President Obama? We could do worse

President Obama has been in office for only a fraction of my life, but for many of the college freshmen who will be assembling in my classes for the first time this week, Obama has been president for nearly half of the time they've been alive. When they think of the presidency, Obama is the only reference they have.
So let's consider his two terms in the White House: Put aside for a moment what you think of Obama's politics and policies. Certainly put aside the relentless accusations from the fringe far right (mostly) that he was born in Kenya.
Try to ignore the persistent assertion that Obama is an adherent of Islam, which continues to find life among many not-so-fringe Republicans; in a Public Policy Polling survey last year, 54 percent of the Republican primary electorate said that Obama is a Muslim.
Take into account the uncompromising resistance to his presidency by mainstream Republican politicians. Of course, it's the prerogative-even the duty-of the opposing party to, well, oppose.
Still, if you don't think that the rigid resistance from Republicans over the past seven years wasn't a bit over the top, challenge yourself to imagine any action by the White House that would be modestly praised by most mainstream Republican politicians. It's virtually impossible.
In the face of this opposition-and considering that Obama's terms coincided with a period of extraordinary challenges not of his making, such as the 2008 recession, climate change and the rise of militant Islam-has Obama done that badly?
Is he really, as Donald Trump put it, "probably the worst president in the history of our country"? Of course not.
There isn't room here to make the case for the success of Obama's presidency, but if you're interested, review online some of the lists of "good things" that Obama has done while in office.
One of them runs to 371 items, but I like the top 50 list developed by Washington Monthly. Not everyone agrees that these are all "good things," but who can argue with killing Osama bin Laden-Obama risked his presidency on that one. Or, as of January, 64 consecutive months of job growth and an unemployment rate less than 5 percent? And a lot more.
You might dismiss this perspective as liberal nonsense from a liberal columnist, and I'll admit that I don't share the common Republican notion that government is always the enemy. I prefer the vision of government as the practical expression of our belief in ourselves as one indivisible nation.
I'm all for self-reliance and personal responsibility, but as an individual you cannot build an interstate highway system, clean up the air and water, police your neighborhood or fight a world war. Those are things that we have to do together.
So I'm inclined to appreciate Obama's accomplishments. At the least, most of us can agree that during his term Obama looked, talked and acted like a president. He treated the office with dignity and respect, and he didn't allow the monumental problems and political resistance he encountered to undermine his optimism and confidence in the nation.
And this is what worries me about Jan. 21, 2017, when we'll have a new president in the White House. I'm not a big fan of Hillary Clinton, but if she's elected, she will indeed step into "Obama's third term," which a fair review of Obama's record suggests wouldn't be a bad thing.
But mainly she doesn't threaten to transform the presidency.
Of course, we've had presidents who defended slavery, promoted Indian genocide and provoked unnecessary wars, who lied, committed adultery and drank too much.
We've probably had presidents whose personalities threatened to eclipse the office itself. Donald Trump, however, would be unique. Have we ever had a president whose words and actions are so directly connected to his impulses that he could publicly mock a disabled person?
If Trump is elected, my youngest students will probably have to recalibrate entirely their ideas of how an American president talks, acts and looks.