Thread by @ajplus

Has Obama been brushed aside? Democrats racing for the White House are offering many different visions of a progressive future, but none are repping for the last administration. @kanishktharoor on why Obama's legacy has become a target for the left: (1/14)

Donald Trump has spent much of his presidency trying to undo his predecessor's legacy, but the Obama administration is also under fire from younger voters on the left. (2/14)
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Last month, @IlhanMN criticized the former president for locking up immigrant families and for drone strikes that killed civilians overseas. Obama, she said, "had really bad policies." (3/14)
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.@IlhanMN is now the target of grotesque Islamophobic attacks. Though many senior Democrats have defended her in recent weeks, Obama has been conspicuous in his silence. (4/14)

https://twitter.com/steveplrose/status/1118151827839647745

Obama should have some sympathy for Omar. Trump built his own political platform with "birther" conspiracies about Obama's nationality, tapping into strong currents of xenophobia and Islamophobia. (5/14)

https://twitter.com/sairasameerarao/status/1117771568128516098

2011's Occupy Wall Street drew national attention to the unsustainable inequality created by the bipartisan economic policy consensus. Today, many mainstream Democrats call out inequality and distance themselves from corporate money. (6/14)

Obama never embraced the Occupy Wall Street message, and his handling of the 2008 financial crisis – bailing out the banks and not holding them accountable – casts him as too close to Wall Street. (7/14)

Many on the left also believe that Obama laid the groundwork for Trump's hard-line anti-immigrant policies. The Obama administration was responsible for more deportations than any previous president's, earning him the moniker "deporter-in-chief." (8/14)
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Also, though many Democrats won midterms in 2018 by defending Obamacare, the ACA is seen as not bold enough by a party base that wants universal healthcare, as in Medicare for All. (9/14)

https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1115718297323016192

Obama hasn't tried to endear himself to the party's rising progressive wing. At a closed-door meeting, he cautioned freshman legislators against advancing ambitious & expensive policies – which was viewed as a rebuke of @AOC and the Green New Deal. (10/14)

https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1110534688463093760

In an interview with @jonathanchait, the former president claimed that he's "glad the left pushes me" on drones [in the Middle East and elsewhere], but still defended their use. (11/14)
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But there have been some changes of heart: Officials from his administration published a letter in 2018 lamenting their support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen and urging the Trump administration to end its involvement. (12/14) ajplus.co/mcsej

It's notable that none of the leading 2020 Democratic candidates – even those deemed most Obama-esque – have rushed to embrace the legacy of a president who left office with a 60% approval rating, or to cloak themselves in his mantle. (13/14) ajplus.co/rw7uh

Democratic Party political winds have turned, and Obama seems out of step. History may remember him as an interlude between the centrist neoliberalism of the Clinton years and the social-democratic shift demanded by @SenSanders, @SenWarren and @AOC. (14/14)