AMAC Exclusive – By Shane Harris
![obama](https://static-asset.amac.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/28063012/Obama-white-house.jpg)
When Former President Barack Obama returned to the White House on Tuesday for the first time in more than five years, it was to a hero’s welcome. As the current president was unceremoniously shoved aside and ignored by crowds of Democrats lining up to shake hands with the 44th President, it became clear that Obama is still the most beloved figure in the Democratic Party – much to the chagrin of a Biden administration that has always felt belittled and disrespected by him. But going on ten years since his reelection in 2012, is all the praise an adoration really warranted? Many of the crises facing the country today are a direct result of Obama-era policies, and it was largely the targeted reversal of those policies that led to the boom times of the pre-pandemic Trump years.
The event in the East Room of the White House this week was structured around a celebration of the 12th anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature legislative victory. As Democrats’ outlook for the midterm elections looks increasingly bleak and Biden continues to sink in the polls, Obama’s appearance was clearly intended to be a break from the doom-and-gloom headlines to remember better times that stand in stark contrast to Biden’s mounting legislative defeats and a Democratic Party that is deeply divided.
But even that nostalgic vision of 12 years ago seems to be divorced from reality – and not all that dissimilar from the situation Democrats find themselves in today. After all, it was the passage of the ACA that led to what Obama himself termed a “shellacking” in the 2010 midterms. Now, a similar wipeout appears likely for Congressional Democrats appears likely this November due to even more radical policies forwarded by the Biden administration.
Moreover, despite Democrats’ continued insistence that the ACA was and is good policy, the actual results of the law on Americans’ healthcare say otherwise. Even the left-leaning Brookings published a study in 2014 that found the ACA caused health insurance premiums to increase nearly 25% beyond what they would have otherwise. Another study from the S&P Global Institute found that, between 2013 and 2015, individual medical costs increased an estimated 69% thanks to the law. More recently, a report published by the Heritage Foundation found that Obamacare more than doubled health insurance costs for workers and families between 2013 and 2019, and that healthcare costs dropped for individuals and families in states that provided alternatives to Obamacare.
Without the ACA, Obama’s legacy immediately starts to look noticeably thin. Most other notable Obama-era policies were enacted via executive order, remain extremely controversial, and were immediately reversed when Trump entered office. More than that, Trump was elected in large part on the specific promise of reversing those policies.
For example, after Congress rejected legislation giving temporary legal status to millions of illegal immigrants in 2014, Obama went ahead and did it anyway via Executive Order. That would be the first of a number of sweeping executive actions on immigration (many of which were challenged and struck down in court) that precipitated a predictable border crisis – and paved the way for Trump to ascend to the presidency by promising to “build the wall” and stop the invasion of the southern border. Now, as Joe Biden has returned to the same open borders and mass amnesty policies seen during his years as Vice President, the country is, once again, facing a tidal wave of illegal immigration.
Obama’s foreign policy failures are another area in which the 44th President doesn’t have much, if anything, to be proud of. It was the disastrous 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal that (in addition to sending pallets of cash that were used to fund terrorism all over the world) empowered Iran to begin ramping up its provocations in the Middle East, alienating key American allies, namely Saudi Arabia and Israel.
As if that wasn’t enough, the Obama administration also botched its handling of the Arab Spring, encouraging insurrections with no coherent plan to handle the inevitable power vacuum that followed the uprisings. As a result, violent extremists were able to exploit the chaos and plunge the Middle East into a state of even greater unrest from which it has yet to escape. The clearest example of this failure was of course Obama’s disastrous foray into Libya, a misadventure that cost the life of four Americans as well as hundreds of thousands of civilians (and further sullied the reputation of Hillary Clinton ahead of the 2016 election). Though Obama oversaw the killing of Osama Bin Laden, he also allowed for the formation of ISIS, who were ultimately responsible for dozens of terror attacks around the world.
Obama’s “reset” on Russia was a total flop, and it was his posturing on bringing Ukraine into NATO that first ratcheted up tensions in the country, right before Putin annexed Crimea in spite of Western sanctions (sound familiar?). It was under Obama’s watch that China began to tighten its grip on the global economy and extend its reach into Africa and Europe, North Korea grew more aggressive in its nuclear endeavors, mired the U.S. deeper in Afghanistan, and empowered the Communist regime in Cuba. All of these moves weakened U.S. global power, a decline that has continued under Joe Biden after a brief resurgence of American prestige under President Trump.
On other domestic issues, Obama’s legacy fares little better. Obama began the Democrats’ sellout to the environmental lobby and escalated the war on American energy. He stoked racial tensions by repeating false narratives following the 2015 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, lied about the extent of NSA domestic surveillance programs, and bailed out Wall Street rather than Main Street, putting the interests of big banks ahead of working class Americans (something which it seems big business continues to thank Democrats for via their new woke agenda). To any objective observer, most of the problems facing the country today clearly have their roots in the Obama years and his failings as President.
Democrats also lament the fact that “everything is politicized” now and blame Donald Trump for “polarization,” as if the 45th President invented the phenomenon in 2016. In fact, it was Obama who began this trend and dramatically expanded the use of the federal bureaucracy to target his enemies. Obama used the IRS to harass his political opponents, weaponized the Department of Justice against conservative individuals and businesses, suppressed free speech on college campuses through the Department of Education, and of course used the FBI to spy on the Trump campaign. It was Obama who refused to work with Republicans after Democrats lost control of Congress, and Obama who popularized the view of conservatives as not just political foes, but mortal enemies to be insulted, disparaged and attacked at every opportunity.
Policies and personal shortcomings aside, it’s also somewhat puzzling why Obama is still so renowned among Democrats given that they fared so poorly during his tenure. True, Obama did retain the White House in 2012, but Democrats lost the first of four straight House races in 2010 and lost the Senate in 2014. Even more damningly for Obama’s legacy, Republicans made major gains at the state and local level, picking up key governorships and other statewide offices. Data from Ballotpedia shows that more Democrats lost state legislature seats under Obama than under any other President in modern history.
Nonetheless, Democrats still revere Barack Obama, so much so that the mere association with his brand was enough to help boost a clearly ailing Joe Biden to the presidency in 2020. But just like Obama’s policies led Democrats to defeat time and again, Biden’s feeble attempt to run the Obama playbook and double down on his ill-advised policies, from the Iran Deal to the Paris Climate Agreement, now has his party facing down another historic thumping at the ballot box.
Obama’s legacy may thus not be totally sealed just yet. If history continues to repeat itself, his failures may help elect a Republican president in 2016 and 2024 – and if recent hints of Trump are any indication, it might just be the same man responsible for coming in to clean up the mess this time around.
Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @Shane_Harris_.
“Policies and personal shortcomings aside, it’s also somewhat puzzling why Obama is still so renowned among Democrats given that they fared so poorly during his tenure.” What is so hard to understand? Seriously! Obama’s people make up at least 90 percent of the Biden administration, at all the senior levels, and they are the ones telling the puppet Joe Biden what to do and sign on a daily basis.
Obamacare, one of the most regressive socialist programs of the last 50 years was successfully rammed down America’s throat by him, as well as the infamous Dodd-Frank bill that has hobbled so much of our financial sector since its passage.
The policies, on a multitude of issues, that are being implemented by the Biden administration are a direct extension of policies first laid out and promoted by Obama during his two terms in office. Everything from raising the price of oil and gasoline, to force the country towards mirroring disastrous European policies on so-called “Climate Change”, to expanding the “woke agenda” to destroy societal foundations, are all moving along nicely. I could list them all for you, but nobody here cares for that level of detail.
We are on the verge of signing another disastrous deal with Iran and handing them 10s of billions of dollars to fund their terrorist activities in the Middle East, while looking the other way as they continue to progress towards having nuclear weapons. So whether the author wants to acknowledge these facts or not, Obama is very much still controlling the direction of the country. If not actually directing day-to-day operations of the White House, through his people in key positions of the federal government. The “Progressive” billionaires that backed Obama have rewarded him by making him a billionaire himself since leaving office.
The video the other day of Obama being the center of attention and being surrounded by drooling acolytes, while Senile Joe just wandered aimlessly looking for someone to pay attention to him, should have said it all to anyone paying attention and able to think. Even Obama ignored Joe’s desperate attempts to get some attention. Why focus on the unimportant puppet (Biden), when the puppet master (Obama) is in the room? Answer: For Democrats, they wouldn’t and didn’t.
It was humorous to see all the “bees” buzzing around Barry while Senile Joe, with his normal blank look, was wondering around looking for recognition from someone, anyone!
If there were any justice in this world, Obama would long ago have been executed for treason.
Obama was all smoke and mirrors which opened the door for the Democrats to continue this charade. Biden is a mindless twit, and mouthpiece. The only true way to overcome the damage and devastation that has been brought about by the Demon-Rats……is to get them out of political power and get back to basics.
IT SEEMS TO ME THAT BIDEN IS MERELY A PUPPET FOR ORDERS FROM OBAMA! I REALLY FEEL THAT OBAMA IS SO EVIL AS TO STILL BE RUNNING THS SHOW WITH HOPES OF DESTROYING MY COUNTRY.
The puppet and the puppet master, can you guess which is which?
Love the clarity in which this article has been presented. Thank you.
His “legacy” might be in tatters, but he’s still running the show in the White House. NO ONE can convince me Obama is not working remotely from home (probably another room in the WH). It was obvious from the reception videos. QP Joe stumbling around being ignored by most and visibly snubbed by others. You could see in his face what was going on in what’s left of his mind, “What’s going on here? I’m the president. I should be the center of attention.” I firmly believe this was a message to the world that QP Joe is about to get “removed”. Either Article 25 or by his own resignation via HunterBoy’s MASSIVE ****-up.
Hes a joke like Joe just a gaffe , laff momment
Behind the curtain pulling the strings, it’s Barack Obama calling the shots, at 1600 Pennsylvania –
We never voted in biden, and we most certainly would not vote in the racist obummer. It is illegal for the racist to be hiding in the basement being a shadow resident in the WH. Treason Treason!!
America is in tatters, and that is by design. None of this is by incompetence, ineptitude or accidental. ALL of this is planned and intentional.
Obama oversaw the killing of Bin Laden,the body was examined and identified? I was under the impression that it was quickly buried in the sea the safest place for it I don’t have any reason to believe anything that comes out of his mouth
Obama, The puppet master shows up to be adored and glorified. The Beelzebub of our age.
His lord is Satan and we all know it. Pray that God will smite him and all his jackal followers.
As I have been writing since Obama’s disgraceful time in office, he built a loyal Shadow Government and made himself the forever Shadow President. … I believe the man is a demon incarnate.
IT WAS A TRADGEDY WHEN THIS IMBECIL WAS ELECTED AND A GREATER TRAGEDY IF THIS HERMORPHEDITE IS PUT ON THE SUPREME COURT. I HAVE PUT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ON NOTICE, IF THEY ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN, NO MORE VOTES NO MORE DONATIONS.
they are the obnoxious minority who only believe louder and more ridiculous is better; like petulant two year-olds overdue for a good spanking and send them to their room.
Can’t we just stop hearing from this bum? He and his Joey have cost the American Workers too much time and treasure. We are so much poorer due to those two and their policies.
How is it that a former President can just waltz into the WH (well actually, he was already there but he was coming in the back door–now he can freely come in the front door) and take over??? I thought that was what the VP was for??
Can you just imagine the furor within the DNC, MSM, Social Media (and all the other liberal arms of the DNC) if that was Trump who waltzed into the WH and just took it over????
Obama was the biggest divider we’ve ever had for a President. Plus he is a racist hater. I don’t understand what the Democrats see in him he is shallow don’t think he can see past his racism and hate into the future of what he does and if as a country we would become better. I think what he does is only to destroy us. The racism and crime going on now was started in a big way with him.
I never thought of Obama as having much of any positive legacy and always saw him as one of the worst U.S. Presidents in U.S. history. Then comes Joe Biden … Obama just got dethroned.
Please ,Please, stop calling them the “democratic” party. They are the Democrat party and have no connection with democracy al all. Perhaps since the establishment of the United States, and certainly from at least the mid nineteenth century.
Does anyone really believe that Omaha has not been in the White House since Biden took office? And where does 12 year was come from, 2016 to 2022, is 7 years, not 12!
Obama is now so bold to visibly be seen in the WH. Obama’s legacy? What legacy? Obama still runs the WH in the shadows. He needs a good lawyer now. He betrayed his Country and loathe of office.
That’s unusual. The rat comes back to the ship
Obummer’s legacy as POTUS was in tatters before he left office, and Joe Hidin’ Biden is steadily maintaining that trend. After all, Biden publicly-telling insured Obummer’s success by informing the public when he ran for POTUS that Obummer was a clean Black man!!! I guess that is good partisan political action by Delunaware standards,
If there had not been Obama, there would not have been Biden. Instead of building hope and compromise, Obama was constantly preaching division and hate. He constantly defended black criminals, even glorified them. Obama made it cool to question law and order, because he made a point of exaggerating any mistakes that were made by police, and hiding the truth from the public about the real histories of career criminals. Even as president, Obama was more street activist than national statesman.
i hate those treasonous pieces of schiff… that includes every dumbocrats at the celebration ! “0BAMA CARE” SCREWED THE MIDDLE CLASS SELF INSURERS… MY HEALTH INSURANCE PAYS FOR NOTHING. GIVE ME A NAIL SPIKED BASEBALL BAT AND LET ME GO TO WORK, I CAN FIX THE PROBLEM!
Remember this ? ! : ” The Obama administration granted the Wuhan laboratory $3.7 million for research in 2015 via the National Institutes of Health, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) revealed last . ” ( mid – April , 2020 ) ” Gaetz :
“I’m against funding Chinese research in our country, but I’m sure against funding it in China. The NIH gives a $3.7 million grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology [and] they then advertise that they need coronavirus researchers and following that, coronavirus erupts in Wuhan.
What’s really troubling to me is either conspicuously or miraculously the Wuhan Institute of Virology is able to sequence the virus on January 2 but China doesn’t admit to the virus existing until January 9 and then the Wuhan Institute of Virology doesn’t release this important scientific information to the world until January 12.
So at best, Americans are funding people who are lying to us and at worst, we’re funding people who we knew had problems handling pathogens, who then birthed a monster virus onto the world. ”
Yeah , A now constantly mutating virus to kill the maximum amount of people per their NWO “globalist agenda goals” of eradicating 6 BILLION of the world’s populations. This year Gen. Flynn reported that soros & gates ALSO funded the same Wuhan lab with their vast wealth .
Genocide criminals – Obama , BIDEN , fauci , soros & gates – expected results of their funding – are responsible for MILLIONS of deaths – worldwide ! As they stole taxpayer funds to do it !
I do not understand how anyone with only 2 tiny brain cells to rub together would be so stupid as to support Democrats … since Jimmy Carter’s reign of lousy leadership.
Why was Obozo back at the White House? Did the toilets need cleaning?
I didn’t read all of the comments here because I just don’t have time but I didn’t notice one thing in particular that we can attribute to Obama’s second term. Seems to me that about half way through Obama‘s second term as president the United States began to see a giant uptick in racism in this country and it all came from the Obama White House. Prior to that racism wasn’t something I had given one thought two for one hell of a long time. Just to set the record straight, The next-door neighbors to the right of me are a very nice black and white couple with two beautiful children. Another really nice black couple lives across the street and there are some Mexican folks living next to them. On the other side of me as a family from China. I guess you’d call my neighborhood kind of a melting pot but everybody gets along just fine. This racism garbage was planned.
Obama was a terrible president. Biden is a complete disaster. How can the republicans predict a landslide victory in the midterms if the same voting machines and programs are still in place? They’ll just steal this election too. Obama has been running the Biden administration since day one.
History should use the Obama Presidency as a lesson in total failure as a leader. Do everything the opposite to be a successful leader.
Funny how time can dull the outrage we felt every time obama made another stupid move to hurt the American people. Remember how obama bowed when meeting foreign leaders? How his AG Eric Holder gave thousands of arms to Mexican cartels and caused many deaths south of the border and at least one in the U.S.? Remember “cash for clunkers”, “strategic patience”, “your energy prices will necessarily skyrocket”, and “shovel-ready jobs”?
I remember living outside Washington, D.C., where every spoken word had consequences in the success or failure of our small businesses. Shortly after the Great Recession began, my income dropped to 10% of the income I’d enjoyed a couple of years before. And it didn’t improve until 2012, years after “the recession was over”.
These 2 are birds of a feather. There’s nothing good that comes from a democrat-led administration. None of them understands that this country functions best when the people and commerce and the free marketplace are given priority over raising taxes, left-wing ideologies, and fading into the woodwork a la “leading from behind”. Morons, all.
Trump 2024. He’ll run.
You have to give Obama and the Democrats the proper credit for accomplishing so much in such a short period of time. Since Biden/Obama took office the Democrats have been able to give us the 1918 Pandemic, the 1929 Depression, the 1968 Race Riots, the 1973 energy crisis along with gas lines and high gas prices and finally the famous 1970’s inflation under Jimmy Carter all at the same time! What a performance! Bravo!
Too many people just plain HATE Trump for him ever to be elected president. Trump did many, many good things. But he aroused too much hate in the process. I hope the GOP can find somebody as effective as Trump with the personality of Reagan to run in 2024.
The guy who said you can keep your doctor ? You can keep your coverage ?? Your coverage won’t change ??? Ruined America’s Healthcare system , companies went out of business people lost their livelihoods their Healthcare all to help the few . That guy ??? I forgot about him until you dug him back up . Thanks !
another dunce!
What are they clapping about?? Our country going down the drain with biden in charge? obama did nothing except put men in the ladies room. We need TRUMP back for 4 years to fix the damage done b the wacko democrats.
The only reason for the adulation is not because he did such a great job, because he did NOT do a great job in the 8 years he was president. Trump 4 years cleaned up his failures but now Biden has nearly destroyed everything we enjoyed before he was elected. I fear too many people clap for ethinicity rather than actual achievment
My family who live in california told me of the “special” connection of Kamala and Obama…. you sure could see it on her face every time she looked at him.
They have to QUIT with the executive orders and go back to law passing. It’s a rediculas game when one comes to power and the next President recinds the order
It’s like watching a Newsreel in color of the 3rd Reich celebrating their Furer. Makes me sick! They don’t fool anyone, and it is pretty clear Obama was sent in for damage control by the antichrist, just who that may be we don’t know yet. I’m going to take a stab at it: Years ago I learned there’s a huge computer somewhere in….maybe Colorado I think, that is the largest data collecting and distributing behemoth connecting all internet based agencies in the U.S. Banks, our Military, our power grid, you name it.
We know how much Bill Gates is involved with the entire internet, and most likely not just here but around the world. I could see this monstrous computer, which was named, ‘The Beast,’ (interesting, isn’t it)?, as Bill Gates baby. It is written in the Holy Bible, (not verbatem by me here), that the number ‘OF THE BEAST’ is going to be the number (a barcode, the numbers adding up to the number) 666, the number of ‘a man.’ This computer controls all data based information in this country….possibly in other countries as well; I’m guessing, but it would make sense since China is now in charge of our country. I’ve read some things about Gates like, he wants to decrease the population in the country, and he may have very well been involved in the COVID Plandemic, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, according to reports around the globe. He’s been kinda in the shadows, we not hearing too much about him except for some conservatives doing a little digging about what I said in my comment above. So it’s interesting, to me anyway, with Gates being the top notch internet guy and beyond a good chance his connection with the ‘Beast’ being, he may have even been the main creator and designer of it. It would be no surprise then that just maybe he’s actually God’s ultimate enemy here to influence as many lost; and others created for God’s purpose to show His power and glory in defeating all the evil in the end. Just like when He created Pharoah to show His mighty powers for Israel to remember and give God the glory for bringing them out of slavery from Pharoah’s tyranny.
What legacy? The only thing I remember Obama for other than promoting racial divisiveness is Obamacare, and that is no success at all. Did he accomplish anything positive? Not that I can think of.
His legacy was in tatters when he left.
What’s happening is all by design by Obama in preparation for the “New World Order”.
half black Mooslum Soros Slave..
“Democrats still revere Barack Obama..” Absolutely, they do. His (and Clinton’s) news media are still present and they WILL ONCE AGAIN target and brainwash everyone in ear-shot. And, they’ll respond like a herd of cattle when they ‘vote’. DNC and CCP have the midterms all figured out by now: how voters will be targeted; how and where voter harvesting & absentee ballots will work best; how to manipulate the count when it looks like they’ll lose. Don’t kid yourselves. They learned a LOT from the 2020 chit show. For every conservative article like those published by Amac that seeks to point out critical truth, there are probably ten sources of blatant lies to confuse voters so no one understands anything. It’s what CCP does to destroy people. Expect this to happen in November. Hope I’m wrong but I still think that the American taxpayer has no voice in state or federal government anymore (if they ever did)
Legacy? He should have snuck out the back door in shame when his 8 years was up. His Obamacare program helped some people but it hurt many more.. How is that a success story? Just because Obama says so? He spent 8 years running his mouth and that’s all it was, just words.