Obama, Like Truman, Should Not Be Underrated (response article)

The very scholarly and informative article by Ken Fuchsman described with approval some major achievements by President Obama, which included preventing the economic recession of 2007-2009 from becoming as severe and prolonged as the Great Depression of 1929-1939 and initiating the Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly called Obamacare. The article emphasizes his failures and misperceptions, concluding it “is unlikely that historians will rank Obama among the nation’s greatest presidents.” Very few presidents have achieved this rank. Obama might become one of them.

The principal limitation of Ken Fuchsman’s evaluation is the exclusion of Obama’s foreign policies. Near the end of his first year as President, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Many commentators regarded the award as premature. He was Commander in Chief of his nation’s military forces during two wars. His subsequent efforts to deserve the award include ending the war in Iraq and scheduling an end of the war in Afghanistan.

Ken Fuchsman’s criticisms of Obama include unrealistic efforts to achieve bipartisan cooperation, insufficient funds to stimulate the economy (especially employment), and emphasis on saving corporations—notably General Motors and Chrysler—instead of the victims of the drastic decrease in real estate prices. Politics has been described as the art of the possible. It is more possible to save corporations than individual people. Many of the victims of foreclosures had unwisely bought the real estate with insufficient financial resources and prospects.

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Ken Fuchsman also blamed Obama for the Republican majority elected in the House of Representatives in 2010 and in the Senate in 2014. Beginning in 1946, voters have apparently preferred that Congress and the presidency be represented by opposing political parties. Another principal reason is that some Democrats, mostly poorer people who vote less consistently than most Republicans, do not vote in the elections when presidential nominees are not on the ballot. This was especially true in 2014 when the requirements selectively preventing voting (such as a photo identification) had been enacted in many states with a Republican Governor and a Republican majority in the legislature. Obama should not be blamed for the continuation of non-presidential year voting patterns from 1946.

The future of the remaining two years of Obama’s presidency has parallels with Democratic President Truman’s 1947-1949 years in the White House. The Republicans won control of the House of Representatives and Senate in 1946. The Republican nominee for president in 1948, Dewey, was generally expected to defeat Truman, but failed to do so. Whoever becomes the Democratic nominee for president in 2016 appears to have a better prospect of winning than Truman did in 1948 prior to the election. If the Democratic nominee is elected President next year, President Obama will probably deserve and receive some of the credit.

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