People have gray areas. Especially politicians. Obama did many good things domestically. Obamacare helped some people, got rid of lifetime limits on insurance, expanded Medicaid, and protected folks with pre-existing conditions. He signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act, repealed (1/?)

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, removed troops from Iraq, appointed two very good SCOTUS judges in Sotomayor and Kagan, expanded hate crime protections, and removed Bush-era restrictions on stem cell research. These are all good things. He ALSO rapidly expanded the Drone program, (2/?)

killing as many as 800 or so civilians, and had the US contributing financially to Saudi Arabia’s ongoing devastating campaign in Yemen, which has that country in a human rights crisis with reported numbers of up to 90% people there in poverty. Nuance is important and we (3/?)

have to take the good while also not ignoring the bad. Hero worship of political figures is never a good idea. I voted for Obama twice, and campaigned enthusiastically for him in 2008, but to pretend it was eight years of blissful prosperity is to misrepresent reality. (4/?)

But the bar for American presidents is so low that Obama’s administration was still easily the best this country has had in at least fifty years. Maybe since JFK? Maybe even earlier? Ultimately, point is that we need to hold even leaders we think are mostly doing well (5/?)

accountable when they absolutely could be doing better. And please, pay more attention to foreign policy. The way the USA continues to interact with the world, and it is far worse under Trump than it is has ever been, is still imperialistic and hawkish. I really hope it’s (6/?)

not the case under Biden. My point is that no politician is all good. Some are all bad (Trump, McConnell, etc), but don’t let the ones we like have carte blanche to get away with everything because they’re “our guys.” Expect better or there will never be better. (7/7)

PS: blaming Trump on Obama is absurd. White supremacy and racism have existed for as long as white people have existed and blaming a successful Black man for it is fucking racist.