Obama vs Trump 66497_Harrington497_Harrington aandnd WWaddam.inddaddam.indd i 118/08/208/08/20 11:30:30 PPMM New Perspectives on the American Presidency Series Editors: Michael Patrick Cullinane and Sylvia Ellis, University of Roehampton Published titles Constructing Presidential Legacy: How We Remember the American President Edited by Michael Patrick Cullinane and Sylvia Ellis Presidential Privilege and the Freedom of Information Act Kevin M. Baron Donald Trump and American Populism Richard S. Conley Trump’s America: Political Culture and National Identity Edited by Liam Kennedy Obama vs Trump: The Politics of Presidential Legacy and Rollback Clodagh Harrington and Alex Waddan Obama’s Fractured Presidency: Policies and Politics Edited by François Vergniolle de Chantal Forthcoming titles The White House, the War on Poverty and the GOP Mark McLay Midterms and Mandates Patrick Andelic, Mark McLay and Robert Mason Harry S. Truman and Higher Education Rebecca Stone Series website: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/new- perspectives-on-the-american-presidency.html 66497_Harrington497_Harrington aandnd WWaddam.inddaddam.indd iiii 118/08/208/08/20 11:30:30 PPMM OBAMA vs TRUMP The Politics of Presidential Legacy and Rollback Clodagh Harrington and Alex Waddan 66497_Harrington497_Harrington aandnd WWaddam.inddaddam.indd iiiiii 118/08/208/08/20 11:30:30 PPMM Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © Clodagh Harrington and Alex Waddan, 2020 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road, 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry, Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/13 Adobe Sabon by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and printed and bound in Great Britain. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 4700 3 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 4702 7 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 4703 4 (epub) The right of Clodagh Harrington and Alex Waddan to be identifi ed as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). 66497_Harrington497_Harrington aandnd WWaddam.inddaddam.indd iivv 118/08/208/08/20 11:30:30 PPMM Contents Acknowledgments vi 1. Introduction: Presidential legacy in the era of Obama and Trump 1 2. A “hard” legacy, under pressure 38 3. An uncertain “soft” legacy, under fi re 77 4. America and the world 116 5. Exercising presidential power 154 6. Public communication and vision 198 7. Conclusion: From “Renegade” to “Mogul” 232 Index 250 v 66497_Harrington497_Harrington aandnd WWaddam.inddaddam.indd v 118/08/208/08/20 11:30:30 PPMM Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank fi rst and foremost Sarah Foyle and her colleagues at Edinburgh University Press for their patience and professionalism throughout this process. In addition, thanks go to Sylvia Ellis and Mike Cullinane, editors of the excellent New Perspectives on the American Presidency series, for their roles in initiating this project. We are grateful for their enthusiasm and support. We also want to express our gratitude to kind colleagues who took the time to read sections of the work and offer informed comments. In particular we would like to thank John Berg (Suffolk University, MA) for his expertise on environmental issues and Jeremy Shapiro, Research Director of the European Coun- cil on Foreign Relations, who provided helpful insights into the mechanics of Obama-era foreign policy delivery. In addition, thanks go to colleagues and friends in the American Politics Group for feedback on various draft chapters. All errors and mis- judgments are entirely the authors’ own. And fi nally, Clodagh would like to thank Zara for her patience, and promises to make up that missed time. vi 66497_Harrington497_Harrington aandnd WWaddam.inddaddam.indd vvii 118/08/208/08/20 11:30:30 PPMM 1 Introduction: Presidential legacy in the era of Obama and Trump As Barack Obama took the oath of offi ce to become the 44th president of the United States on January 20, 2009, he immedi- ately left a distinct imprint on the history of the institution. The presidency was no longer the exclusive preserve of white men. As the fi rst African American to win the White House, Obama, by virtue of becoming president, had established a legacy that could not be repeated or undone. In itself this was a moment of consequence for a nation with a history steeped in racial divi- sion, but it did not automatically bestow a record of achievement that would last beyond his presidency. On that day, however, it was unsurprising that the historic nature of events generated even more excitement, especially amongst supporters of the President, than is always present as someone newly elected takes offi ce. That enthusiasm also came with raised expectations for what would be achieved and Obama’s inheritance suggested that there was much that needed to be done. By the end of 2008 it was evident that the fi nancial crisis, which had already left many of the Wall Street giants diminished and gasping for survival, was going to extend its toxicity and cause damage well beyond the world of investment bankers into the wider economy. That damage, in turn, brought into sharper relief other long-standing problems, such as the number of Amer- icans without, or with inadequate, health insurance. Moreover, Obama’s victory along with Democratic control of both chambers of Congress gave hope to all those progressive activists whose voices had been marginalized in recent years. Hence climate change campaigners jostled with representatives of other liberal 1 66497_Harrington497_Harrington aandnd WWaddam.inddaddam.indd 1 118/08/208/08/20 11:30:30 PPMM obama v. trump causes, such as those championing an expansion of same-sex rights, to get their place near the front of the line to advocate for their preferred policies. In addition to domestic challenges Obama faced a complex international situation, with the nation wearied by the loss of blood and treasure resulting from extended engage- ments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Inevitably the burst of enthusiasm accompanying his entry to the White House at the start of 2009 wore off. The reali- ties of compromising in an effort to fi nd solutions to complex real-world problems on the home front and dealing with, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, unexpected as well as expected problems and fractures in the international order took its toll on Obama’s approval ratings. Moreover, his political opponents quickly regained their mojo and organized resistance to the administration’s initiatives. In fact, the backlash was soon mani- fested with the rise of the so-called Tea Party in 2009 and the surprise victory of Republican Scott Brown in a Massachusetts Senate special election in January 2010, providing a harbinger of what was to come in the 2010 November midterm elections.1 In institutional terms, the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in those elections and the continued GOP con- trol of that chamber throughout the rest of Obama’s presidency meant that the administration effectively had only two years to push through its most ambitious legislative goals. Much of the presidential literature in the latter part of the twentieth century correctly pointed to the importance of the negotiation process between executive and legislative branches and the capacity of the former to bring together enough votes in the latter to form a majority coalition, be that on a case-by-case basis or over a series of measures.2 But the increase in parti- san polarization in Washington, DC—so evident from the early 1990s—made cooperation between an executive branch run by one party and a legislature with at least one chamber controlled by the opposite party ever more unlikely.3 As the 2010 midterm elections approached, Republican leaders, anticipating victory in at least one chamber, made their intentions plain. Then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) somewhat infa- mously refl ected: “The single most important thing we want to 2 66497_Harrington497_Harrington aandnd WWaddam.inddaddam.indd 2 118/08/208/08/20 11:30:30 PPMM introduction achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”4 In reality, it is hardly surprising that leaders of the “out” party should wish for an incumbent to be defeated by their own party’s candidate in the next election, but it was nevertheless unexpected to hear such an explicit expression of that sentiment. As it was, the words of soon-to-be-Speaker of the House John Boehner (Ohio) were more ominous for the President. With regard to Obama’s ongoing agenda, he commented, “We’re going to do everything—and I mean everything we can do—to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.”5 Yet, for all the frustration and disappointment that Obama and his supporters felt as his time in offi ce drew to a close, on the eve of the 2016 presidential election it did look as if the next occupant of the White House would be Obama’s fi rst secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, who would continue to push most areas of policy in the same direction—and that the stand-out legacies of Obama’s time in offi ce would become a direction of travel rather than an end point. Health care reform, the expansion of LGBT+ rights, and the nuclear deal with Iran would not just be preserved but would be further consolidated.6 That, as everyone knows, is not how things turned out: Not only did Donald Trump win the White House, but he entered offi ce reinforced by a unifi ed Republican government in Washington, DC.