The Accomplished, Unloved President's Place in History

I find this discussion to be really fascinating- is the President unpopular because he was successful? Mischiefs of Faction argues his success is pretty irrelevant:

Matt Yglesias posted a nice summary of some of President Obama's recent accomplishments over at Vox yesterday, noting, "Obama is unpopular. He's also accomplished an incredible amount."

These statements are both true. From reforms of health care, the financial sector, and student loans to recent historic shifts on immigration and Cuba policies, his presidency has been an extremely productive one, probably achieving more important domestic policy change than any presidency since Lyndon Johnson's. It's also true that Obama's approval ratings have been middling at best, hovering in the low to mid-40s for over four years now. Why isn't such an accomplished presidency more popular?

Part of the answer is that approval ratings are never very closely tied to accomplishment. Public opinion on presidents is linked to the performance of the economy. The economy under Obama was briefly in the "terrifying" category at the beginning of his service, and could probably be classified as "strong" in recent months, but for the bulk of his tenure would probably be considered "just okay," which is pretty consistent with his approval ratings. Sometimes major scandals (Watergate, Iran-Contra) can cause double-digit drops in presidential approval, but Obama's avoided those. And we know that major military victories and terror attacks can move the needle substantially, but those don't really apply to Obama's tenure, either.

But policy accomplishments don't really help a president much in terms of popularity. LBJ wasn't popular because he signed Medicare or the Civil Rights Act. It works the other way around; he was able to pass those in part because he was popular in 1964-65, thanks to a very strong economy and public goodwill in the wake of the Kennedy assassination. Notably, all his Great Society legislation didn't help him out once the public got annoyed by the Vietnam War; his party lost many seats in 1966 and he chose to resign rather than face the voters' wrath in 1968.

President Johnson is rarely discussed for his economy, and is more commonly discussed for Vietnam, but I think Vietnam can fit here just the same. Whether you do a lot of stuff as President or not, whether things are going well or not, the reality is that you're as popular as people feel good about your tenure. President Obama isn't going to be loved in his time, in part because he inherited a difficult time. Even as the economy recovers, not everyone is really feeling that (yet), and the resulting angst has not helped his standing. Much like Johnson though, we might view him as highly effective in time.

President Obama's tenure has been effective in passing laws. The Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank Banking regulations, the Stimulus, the Detroit Bailout, TARP, budgetary investments in infrastructure and the environment, his executive order on Immigration reform, the death of Osama Bin Laden, the end of the war in Iraq, the impending end of the war in Afghanistan, and now his normalization of relations with Cuba are all major achievements. So are the two women he put on the Supreme Court. So are lots of other things I'm omitting. This President has lots of achievements, besides his own historic standing.

With that all said, I don't think he'll ever be loved. His achievements don't directly touch people quite like FDR's, and his successes aren't quite as directly felt as say, Bill Clinton or Dwight Eisenhower. I think he will be viewed positively though in time, and with good reason. He did do a lot, and at least some of it will continue to impact future generations.