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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

> Obama, for all his good social policies,

What were even his good social policies. I tried to remember a few and couldn't. ACA for healthcare perhaps? Can't think of others.

Specifically the Black community voted for him and looking back I can't see if their lives improved a lot during his tenure.

> Considering one of Trump's campaign promises was to build a wall between the US and Mexico - I doubt he's going to make things better.

Yap doesn't seem hopeful. I think with Obama many thought he might be pro-privacy. I did somehow. I was wrong. Trump isn't and I don't know if we'll ever see someone campaigning and winning with that as a major part of their platform.

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Obama had very few good social policies. One could argue he slightly stepped back the enforcement of drug laws when it comes to the states beginning to legalize. He did a horrible job when it comes to drug legalization, openly refusing to go to bat for it at the Federal level. The ACA was a disaster (of course it was, it was a zillion pages long, written by lobbyists, and few people read it before it was voted on), except for a few features such as coverage for pre-existing conditions. He didn't make almost any real progress on US problems with mass incarceration either, although he talked about it a few times. He was against gay marriage initially, then flipped when it was politically convenient; the Supreme Court was responsible for enacting that equality at the federal level however. He was also a massive civil liberties violator, when it came to privacy and was openly unapologetic about it (he was clearly an anti-privacy hawk in all regards). In short, yeah, he didn't do much of anything socially.

There was far more than talk, although it's difficult to enact reform when the legislative branch is determined to do nothing. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-record/social-progr...

Scroll down to "The Work Ahead."

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/07/21/preside... https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/04/08/petitio... https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/memora... https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/1...

Yes, worth reminding people that the President's job is only to enforce and enact law. Whereas Congress is the only body allowed to create law, i.e. bills. And the Judiciary interprets the law.

Obama could only enact laws that congress passed, and they pretty much only did that his first two years until Congress became a logjam and stopped doing anything. So Obama was left with the only tools he had, which were to enforce those laws he wanted to, and not the one he did not. And he did a lot of that, as pointed out.

The executive branch has the power to unilaterally change the scheduling of prohibited drugs. Obama could have moved marijuana from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 2 (or even 3) drug if he really wanted to. That would have made a huge difference.

Republicans would have crucified him by yelling the black guy wants to give weed to your kids.

He may of been against marriage equality initially, but did command his justice department to not defend the defense of marriage act. Don't ask don't tell was repealed on his watch. He also allowed undocumented people who were brought to the USA as children (dreamers) to stay. His administration also ruled that title 9 applied to transgendered people.

Edit: His Justice Department also sued states over voter suppression and investigated racist police departments.

>The ACA was a disaster (of course it was, it was a zillion pages long, written by lobbyists, and few people read it before it was voted on), except for a few features such as coverage for pre-existing conditions.

I understand some broad facets of the law and I don't believe it was a disaster, and furthermore I suspect you don't understand it either - by what basis are you calling it a 'disaster'?

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