As Obama gave his farewell speech, many across the political spectrum watched in nostalgia as the first black President of the United States bowed out, giving way to the...entity that is Donald Trump. Of course, 2008 to 2016 signified a period of time where the mistakes of the past were learned from: the US didn't intervene to devastating effect in foreign nations, Guantanamo Bay was closed, and the working class was allowed to flourish.
Of course, that last sentence was in jest. The following is a list of people that the Obama administration and its policies actually worked for:
1) Big banks, which were bailed out using taxpayers' money. This is of course, in response to a crisis caused by reckless decisions by these same banks, hedging their bets on a housing bubble. Who caused the crisis? The bankers. Who suffered? The people, who not only lost their homes but were then hit with cuts to social programmes and welfare as a result of the bailout.
2) Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, known funders of both terrorism and the ideology behind it, Obama was keen to maintain relations with the US ally, supplying them with plenty of arms to commit genocide in Yemen with.
3) Corporate media; with the 'fake news' hysteria of the past new months, it's clear to see that it's not quite big bad Putin brainwashing his people, but America's very own loved news channels. On the 27th of December, Obama passed into law the NDAA, essentially handing over the right for news channels to spread state propaganda. The law, intended to "counter foreign propaganda and disinformation", could further narrow the media spectrum we have already. This comes in light of the recent US intelligence report (though I would hardly describe it that way) which theorised that Russia Today was one of the causes of Donald Trump's victory. Naturally, Obama agrees with the Establishment that the role of the media is not to hold the government to account, but to prop it up instead.
4) Corporations, which, through the TPP and TTIP, should they be passed, will be granted a legal status higher than even the nations they reside in.
5) Censorship, which ran a huge victory as whistle-blowers were persecuted. While Manning has been arrested and detained for releasing information to Wikileaks documenting US crimes in Iraq, Edward Snowden is seeking asylum in Russia for making it known to the American people that they are under the watchful eyes of a mass surveillance system, and Julian Assange is still holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy.
6) Radicals, ranging from far right nationalists in Ukraine to ISIS in Syria and Libya. The disastrous decisions made to fund rebels makes Bush's foreign policy seem tangible.
7) Donald Trump, who naturally benefited from the gradual deterioration of Obama's legacy. Obama was complicit in the rigging of the Democratic primaries and the subsequent fall of Bernie Sanders. It's telling that when Hillary Clinton promised "more Obama", Obama voters flocked to the other side.
Barack Obama, when elected on that fateful day in 2008, promised radical change to a broken system. He himself is an incredibly decent man; charismatic, an orator, a family man. However, through a reluctance to challenge the Establishment, Obama instead embraced the very system that had failed the very Americans who had trusted him.