Description
Following his election President Obamas supporters and detractors anticipated radical reform As the first African American to serve as president he reached the White House on a campaign promise of change But as Burton Kaufman explores in this insightful biography Obama showed clear patterns of classical conservativism of an ideological sort and basic policymaking pragmatism His commitment to usher in a multiracial multiethnic and multicultural society was fundamentally connected to opening up but not radically altering the existing free enterprise system
The Affordable Care Act was a distillation of President Obamas complex motivations for policy More conservative than radical the ACA fitted the expansion of health insurance into the existing system Similarly in foreign policy Obama eschewed the use of force to affect regime change Yet he kept boots on the ground in the Middle East and supported ballotbox revolts geared toward achieving in foreign countries the same principles of liberalism free enterprise and competition that existed in the United States
In estimating the course and impact of Obamas full political life Kaufman makes clear that both the desire for and fear of change in the American polity affected the popular perception but not the course of action of the fortyfourth US president
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.