Obama versus Trump

Obama versus Trump

As a young person living in 2020, my first response to the topic would be: Obama was good and Trump was bad. A lot of news outlets had the same response after the 2016 Election. It would be a naive way of thinking, since I would be judging the character of these individuals and not the presidency. To be able to make an opinion on which one of them was a better president, we have to compare them in different aspects.

To do so, I will start by comparing their upbringing into that position. Then I will compare their programs, pointing their differences and their similarities. Thirdly, I will compare their administration, their political stances and the moves they took during their time as leaders of the United States of America. I will follow with the main events that happened during their presidencies. Finally, I will discuss the impact they had in politics, economy and society in the United States of America.

What makes a great difference between these two presidents is first their upbringing. Barack Obama is born in Hawaii, after the divorce of his parents he moves with his mother and stepfather in Indonesia where he lived until the age of 10. Back to Hawaii, he is raised mostly by his grandparents. Thanks to a scholarship he was able to go to a private high school. After his graduation he goes to the Los Angeles Occidental college of liberal arts. Two years later he transfers to Columbia to study political science and foreign affairs. In 1988, he went to Harvard Law School, where he became the first black man to chair the renowned Harvard Law Review. His political career starts in 1996 where he is elected at the Senate of Illinois, where later  he would become the Senator in 2004. He was one of the democrat candidates who started his campaign as the President of the United States of America in February 2007, with Joe Biden, who was at the time the senator of Delaware, as his second. In November 2008, he becomes the first African American to be elected President of the United States. his presidency was two terms long since he was reelected in 2012.

Donald Trump on the other hand is the son of a wealthy businessman. While studying at the Wharton School in Pennsylvania, he starts working with his father in real estate. In the nineties he diversifies his activities opening various hotels and casino in Atlantic City, the eastern version of Las Vegas, where he also went bankrupt four times. He was a shareholder of Miss universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA until 2015 where he was forced to sell them due to one of his speeches on Mexico. As the multifaceted man he is, TV and movies were also his occupation for some time. Member of the Republican Party since 1987, he had already thought about running for the U.S. presidential election. One thing that kept his name on the media around 2011, was also his obsession of Barack Obama’s birth certificate. Even after a release of said birth certificate, he still claimed fraud and illegitimacy of president Obama. Obama's response took place at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, as he roasted Donald Trump in front of everyone. This seemed to fuel their quarrel and Donald Trump’s aspiration to become President. Trump began his presidential campaign in June 2015 with the slogan "Make America Great Again".

During his campaign, one of Obama’s promises was the economic stimulus package which consisted of injecting funds in fields in need such as health, education, housing, heating assistance and public works projects. But also undertook eliminating income tax for seniors making less than $50,000 and eliminating capital gains taxes for small business investors. Another promise was the tax relief for self-employed individuals and to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit for low-income workers. A further concern was also the recession, he had to withhold and repress, which was the biggest recession since the Great Depression that the country had seen. The cause of the Great Depression was the fall of Wall Street, he pledged to institute a Financial Markets Advisory Group, improving the transparency of financial disclosure and cracking down on trading activities that could potentially tamper with the markets. And one of his leading promises was the health care reform, where he insisted that all children would have health care coverage. Establishing a national health coverage exchange to track and provide information while also financing the shift of health care service providers to a fully paperless system.

Trump had a motto while he was campaigning in 2016, he would affirm that’s his goal was to “Make America great again”. To do so, one of his are crucial promises was to build a wall between the United States of America and Mexico while making Mexico “pay for it”. His economic promises were to bring manufacturing jobs back to America, impose tariffs on goods made in China and Mexico and also cut taxes. His response to the Obamacare, was to fully repeal and replace it with the market-based alternative. Social Security would also be left as it is. His foreign policies were to renegotiate the withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement and Transpacific Partnership, renegotiate the Iran deal and “bomb” or take the oil from Isis.

We have to agree that these individuals are totally different, we can find the same differences in their approach to become a president. Their approaches are almost contradictory, where Trump attempts to undo every major step that the Obama administration took during the eight years of presidency, such as the healthcare program, the foreign policies and the tax reform. Nevertheless, we have to compare how they actually kept their promises and what impact it had on the country.

Let’s start with the promises that Obama kept during his presidency. The things that he will forever be remembered for always that healthcare reform also known as Obamacare. His “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” signed in 2010 addresses all of his promises, although ignoring one of his goals which was universal healthcare. Universal healthcare was one of his goals, who never got to be made reality because the Congress of the time was mainly conservative. During his second term he didn’t have the super majority like in his first term. The stimulus package was another promise kept. Even if it wasn’t fully successful and didn’t reach the goal funding, it helped the USA pullout of the way onto a second depression.

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