If Hillary Clinton had been elected President, assessing Barack Obama’s legacy would be a straightforward task. Mrs. Clinton would have treated his principal legislative and administrative accomplishments as a baseline for future policy. Time would have woven them into the fabric of American life, making their reversal all the more unlikely.
As matters now stand, however, much of what Mr. Obama has done is reversible. … In short, Obama’s policy legacy depends to a significant extent on what President Trump and the Republicans choose to do.
But not entirely. In early 2009, the Obama Administration made a series of controversial decisions that may well have saved the United States and the world from a second Great Depression. CONT.
William A. Galston, Brookings Institution