The First Black President

During the coming weeks and months, we are bound to have much blabber and bloviating about  Obama’s legacy, about his standing in the hierarchy of presidential greatness, about what he did for race relations in the US, and so on.  This is an important discussion for us to have, even if much of what is said will be drivel.  The perception of Obama’s presidency that takes root in our political culture will have much to do with the politics of race in the future.

    I have been rather harshly critical of Obama during his tenure in office.  I have written here concerning the health care program on which he wasted so much political capital.  I have criticized his militaristic foreign policy, his corporatist economic policies, and his rank hypocrisy on the drug war.  I don’t have much use for his political style, which I think isn’t very effective (although I am not sure any political style could be effective in a political system as dysfunctional as ours has become).  

     But none of this really matters very much when it comes to his legacy.  How history will treat Obama, the place he will occupy in the pantheon of past presidents, will depend largely on how he navigated the challenges of being the first black POTUS.  And in this regard, Obama’s legacy is looking pretty…unsettled.  

     Jim Nelson, the white editor of GQ, offers what I expect will be fairly common—effusive praise for all of Obama’s wonderful accomplishments.  It is mostly over the top; Nelson seems overly impressed with Obama’s rhetorical skills, and gives him way more credit than he (or any President) deserves for the economic recovery (such as it is).  But on one point, I think, he captures the sense of a great many people:

That character came across every time haters or Trumpers or birthers tried to pull him down into the mud or question his American-ness. He just flew above it all. And, luckily, he took most of us with him. He was the Leader not only of our country but of our mood and disposition, which is harder to rule. At a time when we became more polarized, our discourse pettier and more poisoned, Obama always came across as the Adult in the Room….

President Obama (and his wife) confronted the crude racism, the obstructionism, and the relentless effort to turn Bush’s mistakes into Obama’s failures with enormous grace and dignity.  He behaved much better than his critics.

     On the other hand, Cornell West, a black intellectual writing in The Guardian, offers a scathing critique of Obama’s policies, his handling of various matters, and his character:

The reign of Obama did not produce the nightmare of Donald Trump – but it did contribute to it. And those Obama cheerleaders who refused to make him accountable bear some responsibility. 

      

West follows this with a detailed and harsh critique of Obama’s policies and missed opportunities that captures much of my own dissatisfaction, even though West brings to the matter a political perspective very different from mine.  

     My own view of this matter is as unsettled as that of the political culture at large.  I feel like I ought to be optimistic.  The first black President certainly didn’t do anything to give white people cause to get upset.  He didn’t confiscate anyone’s guns, he didn’t put all his black friends on welfare, he didn’t put white people in FEMA camps.  In a more serious vein, his policies were largely a continuation of his predecessor’s.  They weren’t very good, but, then, we haven’t had a good President for awhile.  

     And he certainly didn’t do anything to embarrass black people, even if he didn’t do much to improve their situation.  The Obamas were both highly intelligent and highly educated. They and their children were the very picture of a loving family, and they represented the United States to the rest of the world as a place that is decent and hopeful.

     But despite this, 62,979,879 people voted for Donald Trump, whose campaign was grounded on an explicit appeal to the worst racist impulses in American culture.  It will be very sad, indeed, if Obama is remembered most as a President whose ineffectiveness paved the way for the election of a racist, sexist demagogue.