President Barack Obama appears with Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren at a Boston fundraiser on June 25, 2012. Photo: Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images During his presidency, Barack Obama faced two mutually exclusive, wrongheaded accusations. Conservatives called him a socialist radical, overturning two centuries of liberty to crush the spirits of job creators and deliver free stuff to his supporters. Leftists called him a neoliberal Establishmentarian bent on placating the rich.
Politico quotes a series of left-wing activists lamenting the failure of the Democratic field to frontally assail the Obama record. “It’s no secret that [Joe Biden] spent his time in the Obama White House furthering policies that redistributed wealth upwards,” says Maria Svart, the national director of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Both of these memories of Obama’s presidency are false. The charge of upward redistribution of wealth is easy to rebut. Obama raised taxes on the rich while reducing them for the poor, and created a broad social entitlement whose benefits were heavily tilted toward the bottom end of the income spectrum.
I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.
jonathanchait The problem is tbe right sreamrolls when its in power while the left plays by the rules. That needs to change immediately.
jonathanchait Bush, 8 years; Obama, 8 years, 16 years of crisis. Trump , 2 .5 years, no crisis.
jonathanchait Obama was a bumbling, America hating buffoon. There endeth the lesson....
jonathanchait I am shocked, just shocked that lefty socialists, how dare they create propaganda for their ideological ends. They have no choice, but to now demonize & lie about President Obama, as VP Biden and Warren are both tied to him with similar policy goals.