Instigator / Pro

seldiora

1417

rating

158

debates

32.59%

won

Topic

#2296

Obama was a satisfactory president overall

Status

Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics

Better arguments

Better sources

Better legibility

Better conduct

After 4 votes and with 11 points ahead, the winner is...

Safalcon7

Tags

Miscellaneous

Parameters

Publication date: 08.28.2020 02:39PM
Last updated date: 09.20.2020 08:17PM
Type: Standard
Number of rounds: 3
Time for argument: Two days
Max argument characters: 10,000
Voting period: Two weeks
Point system: Multiple criterions
Voting system: Open

Contender / Con

Safalcon7

1569

rating

debates

66.67%

won

Description

Satisfactory: fulfilling expectations or needs; acceptable, though not outstanding or perfect.

Round 1

seldiora

09.03.2020 03:27PM

Pro

Approval: Obama exited with 57% approval. That's more than half the population. Considering this is a democracy, that's not bad at all. And he got elected a second term. If he wasn't satisfactory the first time, why would he be elected the next time?

Economy: ended recession, helped auto industry, got Nobel Peace Prize, reformed health care, big banks, tax cuts, created millions of jobs. What more could you ask for? He did the majority of what he promised.

Foreign Policy: He eliminated Bin Laden and and turned around the Iran War. Most members of a debate agreed that he fulfilled his foreign policy necessity.

Friendly with people: Most people who have met Obama know (or at least have said) that he is humble and kind, not abusing his power as presidency nor being ignorant merely because of his high status. This is important because if the president does not listen to the people's opinions then he is not a satisfactory president. But Obama was willing to lower himself down in order to help the citizens.

Sure, Obama didn't free the slaves or stop the Great Depression, but that's why he isn't perfect. His approval may have dropped but I feel like he is satisfactory overall. He wasn't overly disliked despite his mistakes, and he accomplished quite a bit during his rein as president.

Safalcon7

09.05.2020 11:35AM

Con

Barack Obama has been one of the most polarizing figures in US Presidential history. To represent my side of the debate. I'll provide some statistical inputs rather than some pick-up sports that Pro has resorted to.

ARGUMENT & REBUTTAL

Pro has pointed out different aspects of Obama's reign to prove his points. My rebuttals against them here will serve as my first arguments.

1. Approval: Pro argued that since Obama had been reelected for the second time he must have been a satisfactory president. This is absolutely a lame logic put forward in modern democratic system because we know how democracy works as of this moment. In fact, in a 2014 poll by Quinnipac University, 33% of the Americans had voted for Obama as the worst president ever since World War 2 which was the highest surpassing George W. Bush (28%) [1,2]. Even after his second run it has been statistically proven through national polls in 2017 that Barack Obama was actually rejected by the majority of the country [3]. Some of the national results are as following-

- 47% Americans disapproved Of how Obama handled Climate Change (+ 8% No Opinions)

- 53% Americans thought that USA was going in wrong direction with Obama

- Most Americans blame Iraq on Obama just as much as Bush

- 55.5% Americans disapproved of how Obama handled terrorism

- 58.2% Americans disapproved how Obama handled Gun Policy

2. Economy: When it comes to the great depression, it doesn't matter whether you could stop it or not; rather it matters how you secure immediate recovery against the recessions. Pro smartly avoided the great depression discussion by indicating just a general shortcoming in Obama's career. He pointed out that Obama stopped recession and earned a Nobel prize; which is of most honor of course. But I'm afraid my pool research derives a disappointing counterpart in this regard. According to a study in 2013, in case of the previous 10 recessions prior to the one that Obama was dealing with since the great depression, it took 25 weeks to turn around and retain all the jobs lost before whereas Barack Obama, even after 64 months that is 5 and a half years of his reign, failed to show recovery from the last recession. Ronald Reagan conceived 28 weeks to not only recover but also create jobs 9.5% higher than before while Obama was still under the bar with 2% jobs less than before [4]. Jeffrey H. Anderson, senior fellow of Pacific Research Institute billed the economic growth during Obama's go as the worst in 60 years as Obama showed only an embarrassing 0.8% GDP in April, 2013 falling from 1.9% during Bush's reign [4]. Even after his second run as the president, people of America ruled him out as a failure in saving the economic perspective of the country [3]-

- 50.2% of Americans disapproved of Obama's job performance

- 52% disapproved how Obama handled economy

- 55.5% disapproved how Obama handled healthcare

3. Foreign Affairs: Let's look at how "satisfied" the nation was with Obama's international relationships first-

- 55.3% of Americans disapprove of how Obama handled US/Iran Relationship

- 56% disapproved how Obama handled Foreign Affairs overall

- Most Americans lost trust in refugee issues after Paris attack

- 61.5% Americans disapproved how Obama handled with ISIS (There goes your Laden argument)

- Most Americans refused for USA to be international peacemaker anymore

Mark Noonan and Matt Margolis- authors of the Amazon bestseller- "The Worst President in History, the Legacy of Barack Obama", pointed out many additional views in the book that relate to the foreign policy making inefficiency of Obama [5]. Some of the most noteworthy aspects are- cutting off funds for AIDS that went on to have a massive disaster in Africa and toppling over congress to give amnesty to 800,000 illegal immigrants. A book by Mark Hannah also compiles many of other limited and wrong decisions such as his calling wars on overseas business, insulting national and international allies and purposefully disregarding the naked Russian regression making him look like too naive of a president to run a country [6].

4. Lack of Conduct: Pro pointed out a "humane Obama" but that couldn't help him to practice the kind of leadership that he should have had. Throughout his tenure we could see some immature and raw decision making from Obama that cannot be expected from a global leader. His approaches made us witness him-

- blaming the congress and Bush for economy and almost each of his failures instead of actively taking responsibilities.

- nominating John Brennan as CIA Director

- calling on wars with coal and oil companies domestically and internationally

- assaulting media and interfering with the constitutional freedom of press

So, all in all I believe I have made my point why Obama was not as satisfactory as one may think he is. Lack of objective evidences and sound arguments from Pro and accordingly relevant research results from me should work out in my favor. VOTE FOR CON!

THANK YOU

REFERENCES

1. https://www.cnbc.com/2014/07/02/poll-obama-worst-president-since-wwii.html

2. https://www.newstalkflorida.com/politics/poll-obama-worst-president-since-wwii-romney-better/

3. https://www.nwitimes.com/news/data/barack-obama-s-biggest-failures-according-to-national-polling/collection_aa1af056-434b-5fe5-a2f2-2289f537685f.html#21

4. https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/06/02/economically-could-obama-be-americas-worst-president/#2287a5446dd5

5. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/list-200-reasons-why-obama-is-worst-president-in-history

6. https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-worst-president-ever-the-definitive-record-of-barack-h-obama

Round 2

seldiora

09.05.2020 07:14PM

Pro

I concede.

Safalcon7

09.06.2020 05:35AM

Con

Thanks to pro for humbly conceding. Obama was not a satisfactory president after all.

VOTE FOR CON!

Round 3

seldiora

09.06.2020 06:48PM

Pro

yeet

Safalcon7

09.06.2020 08:17PM

Con

Thank you. VOTE FOR CON!

Safalcon7

09.09.2020 04:02PM

#12

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@MisterChris

OK. No worries.

MisterChris

09.09.2020 03:45PM

#11

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@SirAnonymous

@Safalcon7

@Intelligence_06

**************************************************
>Reported Vote: Intelligence_06, SirAnonymous, // Mod action: Not Removed
>Points Awarded: 1:3; 3 points to CON.
>Reason for Decision: "Concession"
>Reason for Mod Action:
This debate has been deemed non-moderated. Therefore, no moderation action is appropriate for this vote.
Full Forfeitures, explicit concessions, subjective competitions, truisms, and comedy (even if facetious) are not eligible for moderation (barring certain exceptions).

Now, to address Safalcon's complaint in detail: "I believe I should have the edge on better sources as well. And I think that's pretty obvious from the debate."

Users are allowed to assign points in any way they see fit as long as they adhere to DART voting guidelines.

To quote our Moderation Extended Policies and Interpretations:
"It is not moderation's job to judge the rightness or wrongness of the verdict reached. That means that interpretive differences (including what meanings can be deduced or inferred from the text) are not with the scope of reviewable content in a vote. There is one exception to this: the voter actually lying about or blatantly misstating (intentionally or not) what transpired in the debate such that no reasonable person, reading carefully, could reach the conclusion they reached."

I would like to add that there are a few other potential exceptions, such as in a case where a side explicitly concedes and voters favor the conceding user in assigning arguments points. Or, a case where a FF debate is voted for in favor of the forfeiting user. Mods can step in to prevent decisions that are so blatantly unfair no rational person can approve of it, but otherwise our interpretive ability is severely handicapped.

Safalcon7

09.09.2020 02:48PM

#10

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@MisterChris

I believe I should have the edge on better sources as well. And I think that's pretty obvious from the debate.

MisterChris

09.09.2020 02:38PM

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@Safalcon7

certainly

Safalcon7