Barack Obama

First Round of Obama Administration Oral Histories Focus on Political Fault Lines and Policy Tradeoffs

The first 17 of nearly 500 interviews with Obama Administration officials was released this week, as part of a Columbia University project. 

Are the Dems in for a 2010-Style Shellacking?

by Cary Heinz

The Tea Party wave in the 2010 midterms was an extreme example of the generally poor showing for the president's party in the midterms; will 2022 follow suit? 

Obama's Lost Manuscript is Also a Lost Path to a Left Populism

by Timothy Shenk

Substantive politics? Broad-based material benefits for the mass of Americans? Rejecting the rule of credentialed technocrats? Mobilizing voters and legislating instead of relying on the courts to protect basic rights? An unpublished 1990s manuscript co-authored by Barack Obama may leave readers wondering what happened to those ideas. 

Ten Years Ago, Barack Obama's Debate Choke Threatened His Reelection

by Cary Heinz

Barack Obama wasn't unprepared for his first debate against Mitt Romney in 2012, but he stumbled nonetheless. Ten years later, his performance offers a warning to incumbents of the challenges they face in coming out winners from the spectacle. 

Runaway American Dreams

by Dennis M. Hogan

What does it say about American liberalism that it's cultural tribune, Bruce Springsteen, is doing a corporate-sponsored podcast with the former President of the United States? 

When Did America Stop Being Great?

by Nick Bryant

Nick Bryant began observing America as a 16 year old at the patriotic spectacle of the 1984 Olympics. His book traces the path from "Morning in America" to "American Carnage," fixing some blame but also seeking a way through. 

The Forces That Stopped Obama’s Recovery Will Not Stop Biden’s

by Jonathan Chait

Has the bipartisan Washington elite preoccupation with budget deficits faded since the Obama Administration's troubled efforts to promote economic recovery in 2009? Will austerity wreck Biden's goals too? Jon Chait says that moment has passed. 

The False Promise of Obama's 'Promised Land'

by Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

A critique of the first volume of Obama's presidential memoir argues that the 44th President was unwilling to acknowledge the limits of the centrist liberal politics of the 1990s and unable to consider more progressive alternatives. 

What Obama Gets Wrong on 'Defund the Police'

by Austin McCoy

"If political budgets are moral documents, then divesting heavily from institutions that have the capacity to perpetuate harms is the moral thing to do."

Governing in Prose: Realpolitik and Idealism in Obama’s First Term

by Eric Foner

Eric Foner's review of the first volume of Obama's memoir focuses on the conflict between pragmatism and idealism, and concludes that the 45th President erred in offering bailouts to bankers and expecting cooperation from Republicans, mistakes that crippled his presidency and set the stage for Trump. 

Trump Looms Large Now, but Maybe Not Forever

by Steve Inskeep

NPR's Steve Inskeep reflects on the prospect that historical distance will make Trump and Trumpism smaller (and not all-consuming) parts of a story about American society struggling with bigger questions of political, economic and social equality that became increasingly contentious during the Obama era. 

A Brief History of Presidential Memoirs

Presidential historian Craig Fehrman says that presidents in the early republican period shunned writing memoirs as vain and self-promoting. The quality of many subsequent presidential books suggests they were on to something. How will the recent first volume of Obama's memoirs be received? 

Jeffrey Goldberg Interviews Barack Obama on History and the State of Democracy

"If we were going to have a right-wing populist in this country, I would have expected somebody a little more appealing.”

A Kick in the Leg: The Secret, Corrupt Political History of the Nobel Peace Prize

by Unni Turrettini

The Nobel Prize Commiteee has departed from Alfred Nobel's wishes to honor the cause of global demilitarization and disarmament in favor of statements of political favor in the awarding of the Peace Prize. 

The Quiet 2013 Lunch That Could Have Altered Supreme Court History

Presidents throughout American history have strategized to influence the timing of justices’ exits to suit various White House priorities.

We Can't Tell Kamala Harris' Story Without the British Empire. We Can't Tell America's Without It Either

by Priya Satia

As Kamala Harris vies for the Vice Presidency, a complete recounting of her formation requires recognizing her as both a quintessentially American politician—because of, not despite, her being a child of immigrants—and part of a global story of the former British empire.

In a Sign of a Divided America, President Trump Will Not Unveil Barack Obama’s New Portrait in the White House Anytime Soon

Portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama will likely not be installed at the White House until Trump is out of office.

Trump's Snub Over Obama Portrait is Part of a Plan

Harvard historian Henry Louis Gates weighs in on Trump's consistent antipathy towards Barack Obama.

Why Politicians Can’t Stop Talking About “Folks”

by John Patrick Leary

Most politicians are playacting: a privileged cohort of other-than-real Americans desperately trying to convince a mass following that they are, indeed, just plain folks.

Obama and I took a class about socialism's dark side. Bernie would have learned a lot.

by Jonathan Zimmerman

Imagine if Sanders praised Hitler for reducing cigarette smoking or Mussolini for making the trains run on time. The American left would be up in arms.