Neoliberalism is the largest driver of right wing populism in the US
Fixed that for you.
I respectfully disagree here. At best you can make the argument that Obama showed ambivalence to some areas of neoliberalism, but looking at his major policy initiatives he was certainly at odds to the main tenants of neoliberalism.
Obama's enduring legacy will be that he was a very competent, mainstream president who successfully enabled the status quo. Praising him for some mostly ineffective policy initiatives that played a bit with the margins would like praising Churchill if he had continued losing to the Nazis, only slower. Obama entered office with the country in a deep neoliberal well that had been building for 30+ years, and he was completely ineffective in getting us out of that well in large part because he was never seriously trying.
The finance industry largely continued business as usual. Trade deals and globalization continued with business as usual. EPA prosecutions of polluters decreased during Obama's presidency, but
the Obama EPA went out of their way to send a Black environmental activist to jail. Corporate abuse of consumers continued unabated during the Obama presidency, but
the Justice Department wasted time sending an anti e-waste activist to jail because Microsoft wanted him there.
Let's not forget those - Obama refused to prosecute a single banker for fraudulently bringing down the entire US economy, but his administration prosecuted grassroots anti-pollution and anti-ewaste activists solely because they got in the way of corporate profits.
And remember what Elizabeth Warren, not exactly a huge enemy of Obama, had to say:
At the same time, he picked his economic team and when the going got tough, his economic team picked Wall Street...They protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. Not young people who were struggling to get an education. And it happened over and over and over. So I see both of those things and they both matter.
Taking your big liberal Obama points one by one:
Green New Deal: Obama passed into law the largest green energy subsidies in history, as a portion of his stimulus bill that also happened to be as costly, on an inflation-adjusted basis, as the stimulus spending in the New Deal. Obama reinforced those reforms — which created a viable market for solar and wind power, electric cars, and battery storage out of virtually nothing — with a broad suite of regulations that drove a historic drop in carbon emissions.
Stimulus bill subsidized old-school automobile manufacturers at the exact same time they were subsidizing green energy. And of course...
Overall, the amount of green energy stimulus provided by Obama was a drop in the bucket compared to his enabling of the status quo. All the fossil fuel tax breaks continued, all the fossil fuel production continued (except for the coal companies which were going out of business anyways). Obama's energy policy was perfect neoliberalism under a light progressive veneer - you can throw a few subsidies out there, but for the most part you're letting private corporations drive the "free market solutions" without any meaningful impediment.
Medicare for All: Obama did not successfully institute single-payer health insurance for all Americans. But, then neither did New Deal Democrats Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, or Lyndon Johnson. What Obama did pull off, after all those previous Democrats proved unable to add health insurance to the welfare state, was a historic expansion in coverage, through a combination of Medicaid and new subsidized and regulated markets.
Claiming that Obama "did not successfully institute single-payer" implies that he ever tried. But he went to great lengths to demonstrate that that was NOT what he was doing.
"A single-payer plan would be a plan like Medicare for all, or the kind of plan that they have in Canada, where basically government is the only person—is the only entity that pays for all health care," said Obama, before stating bluntly. "I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter because, frankly, we historically have had a employer-based system in this country with private insurers, and for us to transition to a system like that I believe would be too disruptive.
"I'll be honest. There are countries where a single-payer system may be working. But I believe—and I've even taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief—that it is important for us to build on our traditions here in the United States. So, when you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care, know this—they are not telling the truth."
Would you look at that - like any good neoliberal he was beholden to the private system. He didn't give us health care reform, he brought
health care expansion which kept the private market in control as much as possible. Once again, under a progressive coating (a bit more government spending much of which is injected into the private sector) it's still just more fundamentally neoliberal policy.
Progressive taxation: Obama cut taxes for the bottom income brackets and raised it for the top. The result was a direct transfer of income from top to bottom (see below).
Cut taxes for the bottom income brackets? When? The two bottom brackets were 10% and 15% when he entered and they were 10% and 15% when he left. There was a tiny kickback in the stimulus package and that was about it. He wasn't much better on the other end - besides a hike for the ultra-wealthy in the ACA (they didn't even want to hike the entire top bracket, instead they made an entire new higher bracket), his biggest impact on taxes was to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.
Corporate regulation: Obama passed the Dodd-Frank reforms, the first major curtailment of the financial industry since Roosevelt’s time. His administration created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, rolled back private control of college loans, created net neutrality, cracked down on for-profit colleges, and beefed up workplace safety regulation and enforcement, among other reforms.
His major actions during the recession were to ensure that the financial industry got back up on their feet and returned to business as usual as quickly as possible. Once again, the "reforms" that were passed were playing at the edges - for all intensive purposes he cared more about the financial industry succeeding, the economy growing, and the stock market going up than he cared about reforming the system.
If you measure Obama by what change he presided over, it was a slightly progressive but mostly mixed bag. But if you measure Obama by the actual policies he presided over, then he was far more conservative than Nixon. He was another step in the long Reagan legacy, just with a blueish hue.
Look, everyone just vote for Warren (or Bernie if she's not available) in the Primary and then the General and everything will be ok. If Biden is the nominee, do whatever you want. I'll be prepping.
