Obama's farewell
Less than two weeks before the US presidential finale, but no more than 50% of the people who positively voted for Democratic candidate Hillary and Republican candidate Trump. Obama, whose president’s term is nearing its end, has received far more support than the two candidates.
However, Obama, who took the "change" aura to power, failed to achieve all hope. Polar politics, ethnic conflicts, the gap between the rich and the poor, and many exchanges in the election campaign are all problems that he could not change during his eight years in power.
A poll conducted in October this year showed that President Obama’s approval rate reached a new high in the second term, and 55% of Americans were satisfied with his performance.
In 2008, Obama did enter the White House with the hope of voters. He was ambitious at the time, and there was a long list of things to do on the agenda: reforming health care, the financial system, tax cuts for the middle class, bridging party disputes in Washington, and so on. He wants to change the "travel of the United States" like Ronald Reagan. Eight years later, the US economy has bottomed out and the unemployment rate has fallen from 10% to 4.9%. "Obama Medical Insurance" has taken a crucial step toward universal health insurance, and legalization of same-sex marriage has been achieved. It was also during his tenure that the United States and Iran reached a nuclear agreement, and Cuba was released from Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States’ number one enemy, bin Laden, was shot dead by the US military in 2011.
However, there are also some hopes that have fallen.
Although Obama created the history of African-American presidential election, racial contradictions have intensified to the worst in 40 years. The black group has been trapped in the gap between the rich and the poor, and the disappointment with Obama’s ethnic policy has ignited in the country. Black life is equally important" sports.
He also proposed the slogan of uniting the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. But when he last published his State of the Union address in January this year, Obama admitted that he did not develop a more united political culture. "This is one of the biggest regrets of my presidency. The hostility and suspicion between different parties has not become better, but it has become worse."
The stalemate in party politics directly led to the control of immigration and guns, and he was difficult to advance even the most moderate reforms.
Foreign policy has also suffered. The pessimistic scenario in which TPP is difficult to get approval from Congress has been shrouded in the head of the "first Pacific president." Too quickly leave the power vacuum left by the Middle East, and let the Middle East become the next president to urgently cope with the problem of being overwhelmed.
The ongoing presidential election unveiled a divided and problematic United States. Some mirrors are needed for the campaign strategy, and more is the continuation of the problem that Obama has been unable to change during his eight years in power.
Difficult to bridge the opposition between the two parties
"What does he (Obama) want, we will oppose what"
In the 2008 elections, the Democratic Party won a total victory. Not only did the nominated presidential candidate be elected, but the majority of seats in both the Senate and the House of Representatives fell into the Democratic Party. For more than 40 years, the United States has for the first time seen that the majority of the president and the two houses of Congress are from the same party.
On the other hand, the Republican Party has to face one of the worst failures in decades.
"Time" Weekly recorded in an article in 2012, during the 2008 Obama election from the election to the official inauguration, then the Republican House of Representatives party Eric Cantor and Senate Republican leader Mickey Mike Cornell repeatedly Meet privately and discuss how to set an obstacle for Obama. Former Ohio Senator George Voinovic simply summed up: "What he (Obama) wants, we will oppose what."
In the early days of Obama's administration, the Republican Party failed to stop the health care reform he wanted most. In the "honeymoon period" with the Democratic-led Congress, he implemented a long-term reform agenda including financial regulatory reform and medical insurance.
"President Obama will be remembered for his iconic achievement - Obama's medical insurance, the importance of this bill will become clearer over time." Former US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher "Financial" reporter said.
In March 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed in Congress, when all Republican lawmakers voted against it. Obama had hoped that this would become a cross-party bill. He and the Democratic Party also fought some Republican lawmakers. In the end, these efforts ended without results.
When signing the legislation, Obama said it embodies the core principles that everyone should enjoy basic security in terms of health care. But for the Republican Party, which runs a small government, this represents a dangerous act of the government taking over the health care system. They are more convinced of the free market than forcing people to buy insurance. According to the Affordable Care Act, Americans are obliged to purchase insurance or they will be fined.
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, 20 million people without medical insurance in the United States began to enjoy health insurance. But a poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in June 2016 showed that 29% of respondents believe that Obama Healthcare has hurt their families, and only 18% believe that they are helping them. Opponents' reasons include rising medical insurance costs, increased difficulty in seeking medical insurance, and so on.
Even within the Democratic Party, there is controversy over Obama’s health insurance. But at that time, people probably did not foresee the extent to which the opposition between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party would be exacerbated. Mickey McConnell, then Republican Senate leader, said: "I don't want even a Republican lawmaker to vote for this bill. We want voters to know exactly which party is responsible for this terrible policy."
In the past few years, Republicans in Congress have tried more than 50 attempts to abolish or undermine Obamacare. In the current election campaign, Republican presidential candidate Trump has repeatedly emphasized on various occasions that once he is elected president, he will abolish Obama's medical insurance.
After the mid-2010 elections, the Democrats lost most of their advantage in the House of Representatives, and Obama began to face a distorted Congress. The situation became worse after the mid-term elections in 2014 – the Democrats lost a majority in the Senate, and since then the Republican Party has won control of the House and Senate, creating greater resistance for Obama's remaining two-year term. Therefore, the split between the two parties has reached a fever in the second term of Obama. In the fall of 2013, the US government closed for 16 days as the Republican Party refused to pass the government's spending plan and tried to force Obama to abandon the medical reform program.
"Despair sentiment occurred after the failure of the Republican Party's 2008 elections, which led to the continued stalemate that affected the normal operation of the government during Obama's term of office, even once." Robert A, Senior Advisor of the China Carter Center China Project, President of Koch's Strategy Consulting Company Kapp) told the Caijing reporter.
Tough administrative orders are more alienated from Congress
When he needs to have a good relationship with members of Congress, he rarely takes the initiative to pick up the phone or invite them to the White House.
Immigration reform and gun control are the priorities of Obama's second term. The strong push on these two issues has further increased the alienation of the White House from Congress, and the desire to transcend political hostility to achieve partisan cooperation has also eroded.
In June 2013, the US Senate voted to pass a cross-party immigration reform program. At that time, the Democratic Party enjoyed a majority advantage in the Senate. The Republican camp also emerged more support for immigration reform after the 2012 election defeat. Regrettably, this bill ended in the House of Representatives until a year and a half later, Obama chose to implement immigration reform through administrative orders. This program will save millions of illegal immigrants from repatriation and get a work permit.
The implementation of immigration reform with administrative orders was strongly resisted by Republicans. The 26 Republican governors of the United States collectively filed lawsuits and demanded that the government suspend the implementation of administrative orders. After the local government’s demands were supported, the Obama administration appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.
Since the death of conservative Justice Scalia in February this year, the candidate nominated by Obama has not yet won a vote in Congress. The Supreme Court Justice was formed by four conservatives and four liberals into four conservatives and four liberals. In the June trial of Obama’s immigration reform executive order, the Supreme Court did not unexpectedly see a 4 to 4 deadlock. This means maintaining the original verdict, and Obama’s new immigration policy will continue to be frozen.
In the control of firearms, the Second Amendment to the US Constitution stipulates that the rights of people to possess and carry weapons must not be violated. How to strike a balance between protecting the gun rights of the people and preventing gun violence determines the division between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.
Obama had made up his mind to impose stricter control over the use of firearms. However, due to the inability to pass the gun control bill in Congress, he had to choose to promote it again by administrative order. In January 2013, shortly after the shooting at the Newton campus in Connecticut, Obama issued 23 executive orders to strengthen the management of firearms. In January of this year, he again issued an executive order to try to curb gun violence by strengthening the background review of gunmen.
"The promulgation of the executive order is Obama's helpless but effective choice under polarized politics." Yan Daming, assistant researcher at the American Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Caijing reporter. In his view, Obama took the "permanent campaign" route, and through the "first taste and then buy" approach, let the people fully understand their policies, driven by public opinion, to achieve bottom-up pressure.
However, whenever Obama bypasses the legislature to use executive power, his relationship with Congress is further alienated. At the beginning of his move into the White House, Obama tried to break the partisanship that plagued Washington. His first cabinet had three ministers from the Republican Party. However, accusations of not being good at dealing with Congress have always been accompanied by the president’s ruling career.
A report in the Washington Post said that politicians from both parties complained that Obama was too alienated from them. The report said that when he needed to have a good relationship with members of Congress, he rarely took the initiative to pick up the phone or invite them to the White House. Obama prefers to have dinner with his family or play golf with his small group.
"Obama is not good at dealing with his opponents. He is not a natural politician in this respect. They think he is indifferent and arrogant," said Gary Jackbusson, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego, to the Caijing reporter. Jack Busson has long studied the US Congress and has books such as "Congressional Election Politics."
No one can solve this problem on his own, and political polarization is caused by many structural problems. Boucher said that primary elections tend to be extremists, constituencies are unbalanced, Congress loses restraint, political parties cater to a particular issue group, and court decisions abandon the control of election funding, which has caused party disputes to be exceptionally bad today. situation.
The gap between the rich and the poor and the ethnic gap
“This is the most important anti-racist movement of the past 40 years, and it happened during the first black president’s term.â€
One of Obama’s most easily remembered legacy is his status as the first African American president. When Obama was preparing to run for the US president, his wife Michelle had asked him what he could achieve if he was elected. Obama replied: "On the day I took the oath of office, the world will look at us differently. Millions of children in this country will have different views on their own eyes. This alone is already amazing."
In Ke Bai's view, the election of the first African American president has a profound and sustained impact on US politics, and this influence will continue to manifest in the coming decades. At the same time, however, "ethnic background is also an important factor that leads to political opposition to his individual, his government, and even the US government, especially in the so-called 'conservatives' on the US political right," Ke Bai said.
When the US economy is still in crisis, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly stated in 2010 that the Republican Party’s first priority in the next two years is to prevent Obama from gaining a second term. Obama’s supporters believe that this shows that Republican opposition to Obama is not only due to partisanship but also to individuals.
People originally hoped that Obama’s presidency would allow the United States to enter the post-racism stage. The reality is that when he left the White House, American racial relations were due to multiple African-American deaths in police enforcement, and white police officers were not charged. In the midst of tension, the "black life is also very important" campaign broke out.
"In many ways, this is the most important anti-racist movement of the past 40 years, and it happened during the first black president." Princeton University professor Kimage Amata Taylor said that Taylor was in 2016. In the year published "From Black Life is also very important to black liberation."
In 2008, before Obama was elected president of the United States, a poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS showed that about 60% of African Americans believe that racial relations are generally poor. After Obama took office, the ratio fell by half. However, after seven years, this figure rose to 68%, the highest since 1992.
An Obama supporter even said in an interview: "I don't know what a racist America is like until we elect the first black president."
When asked if Obama was treated more harshly because of his race, 80% of black respondents answered yes, and only 37% of white respondents agreed.
Kiem-Amata Taylor believes that the outbreak of "black life is also important" can be seen as a disappointment for the limitations of President Obama's term. Although the reasons are hostile to the Republican Congress, it also includes the limitations of the Obama policy.
Racial equality did not make significant progress during Obama’s term. Although he appointed an unprecedented number of black judges and released thousands of non-violent drug offenders, his medical reform program has also allowed American blacks to enjoy benefits, but the wealth gap between blacks and whites is widening, while Unemployment rate and poverty rate.
"Historologists will see Obama's efforts on racial issues, but they will also wonder why things seem to get worse," said Boucher.
In his view, part of the reason is rooted in the overall problem of the United States: increased income inequality. Although Obama has implemented health care reforms and other initiatives, in general economic policies and the recovery of the US economy from the 2008 crisis have not helped those who are poorer, whether they are black or white.
Yan Daming also believes that despite the improvement in US economic data, many people have failed to feel the improvement of their lives. “African Americans have long been solidified in the economic and social strata, and it is difficult to improve within a presidential term. The growing intra-ethnic conflicts in Obama’s term are also related to the complexity of American social conflicts in the post-financial crisis era,†he said.
Return to Asia, withdraw from the Middle East
Returning to Asia is a major sign of his foreign policy. Although the title of this strategy has undergone changes from “turning to Asia†to “Asia’s rebalancingâ€
In the US president's political cycle, their second term is often more focused on foreign affairs. Compared with domestic issues such as promoting medical reform during the first term, Obama’s achievements during his second term were mainly from foreign policy, especially represented by the nuclear agreement with Iran and the resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba.
On July 14, 2015, Iran and the Iranian nuclear issue (China, the United States, Britain, France, Russia and Germany) reached a comprehensive agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue. According to the agreement, the international community will lift sanctions against Iran, and Iran promises not to seek nuclear weapons. After the agreement was reached, Obama said: "This reflects the fact that US foreign policy can bring real and meaningful changes to the world." It is regarded as one of the biggest diplomatic achievements of Obama's term, although there are still people who have doubts about it.
His historic visit to Cuba made Obama the first US president to visit Cuba in 88 years. What is even more historic is that the thawing of the relationship between the two countries buried the "last remnant of the Cold War in the American continent."
Compared with his predecessor, Bush, Obama shifted his diplomatic focus from the Middle East to Asia. Returning to Asia is the main symbol of Obama’s foreign policy. Although the title of this strategy has undergone a change in the name of “turning to Asia†to “Asia's rebalancing,†his emphasis on Asia has continued to grow.
Obama’s legacy as President of the Pacific depends to a large extent on whether the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) he promotes can be approved by Congress. The US's dominance of the TPP was formed after Obama took office, and the TPP was also seen as a major component of Obama's Asia-Pacific rebalancing policy.
However, the future of this trade agreement is unresolved, and since Hillary and Trump have clearly stated that they do not support the agreement that has been reached, Obama needs to vote for it in Congress in the next two months. If the TPP is eventually overthrown, it will undoubtedly be a heavy blow to his Asian policy legacy.
Bao Runshi believes that Asia-Pacific rebalancing should not be seen as against China, although over-confidence to offset a rising China is one aspect. But he believes that Obama continues to seek cooperation with China, and has established relations with Chinese President Xi Jinping through meetings at the Annaberg Manor and other occasions.
China and the United States have cooperated on important global and bilateral issues, and the leadership demonstrated by the two countries on global climate change policies is remarkable, Ke Bai said. The cooperation between China and the United States has promoted the conclusion of the Paris Agreement, and addressing climate change is also an important legacy of Obama.
Turning to Asia, but too fast away from the Middle East, the latter is considered to be the most important negative legacy that Obama left to the United States in terms of diplomacy. “The reduction of US presence in Afghanistan and Iraq has led to more turmoil in the region, not less. The Arab Spring is disillusioned in many places. Although these problems are rooted in his predecessors, Obama failed to calm down through his policies. These turbulences are therefore also responsible," said Bao Runshi.
One of Obama’s most criticized decisions was to abandon air strikes in Syria in 2013 and did not insist on the red line drawn by Syrian President Assad. Obama has said that once the Assad regime crosses the red line of a large number of chemical weapons transfers or uses, it will face serious consequences. In an interview with the Atlantic Monthly, he explained: "At the time I pressed the pause button, I knew that I would lose political points. But I can resist those pressures and think about what I think. In the interest of the United States, I am considering not only Syria but also our democracy. That is a difficult decision I made. But I believe that it is a correct decision."
The Atlantic Monthly has two descriptions of Obama’s decision. "History may record this on August 30, 2013: On this day, Obama prevented the United States from falling into another catastrophic Muslim civil war, eliminating the threat of chemical weapons attacks in Israel, Turkey or Jordan. Or: On this day, he let the Middle East fall from the grasp of the United States and fall into the hands of Russia, Iran and ISIS."
Both of these descriptions are probably correct, but they take more time to prove.
Yes, the legacy of the US president in history has never been fixed. Ronald Reagan was criticized for causing the federal government's fiscal deficit to expand dramatically, but is now considered a conservative hero.
At the end of Bill Clinton’s presidential career, many people think that his legacy will be a scandal, but now he is remembered for achieving the strong growth of the US economy.
In January next year, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington will win a new owner, whether it is Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, the arrival of newcomers will announce the end of the Obama era. What is certain is that the problems that Obama has failed to solve still require their answers.
Enter [Sina Finance and Economics Unit] Discussion
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