Trump and Obama

On Presidents day, I made the following observations: I rated Trump and Obama in the second half of my ranking of Presidents and added Trump has to be rated ahead of Obama. The trick is to understand that often Presidents rankings changes with age and even then Historians get it wrong.

In the case of Trump, he had several accomplishments including the Abraham accord bringing Arabs and Israel together, his tax plans helped majority of Americans move up the economic ladder compared to Obama and certainly he was better on civil liberties than Obama.

Obama administration record on civil liberty was atrocious including IRS going after conservative groups, senators and staffers spied upon by CIA, and beginning of the Russian collusion hoax, in which a Presidential campaign was spied upon. His foreign policies was a disaster beginning with Iranian deal and the continuing rise of China under his watch. His economic record was okay and it is here that he could at least be competitive with Trump. There was a recovery from a major recession but it was the slowest recovery from a recession over the past three quarter of century but overall, his last years in GDP growth was similar to Trump first three years. The difference is that Trump saw more economic growth among those at the bottom.

While Trump will be remembered by historians for his response to the Corona virus and there is much to criticize, there was major accomplishments including the development of vaccines in record time. The first major obstacles in Trump response is that many of his scientific advisors beginning Dr. Anthony Fauci were mistaken in both their view of virus and their solutions like the lockdown proved to be a disaster. While historians may not agree, the data says otherwise. (2017 Covers.pdf (amermaj.org) is one of many studies that show the disaster of the mistake.)

The economic recovery from the pandemic started almost immediately as unemployment dropped in May and was cut by more than half by the time Biden became President. The recovery would have been even better if Democratic governors had lifted their economic restrictions. This along with Trump own personality undermined his accomplishment while Obama success getting re-elected and media love for him overestimate his incompetence.

For Trump, a complete failure of the Biden’s administration and Republican winning in 2024 may show his presidency in a better life and Biden’s failure will merely reflect further of Obama’s own failed Presidency.