deporting more illegal immigrants than any other President before him while also advocating for a D.R.E.A.M. Act shows President Obama will follow the letter of the law even while trying to change it. His executive order banning the deportation of illegal immigrants brought to this country as children is good politics for an election year but does not leave a gateway to citizenship for these students who know no other country as home but are rejected in the country they call home.
For the Black community this President remains a beacon of hope and a point of frustration. He is proof positive any child can grow up and be whatever they set their mind to. But he is also a reminder of the difficult role Black people of prominence play in this country. He has not been able to have a Black agenda like any of the Presidents before him because that appears to be playing favorites. This lack has left the majority of an entire group of people in this country suffering.
President Obama’s legacy is a double edged sword; it is one of intense pride and political and national awakening. But it is also a Presidential legacy of extreme contradictions and obfuscations. A Presidency where not all policies are understood in terms of Black and White.
The right likes to characterize this murky gray area as a failure of leadership. The left quickly quips this is Obama’s masterful game at chess. Whatever it is, it is President Obama’s legacy in the making and as it stands now there are more questions left unanswered then there are definitive points of policy to effect change for a changing nation.
Either this is the set up for a second term, the premise that there really is more work to be done. Or the trial by fire message that making history means that you will inevitably be judged more harshly because you are the first and the hope upon which all others rest. The message that the first time must be the best time lest we not do it ever again.
What points of President Obama’s legacy stand out?
Staff Writer; Nikesha Leeper
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