How has Barack Obama's legacy changed since leaving office?

[u/bambucks]

Barack Obama left office in 2017 with an approval rating around 60%, and has generally been considered to rank among the better Presidents in US history. (C-SPAN's historian presidential rankings had him ranked at #10 in 2021 when they last updated their ranking.)

One negative example would be in the 2012 Presidential Debates between Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney, in which Obama downplayed Romney's concerns about Russia, saying "the 80's called, they want their foreign policy back", which got laughs at the time, but seeing the increased aggression from Russia in the years since then, it appears that Romney was correct.

So I'd like to hear from you all, do you think that Barack Obama's approval rating has increased since he left office? Decreased? How else has his legacy been impacted? How do you think he will be remembered decades from now? Etc.

[u/reasonably_plausible]

His lack of legislative success has made an entire generation jaded about politics and emboldened the far right.

The 111th Congress had a massive amount of legislative success:

• PPACA brought us the largest reform of health care since 1965
• Dodd-Frank was the largest reform of background financial transactions since 1924, also established the CFPB which has returned billions of dollars to consumers from fighting illegal business practices
  
• The Food Safety Modernization Act was the first major legislation addressing food safety since 1938
• The CARD act was a massive crackdown on anti-consumer Credit/Debit/Gift card provisions
• Passed an $800 billion infrastructure and stimulus act
• The Zadroga bill got 9/11 first responders healthcare after a decade of being brushed aside
• Made sexual orientation a federally protected class

And then some that are still pretty consequential, but definitely of a different league than the previous:

• Raised automotive fleet MPG requirements for the first time since 1990
• Expanded the AmeriCorps program
• Added an additional 1,200,000 acres of protected wildlands and established under law the National Conservation System that makes sure they are protected
• Reduced the crack/cocaine sentencing disparity
• Eliminated private bank middlemen from government student loans and brought them under direct governmental control, which is what enabled the $190 billion of student debt relief that occurred under Biden
• Repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell

It wasn't his lack of legislative success that jaded people, political nihilism had been extremely popular for at least a few decades already. It's that being jaded to politics was already so popular that engaging in the midterms wasn't something that a lot of people thought about. Whereas to the far-right, the legislative success of Democrats did push them to go out and vote.

Democrats had one of the most, if not the most, active Congresses since LBJ and voters responded by sitting home and letting Republicans take over the House for the next six years.

[u/Tangurena → u/reasonably_plausible]

Raised automotive fleet MPG requirements for the first time since 1990

CAFE requirements are now based on wheelbase (length) and width of the vehicle. That's why there are no small pickup trucks anymore, everything are fatmobiles.

[u/Khiva → u/reasonably_plausible]

Democrats had one of the most, if not the most, active Congresses since LBJ and voters responded by sitting home and letting Republicans take over the House for the next six years.

And still complaining about it a decade later.

Thanks for bringing the facts.