By now you’ve probably heard of polls that say Americans believe that “Donald Trump is the worst president in history” or that presidential scholars have ranked Trump “dead last.” .... While it may be too early to properly gauge presidential rankings for recent presidents, I am confident that history will ultimately judge Barack Obama as the worst president our nation has ever seen.Here are Margolis' six with excerpts from his commentary on each:
The mountain of evidence that condemns his presidency to the bottom of the barrel is overwhelming. In my just re-released book, The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama, I document 200 reasons why history will prove my belief correct in the years to come.
6. Weaponizing the government against his enemiesGo to the link to read the rest of Margolis' remarks about each of these six.
The political use of the IRS to punish administration opponents and spying on the Trump campaign are just two examples of this abuse of power.
5. Obama’s surveillance state
According to the ACLU there was a 64 percent growth in electronic spying by the United States government during Obama’s first term. The Obama administration argued in federal court in 2012 that the public has no “reasonable expectation of privacy” regarding their cell phone location data and that the government can obtain these records without a warrant. Further blemishing Obama’s record on civil liberties, his administration green-lighted a giant government database of information on millions of citizens who weren’t even suspected of terrorism or any crime at all.
In May 2017, we also found out that Obama’s National Security Agency had been conducting illegal searches on Americans for years and was rebuked by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). We didn’t hear about it sooner because the Obama administration covered it up.
4. Purging Gitmo
As a candidate in 2007, Obama promised he would close the terrorist detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba (Gitmo), as soon as he was elected. He signed an executive order on January 22, 2009, requiring Gitmo to close within one year. Congress refused to go along, so instead of closing it, he systematically purged the prison of its terrorist inmates, as a sort of end-run around congressional opposition to closure. ...
One retired CIA officer estimated that at least 50 percent of those released from Gitmo returned to battle against American troops, and Paul Lewis, Obama’s special envoy for Guantanamo closure, confirmed that Americans have been killed by released Gitmo detainees.
3. Obamacare
Despite his campaign promise to bring Democrats and Republicans together to reform healthcare, Obama signed a trillion-dollar government takeover of one-sixth of the United States economy with zero Republican votes in the Senate and only one Republican vote in the House. Despite a promise of transparency, Obama and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made sure that the final negotiations were held behind closed doors....
The most insulting part of it all was that despite the high costs of Obamacare, health premiums went up and coverage got worse. Remember “if you like your plan you can keep it”? That was a lie.
....in November 2015, the percentage of people who reported delaying medical care over costs was higher than it was before Obama even took office. So, people were forced to buy insurance even if they didn't want it, and they still couldn't afford to seek medical care because of the higher premiums.
2. The worst economic recovery
There have been eleven recessions since World War II, each of which was followed by a recovery. Even Obama experienced an economic recovery… it just happens to be the worst one. All jobs lost in post-World War II recessions were recovered after about twenty-five months on average. But, it took seventy-seven months for employment to return to pre-recession levels, making Obama’s recovery the slowest recovery of them all—and by a wide margin....
Obama is also the only president in U.S. history to have never had a single year of 3.0 percent or greater GDP growth.
1. The largest deficits in history
Off the top of our heads we could add to Margolis' list the Iran deal which may have been the worst deal ever made by an American president, the Fast and Furious scandal, the Veterans Administration scandal, the mediocre judicial and SCOTUS appointments, the abrogation of American leadership around the world, and the empowerment of ideological progressives to undermine the principles and traditions upon which this nation was built.
There are, in my opinion, only two facts that will distinguish the Obama presidency in the eyes of future generations: Mr. Obama was the first person of color to rise to the presidency and his presidency was among the most disappointing in the modern era.