"An essential starting point for those assessing the Obama presidency.” —Washington Monthly
Two presidencies later, the time has never been better to revisit the legacy of Barack Obama. In Audacity, New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait makes the unassailable case that, in the eyes of history, Obama will be viewed as one of America’s best and most accomplished presidents.
Over the course of eight years, Barack Obama has amassed an array of outstanding achievements. His administration saved the American economy from collapse, expanded health insurance to millions who previously could not afford it, negotiated an historic nuclear deal with Iran, helped craft a groundbreaking international climate accord, reined in Wall Street and crafted a new vision of racial progress. He has done all of this despite a left that frequently disdained him as a sellout, and a hysterical right that did everything possible to destroy his agenda even when they agreed with what he was doing.
Now, as the page turns to our next Commander in Chief, Jonathan Chait, acclaimed as one of the most incisive and meticulous political commentators in America, digs deep into Obama’s record on major policy fronts—economics, the environment, domestic reform, health care, race, foreign policy, and civil rights—to demonstrate why history will judge our forty-fourth president as among the greatest in history.
Audacity does not shy away from Obama’s failures, most notably in foreign policy. Yet Chait convincingly shows that President Obama has accomplished what candidate Obama said he would, despite overwhelming opposition—and that the hopes of those who voted for him have not been dashed despite the smokescreen of extremist propaganda and the limits of short-term perspective.
Jonathan Chait is a political columnist for New York magazine. He was previously a senior editor at the New Republic and has also written for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Atlantic. He has been featured throughout the media, including appearances on NPR, MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, HBO, The Colbert Report, Talk of the Nation, C-SPAN, Hardball, and on talk radio in every major city in America. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Table of Contents
Introduction xi
Chapter 1 America's Primal Sin 1
Chapter 2 Preventing the Second Great Depression 33
They say history has a way of repeating itself. That makes understanding history even more important. Lucky for us, we never lack for informative, insightful books that can expand our comprehension of the world and the patterns that govern it. The following seven books are required reading if you want to have a fighting chance […]
