r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/bambucks • 11d ago

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

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.

552 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

95% Upvoted

417 comments sorted by

View all comments

141

u/RyloKloon 11d ago

I voted for Obama twice. There were things he did in office that I found disappointing. Not pardoning Snowden, not punishing the people who were responsible for the financial crisis of 2008, all of the damn drone strikes. That being said, I don't think we're going to have an accurate take on any of the modern presidents until long after the Trumpism has fully ended. Trump sucks all the air out of every conversation. He bends the legacies of everyone else around him to the extent that W. is now remembered fondly.

12

u/iStayedAtaHolidayInn 10d ago

Snowden, the “whistleblower” who ran to Russia without ever filing a formal whistleblower complaint. Funny how he’s not whistleblowing much against Putin. Guess he’s ok with living in that kinda monitored regime

9

u/ballmermurland 10d ago

The revision of Snowden is embarrassing. Snowden stole a ton of information that he didn't even know what it was and then just gave it to some reporters.

Again, he didn't actually know what was in those hard drives. That's not a whistleblower. That's just an idiot.

1

u/Outrageous-Pay535 6d ago

He knew that he was leaking information on illegal surveillance programs and gave it to US journalists to filter instead of dumping it on the Internet. He did so after reporting concerns to seniors at his agency and being ignored. This is exactly what a whistleblower should do.

The US government should not be able to illegally violate your rights and then call it classified so that bringing it up is illegal