![]() ![]() He himself told me, when I interviewed him, that that was the decision that haunted him the most-not that he had had two decisions and made the wrong one, but he said maybe there was some other decision out there that he didn’t have the imagination or the inventiveness to figure out. ![]() Syria will probably be a problem for him. The question will be what happens to that agreement now again under Trump. And I suspect one of the signature international agreements was the climate change agreement in Paris, which would be a marker perhaps of the first time the world really took action together to slow climate change. How did that affect the Middle East? That’s something the future will have to figure out. In terms of foreign policy, he ended combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. People will see enormous progress in the lives of gay people, and a president helps sometimes those cultural changes take place or at least he gets credit when it happens. Some of that will depend on what happens to health care. And then the question is in the longer term what have you left for the future that will be remembered by historians years from now. And you can also say he’ll be remembered for his dignity, grace, and the lack of scandal. That’s what he’s handing over: an economy that is in far better form than it was when he took over. In the near-term, he brought stability to the economy, to the job market, to the housing market, to the auto industry and to the banks. His successors inherit an emboldened regulatory state that can be used to dismantle or weaken Obama’s initiatives-a reality that underscores the fragility of Obama’s political legacy.ĭoris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian and author of bestselling biographies: ![]() Expansive executive actions also undergird more troubling aspects of his presidency such as drone warfare, deportations and domestic surveillance. While he will be lauded for guiding the nation off the precipice of a global economic catastrophe and for extricating America from two protracted, inconclusive wars, Obama’s aggressive use of executive power in the face of congressional obstruction imperils his biggest achievements in restructuring health care and the financial sector, immigration reform, environmental protections, labor policy and LGBT rights. Historians’ assessment of Obama’s presidency will be mixed. Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama’s extraordinary capacity to tap people’s deepest aspirations collided with domestic political divides that severely limited his ability to build an enduring legislative program comparable to the New Deal, the Great Society, or the Reagan revolution. ![]()
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