I think you're ignoring a lot of realities of US politics and the US government structure as set forth in the constitution. Remember after he got ACA through (which was a really big achievement), there was the tea party backlash. Dems lost the House by a big margin and nearly lost the Senate. That made it very difficult to get the kinds of revolution you're hoping for. Yes, I agree that he should've jailed bankers (and he shouldn't have chosen Geithner as his treasury secty), but I think he had too many wallst-beholden advisors there that told him that if he did that it would lead to all kinds of economic trouble. Not sure what your beef with the ACA is (probably that it didn't go far enough towards universal healthcare, and I can agree with that, however given the political realities it was a pretty great achievement.)
I don't have a beef with the ACA, it just happened to be Obama's priority, not the voters'. Occupy wallstreet wasn't about health care. You hit on the nail about his advisors,etc.. that's why maga keeps using "deep state" as a rhetoric.
Obama ran on change, he shouldn't have been "listening to advisors" like bush did with Iraq.
If he jailed bankers for example, both the left and right would support that, except the corporate ruling class and other politicians. The ACA on the other hand, there is a lot of misinformation around it that made it a partisan thing, and we still don't have universal health care, despite all the work he put into it.
I'm not saying it's fair, but even most on the left expected him to be a force of change, and that's mostly because he's black. The thing is, democrat presidents spend their first term cleaning up after the previous guy anyways, so I get it isn't realistic. But look at how trump is basically trampling on the constitution, long established norms and institutions,etc.. Obama didn't need to do all that, but he tried to be moderate and safe. Racists were going to hate on him no matter what, he needed to piss them and his own party off enacting change. Moderation and stability was not why he was elected.
And I think the democratic party lost its head a bit because Obama became president, they started operating as if America is now a liberal utopia, which caused a lot of moderate people, and even younger gen-z voters who're losing out on opportunities because of extreme liberal ideals to revolt against the left.
All that said, I have no idea what can be done to fix things. I just wish I knew how to brace for the fall.
> it just happened to be Obama's priority, not the voters'.
I think it depends on the voters. A lot of people at that time were not able to afford health insurance due to pre-existing conditions. Or they'd have a plan that would get cancelled when they ran into an actual serious illness because the insurer would find some pre-existing condition that was ubiquitous. I was very glad that the ACA passed. Could it be better? Sure, but given the political realities it is what it is.
> even younger gen-z voters who're losing out on opportunities because of extreme liberal ideals
What opportunities are gen-z voters losing out to because of liberal ideals? If anything, the Democrats were much better on helping people pay for college, job training, etc.
> they started operating as if America is now a liberal utopia
But as you've indicated above, Obama wasn't even all that liberal. More of a centrist which seems to be what you're critical of if I'm not mistaken? Biden was probably more of a classical liberal.
