10 Reasons Obama Was the Worst President Ever

 

It garnered little mention in the endless cycle of election news. Moderators did not ask about it in any of the presidential debates. But climate change should have been at the center of the race for the White House: The next president, Donald Trump, will make decisions that will reverberate for centuries, impacting the lives of people we will never meet.
Many people are fearing the worst. Trump, an avowed climate denier, has pledged to kill the Clean Power Plan, end clean energy research and development, and pull out of the Paris Agreement. Together, his policies could kneecap national and international efforts to curb global warming.
But there are things that the president cannot take away.
1. Cities and states are the new front lines in the fight to stop global warming.
Progress will move to the local level, which is arguably where it needed to be, anyway. Cities are responsible for an estimated 75 percent of global carbon emissions, and local leaders have the power to shape electric grids and transportation systems. Cities like New York, Portland, and Los Angeles — which just passed a massive public transportation investment measure — are showing us how it’s done.
Among states, some of the biggest polluters, such as California and New York, are leading the charge on climate change. Even some red states, including major emitters like Texas, are turning to clean energy because it’s profitable.
CREDIT: Pexels
2. Clean energy is getting cheaper every day.
Prices for solar panels, wind turbines, and electric cars are falling as producers refine technologies, improve manufacturing, and reach the economies of scale needed to further drive down costs. Expect this trend to continue even as pro-climate policies are scaled back.
CREDIT: Department of Energy
3. The Paris Agreement isn’t totally screwed.
It’s true that if Trump guts Obama’s climate agenda, trust would erode between the U.S. and other nations. Climate is a global problem, and without U.S. leadership, it’s possible that other countries would start to back away from their carbon-cutting commitments.
But Trump can’t just back out of the agreement. As Thomas Hale of Climate Home explained:
If Trump withdraws from [the Paris Agreement], as he has promised, it will take four years before the U.S. actually leaves (or one year to leave the overarching UN climate convention). And, because of clever drafting that elides the U.S. Senate, a new President could instantly re-ratify the Agreement after he or she comes into office.
And countries like China and India have their own incentives to combat air pollution and climate change. China, now the world’s largest polluter, has ambitious plans to stem carbon emissions.
CREDIT: Pexels
4. Americans love clean energy.
Climate change policies may be contentious, but clean energy is not. Everyone — Democrats and Republicans alike— wants more wind and solar. Last night, voters in Florida showed us just how much by defeating a measure that would have curbed rooftop solar in the Sunshine State.
CREDIT: Pew Research
5. Coal ain’t coming back.
Despite Trump’s promises, coal isn’t coming back. It was largely natural gas, not the EPA, that edged coal from the power grid. Trump can’t revive coal without killing natural gas, which would be an uphill battle, to say the least, with his Republican colleagues.
CREDIT: Energy Information Administration
6. There is still strength in numbers.
There is something to be said for the strength of the environmental movement, which is full of passionate, driven, indefatigable people working their hearts out every day to guard our health and safety. If you need proof, look no further than Standing Rock, where protesters stood up to officers armed with tear gas, rubber bullets and sound cannons.
Climate reporter Eric Holthaus took to Twitter to remind his followers that “every pipeline we block, every coal plant we shut down, every solar panel built is a net win.”
“Don’t be tricked into thinking your actions to protect the climate we all share are meaningless under Trump,” he wrote. “You are more [important] than ever.”
Don't be tricked into thinking your actions to protect the climate we all share are meaningless under Trump. You are more imp than ever. 8/8
— @ericholthaus
Jeremy Deaton writes for Nexus Media, a syndicated newswire covering climate, energy, policy, art and culture. You can follow him at @deaton_jeremy.
Here are six reasons not to give up hope. was originally published in ThinkProgress on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

 


President Obama’s historic election in 2008 seemed like it could be a turning point for America. He campaigned and was elected on a platform to end income inequality, racial inequality, aggressive military policies, and trampling of individual rights in the US. Unfortunately, he failed on every one of these measures.
Here is our list of the top 5 reasons Obama is the worst president in history.

GUANTANAMO BAY DETENTION CAMP

Obama made several pledges to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay during his campaign for president in 2008 calling it “a sad chapter in American history”. To this day, the facility remain in operation.

WARS

Obama campaigned on opposition to former President Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Afghanistan was began on October 7th 2001, and the US handed the country over to NATO Peacekeepers on August 11th, 2003. (America remained only as support for the NATO Peacekeepers.
On December 1st, 2009, President Obama announces a troop “surge” into Afghanistan returning American troops to major combat operations. In 2016, the US still has a heavy military presence in Afghanistan.
March 20th, 2003, the US invasion of Iraq began. By May 1st, the Iraqi Government had fallen, and a coalition government was formed by August. The Iraq insurgency caused continuing military operations in Iraq for many more years.
In November 2008, the The U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, between President G.W. Bush and the democratically elected Iraqi government stipulated all US troops would leave Iraq by 2011.
President Obama ignored this agreement, and there are currently (2016) over 5,000 US troops still in Iraq.
In addition to Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama has expanded former president Bush’s “war on terror” and throughout his presidency has had major military operations in:
  • Iraq
  • Afghanistan
  • Syria
  • Libya
  • Pakistan
  • Somalia
  • Yemen
In addition SOCOM has Special Operation units involved in combat operations in 134 countries

THE SURVEILLANCE STATE

While campaigning for president in 2007, Obama said: “No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime, no more tracking citizens…”. Obama also said that mass surveillance of the American people put “forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.” Things changed once he became president however. In 2013, after news broke that the US government was collecting and monitoring all Americans cell phone date (including numbers called, and GPS locations and time stamps), The Obama administration released a statement saying the blanket, unwarranted surveillance of American citizens was a “critical tool in protecting the nation from terror threats” and that “[t]he president welcomes a discussion of the trade-offs between security and civil liberties.”
Although it seems as if president Obama is saying that these sacrifices of personal liberty are necessary to preserve our safety, terrorist attacks are on the rise. many would argue that it is president Obama’s very policies that have allowed more, deadlier, and more frequent terrorists attacks to occur.
Obama campaigned as an opponent to the surveillance state, and presided over the largest expansion of the surveillance state in history.

RACE RELATIONS

For many of us, the 2008 election of President Obama seemed to symbolize the end of racism in America. It was proof that we, as a people, had overcome this stain on our nation. As someone who grew up in the 1980’s and 90’s, I felt that I had seen race relations steadily improving through the late 90’s and early 2000’s, and that the election of a black president was a symbolic victory over racism in this country.
However, since the election of President Obama, race relations have nose dived. This country, racially, is in far worse shape then it was when I was a child in the 1980’s or any time since.
A Rasmussen poll early this year showed that 50% of Americans think race relation are getting worse, and only 20% think they are getting better.
Time magazine, the New York Times and CBS also say race relations have deteriorated under the Obama administration. The New York Post declared that Obama has “turned back the clock on race relations”. PJMedia calls it “The Tragic and Complete Collapse of Racial Relations”. townhall.com says that “Race Relations Have Taken a Nosedive Under Obama”

THE ECONOMY

NATIONAL DEBT

The National debt in 2008 (the last year of President Bush’s term) was $10,024,724,896,912.49.  When Bush took office, the debt was $5,674,178,209,886.86. This means that G.W. Bush raised the US National Debt $4,350,546,687,025,83. In 2016 it has ballooned to $18,825,061,664,535.94. This means that President Obama raised the National debt $8,801,736,767,623.45. That is more then double what GW Bush did. Think about that. Under Bush, many people complained of insane government spending to fund 2 unpopular wars and the expansion of the surveillance state. Obama doubled that spending yet still cut benefits to the American people.

ECONOMIC GROWTH RATE

The Bureau of Economic Analysis has calculated the GDP since 1929. In that time, there has never been a time where the GDP has not gone over 3% during a 10 year stretch until President Obama. In 2006, under President Bush, the GDP slipped to 2.7%. It has not gone above that since. In 2016, Bloomberg reported that the first quarter had a GDP of 0.5%. (Under President Bush, the media started saying we were in a recession when the GDP slowed to a 2.3% growth… The economy is far worse now.

UNEMPLOYMENT

While the Obama administration likes to claim that it is doing good on the unemployment rate, the truth is otherwise. The administration claims a 4.7% unemployment rate. However they are using the U-3 unemployment numbers which doesn’t included a lot of people that are unemployed. Using the U-6 numbers, the unemployment numbers are at 9.7%. This is still far higher then pre-recession numbers.

% OF AMERICANS ON PUBLIC ASSISTANCE

Forbes has reported that more then half of the country is now receiving taxpayer funded government subsidies. There is a theory that the only way to turn a democratic society to socialism is to make things so bad for the majority of people, that they demand socialism.

GROWTH OF ECONOMIC DIVIDE

President Obama has been at the forefront of slamming the top “1%” in this country, but according to Huffington Post (usually a cheerleader for the Obama administration) “the top 1 percent of U.S. earners captured 93 percent of all the income growth in the country” during Obama’s Presidency. This is a huge increase from the 65% of income growth that the 1% gained under former president Bush. The New York Times states “Income inequality in the United States has been growing for decades, but the trend appears to have accelerated during the Obama administration. ”
Did we miss anything? Do you disagree? This is why we think Obama is the worst president in history, let us know what you think in the comments below.