Trump Hasn't Destroyed Obama's Legacy. He's Revealed How Impressive It Was.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/trump-hasnt-destroyed-obamas-legacy.html

January 22, 2018 10:23 am
Trump Hasn’t Destroyed Obama’s Legacy. He’s Revealed How Impressive It Was.
By
Jonathan Chait


When Barack Obama departed the White House a year ago, his legacy appeared to face mortal peril. Liberals, with their tendency toward hysteria, and conservatives, with their tendency toward gloating, united behind this belief. “Donald Trump has the power to rip Barack Obama’s legacy out by its roots,” asserted a story in Vox. “Brick by brick, President Trump is trying to tear down what Mr. Obama built,” reported the New York Times. “The trade deal? Canceled. The climate pact? Forget it. Cuba? Partially reversed. Health care? Unresolved, but to be repealed if he can navigate congressional crosscurrents.”

Yet even as conservatives have grown more satisfied with Trump’s accomplishments, they have retreated from their giddy belief that he could and would dismantle his predecessor’s. Indeed, in a curious way, Trump has inadvertently affirmed the value and durability of the 44th presidency. One year after his departure, Obama’s legacy is actually stronger than ever.

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These aren’t small points about hypocrisy. The entire basis of Republican criticism of Obama’s economic policy rested on these charges. It all turns out to be phony: their terror of deficits, their abhorrence of alleged favoritism for Solyndra or other firms, their conviction that the outcome of these policies was pathetically weak. The Republican Party’s own standards of economic policy reveal the Obama economic agenda to be a success. The only real problem Republicans had with Obama’s economic record all along is that Obama was the one creating it.

But what we now see clearly in hindsight about these charges was far from evident at the time. During the Obama administration, Republican complaints about deficits, “crony capitalism,” and the sluggish recovery were hardly just boob bait for the Fox News audience. These criticisms were taken seriously by members of both parties and formed the basis for a consistent undertow of bipartisan disapproval, especially among business and media elites. Why didn’t Obama get Republicans to make a deal on the deficit? they demanded. The self-styled sensible center could not stop giving Obama a share of blame for the extremism of the opposition.

The rise of Trump has revealed a great deal about the character of the party that opposed Obama. Its unyielding opposition to anything he did was not caused by him “ramming partisan legislation down their throats” or failing to cut the deficit or arrogantly refusing to woo their leaders. The opposition to Obama was primarily a racialized hysteria justified on spurious procedural grounds that have since been discarded. The noise and frenzy of opposition obscured the scale of what Obama was able to build. In the brutal contrast, Trump’s presidency has shown us what a successful presidency with enduring achievements really looks like.