Critique
A Critique of “What will the left look like after Obama?” by Stephen Marche In the past eight years America has seen immense changes, good and bad. Obama has legalized same sex marriage, lowered the unemployment rate, and began the end to the drug war. But is it all due to Obama, and what he has done over the last eight years? By Marche, calling president Obama, “[America's] Biggest winner” Is he giving him too much credit? Is it something president Obama deserves, after fighting against a rigid and impenetrable government that doesn’t like to make significant changes? Obama has made multiple changes to the United States government, but can Marche simply give all the credit to president Obama? Is this article very opinionated, or is it clearly supported by facts? In my opinion Marches’ article is not well enough supported to be giving all of the credit to Obama. Marche making the comments about police injustice, new candidates being not even close to how successful Obama was, and saying that Obamacare has done all the work on lowering the the rate of the uninsured, are all opinionated statements lowering the respectability of his
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article. These are all topics brought up by Marche in his article. In Marches’ article he talks about marriage equality, the beginning of the end of the drug war, and the opening of Cuba.
He talks about America without Obama, and all of the successes of Obama. Marche talks about popular issues in present day America such as racial police shootings. Also making points about the wealthiest one percent. Marche makes comments such as, “ The political crises of the moment are so profound, so under the current of what the democratically elected government can do, that only the starkest, most radical change would bring hope or change.” In addition he says how the next president elected no matter who it is will be a downgrade. Marche then goes on to bring up more racial issues. All of these topics are well supported, but very bias. Leading me to believe that this article about president Obama is
opinionated. When Marche states, “Thanks to Obamacare, the number of uninsured American adults has declined 35%.” This is a very oversimplified sentence. Although Obamacare has been and is a superior cause for the declining of the number of uninsured Americans, it cannot be given all of the credit. There are an immense amount of items that play into the role of the amount of civilians getting health insurance or not getting health insurance. I would consider this a post hoc fallacy, because the quote is giving Obamacare all the credit for the decline of medical health care, as if there are no other factors. This is one mistake made by Stephen in this article. Another statement made by Stephen says, “ Under an African American president, we've grown used to the fact that white police officers kill unarmed black civilians.” Although there has been a numerous amount of shootings involving white police and black civilians, a person can’t simply put all of the blame on the white policeman or solely on the black civilian. There is a different case for every police shooting. Yes, the officer is often found guilty lately, but often times so is the black civilian. Saying that all of America is used to these shootings is insane. The ratio of “bad” cops to “good” cops is so diverse. In an article by, Mint Press News states that, “In 2015 161 unarmed Americans were killed.” According to another study done by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, there are currently over 900,000 police officers sworn into the United States government. Making the 161 “bad” officers an exceedingly small number. Making Marches’ argument insignificant, and although president Obama has tried to create new gun laws Marche did not bring up this point in his article.
Marche also compares the new candidates (Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders), to current cell phones, saying, “Whether the Democratic Party chooses Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton as their nominee, it will be like going from an iPhone 6 to a flip phone, a gesture backward.” This is simply an oversimplified sentence and extremely opinionated. In Marches’ article however he does support all of his arguments with well supported research. I agree with a lot of his main points in his article, and they are all appropriate topics for this essay. Making his paper truly respectable. However with all of his research comes his opinion. Marche making the comments about police injustice, new candidates being not even close to how successful Obama was, and saying that Obamacare has done all the work on lowering the the rate of the uninsured, are all every opinionated statements lowering the respectability of his article. Although I do believe this article is exceedingly well supported it is too opinionated towards Obama to be taken seriously.
article. These are all topics brought up by Marche in his article. In Marches’ article he talks about marriage equality, the beginning of the end of the drug war, and the opening of Cuba.
He talks about America without Obama, and all of the successes of Obama. Marche talks about popular issues in present day America such as racial police shootings. Also making points about the wealthiest one percent. Marche makes comments such as, “ The political crises of the moment are so profound, so under the current of what the democratically elected government can do, that only the starkest, most radical change would bring hope or change.” In addition he says how the next president elected no matter who it is will be a downgrade. Marche then goes on to bring up more racial issues. All of these topics are well supported, but very bias. Leading me to believe that this article about president Obama is
opinionated. When Marche states, “Thanks to Obamacare, the number of uninsured American adults has declined 35%.” This is a very oversimplified sentence. Although Obamacare has been and is a superior cause for the declining of the number of uninsured Americans, it cannot be given all of the credit. There are an immense amount of items that play into the role of the amount of civilians getting health insurance or not getting health insurance. I would consider this a post hoc fallacy, because the quote is giving Obamacare all the credit for the decline of medical health care, as if there are no other factors. This is one mistake made by Stephen in this article. Another statement made by Stephen says, “ Under an African American president, we've grown used to the fact that white police officers kill unarmed black civilians.” Although there has been a numerous amount of shootings involving white police and black civilians, a person can’t simply put all of the blame on the white policeman or solely on the black civilian. There is a different case for every police shooting. Yes, the officer is often found guilty lately, but often times so is the black civilian. Saying that all of America is used to these shootings is insane. The ratio of “bad” cops to “good” cops is so diverse. In an article by, Mint Press News states that, “In 2015 161 unarmed Americans were killed.” According to another study done by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, there are currently over 900,000 police officers sworn into the United States government. Making the 161 “bad” officers an exceedingly small number. Making Marches’ argument insignificant, and although president Obama has tried to create new gun laws Marche did not bring up this point in his article.
Marche also compares the new candidates (Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders), to current cell phones, saying, “Whether the Democratic Party chooses Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton as their nominee, it will be like going from an iPhone 6 to a flip phone, a gesture backward.” This is simply an oversimplified sentence and extremely opinionated. In Marches’ article however he does support all of his arguments with well supported research. I agree with a lot of his main points in his article, and they are all appropriate topics for this essay. Making his paper truly respectable. However with all of his research comes his opinion. Marche making the comments about police injustice, new candidates being not even close to how successful Obama was, and saying that Obamacare has done all the work on lowering the the rate of the uninsured, are all every opinionated statements lowering the respectability of his article. Although I do believe this article is exceedingly well supported it is too opinionated towards Obama to be taken seriously.