Obama leaves behind legacy of promise
Mimi Tran Zambetti | Daily Trojan
If you glance at the news, you might see legions of politicians, researchers and talk show hosts dissecting why young people often don’t vote. But while Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump struggle to rally young people to their causes, President Barack Obama, in the last few months of his term, is enjoying a 58 percent approval rating, partially thanks to under-25 voters who support him the most of any age group. This raises the question of why “Generation Me” may well go down in history as “Generation Obama.” Despite stagnation on many important policy fronts, Obama, through his poise and authenticity, inspired millennials to take a chance on politics, cementing his legacy in the eyes of the younger generation as one of progress, and above all, hope.
Throughout his time in office, Obama established himself as trustworthy, personal and authentic, and not just by political standards. Thanks to eight scandal-free years, this image has changed very little. These words and actions isolated seem humorous, unconventional, or eyebrow raising, but in totality, they reveal a man who strives to hide nothing and share everything with young voters, America and the world.
Yet personality can only get politicians so far. Maybe that’s why Obama and his administration produced a mixed bag of results for enacting policies that college students find to be the most important and pressing. According to a youth poll conducted by Harvard, 64 percent of millennials rank the economy as their top priority. For many college students and graduates, student debt compounds already existing economic woes. Even though the White House recently penned legislation to provide more transparency in the loan process and more options for repayment, 43 million Americans, many of them millennials, owe a whopping $1.3 trillion in student debt. However, the Obama administration can claim credit for the real median household income increasing by 5.2 percent this year, poverty decreasing by 1.2 percent, and the share of Americans who lack healthcare dropping by 1.3 percent.
During the past eight years, young voters prioritized reducing inequality. Obama certainly represented a step in the right direction — but young people quickly found out that one man can’t fix race relations, and that the gap between the rich and poor represented more of a chasm. Our generation woke up to the reality that an idealist can’t break the gridlock in Washington and advance a compressive climate change plan. Despite executive action on the part of Obama to reduce gun violence, gun show loopholes abound and violent crime continues to rise this year while mass shootings stain newsfeeds.
The next president will still inherit a full plate of young voters’ concerns, but this distracts from Obama and his administration’s legacy of progress come Jan. 20. Under Obama’s watch, the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, and legislation advanced the cause of the LGBT community, all to the delight of the “most tolerant” generation. Internationally, to the generation that believes in diplomacy the most, the normalization of relations with Cuba and the Iran Deal came as welcome reliefs. Despite later troop surges and drone strikes, Obama earned himself the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for his work in diplomacy and fostering cooperation internationally. These accomplishments, among others, enabled Obama to improve the United States’ image in the world. All things said, through his policies and demeanors, Obama represented a clear break from the past and embodied the path to the future. He “kept it real,” but still managed to strive for the ideal. In the same vein as his popular predecessors such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, Obama attempted to maintain a dialogue with the American people. And his message especially resounded with young voters who “liked” his new Facebook White House page (where users can actually send notes to the president), watched his humorous and sentimental viral videos and believed in his message “Change.” For the younger generations he did, as his campaign slogan promised, provide a little hope.
The author writes, “in the last few months of his term, is enjoying a 58 percent approval rating, partially thanks to under-25 voters who support him the most of any age group.”
What an interesting statement since any idiot would know that using the word “enjoying” right before “58% approval rating” right before “thanks to under-25 voters who support him” doesn’t do anybody a favor. The author, who clearly has an uneducated admiration for the President, does a better job than conservatives in shining poor light on him. I love that fact that the author thinks that having college students “approving” President Obama is such a great political legacy to have. What better than to finish eight years of mediocrity than gathering the virtual endorsement of naive, half-drunk twenty-some year olds who also happen to be the same demographic with the lowest rate of participation in voting out of all age groups.
Eight years of an Obama presidency and we have the worse race relations in two generations. Eight years of an Obama presidency and we are no safer than we were prior to 9/11/2001. Eight years of an Obama presidency and the federal debt has more than doubled. The millennials need to think long and hard about who it places its hope for change in come November.