As Barack Obama visits Martha’s Vineyard for the last time as president, it may be a good time to reflect on his legacy. Despite enthusiastic support from the media, Hollywood and the Nobel Prize Committee, facts suggest that history will be tough on him.

President Obama’s foreign policy is disorganized; our allies are confused, our enemies emboldened. From the Middle East to Europe to Asia, events have spun out of control. ISIS thrives even after Mr. Obama declared them a JV terror squad in a post-terror age. With multiple attacks in the U.S. and abroad, our president still cannot admit that “radical Islam” is the primary source of global terror. His controversial Iranian nuclear agreement has already failed. Clearly, Obama’s lead from behind policy was wrong.

Things are not going well within our borders either. Obamacare is in a death spiral, unpopular and expensive, with insurers raising rates or pulling out altogether (15 of 24 ACA co-ops have now closed leaving hundreds of thousands without coverage).

Mr. Obama leaves a trail of blown budgets and record debt. He has dramatically increased the size of government. Regulations have exploded (600 major ones), costing the economy $743 billion. The middle class has shrunk while the ranks of the poor grew. The president’s progressive agenda has weakened the recovery, a hollow recovery, now the longest since the Great Depression. The economy is averaging only 2.1 per cent growth and the labor participation rate has fallen steadily during the Obama years to a meager 62.7 per cent.

Scandals, like Fast & Furious, the VA, Hillary Clinton’s private email system, targeting by the IRS and the Benghazi cover up have battered our faith in this administration. Just this spring, an explosive New York Times story explained how the Obama administration resorts to Orwellian tactics to manipulate the press. Today, nearly 75 per cent of Americans think we are on the wrong track.

Our public schools are failing yet another generation of minority children. Violent crime is rising in our big cities. A new poll finds that 60 per cent of voters feel that race relations have gotten worse under Barack Obama.

By any measure, this uniquely polarizing man has failed to live up to his promise of hope and change. Instead, Mr. Obama leaves the nation vulnerable and divided. His successor will have a lot of work to do to heal the wounds and bind the nation back together again.

Peter Robb
Holliston and Oak Bluffs