This book documents and assesses Obama’s record on domestic and foreign politics against his perceived agenda for change. Although mainstream journalists have noted discrepancies between Obama’s perceived original vision and reality, Paul Street uniquely measures Obama’s record against the expectations of the truly progressive agenda many of his supporters expected him to follow. Taken together, the list of Obama’s policies include business-friendly measures with the economy, the lack of support for the growing mass of unemployed and poor, the dilution of single-payer health reform, the passage of a record-setting Pentagon budget, and the escalation of U.S. military violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Street’s account analyzes Obama’s allegiance to existing dominant domestic and global hierarchies and doctrines and contrasts this reality to the perception that most people in the United States projected onto Obama as a progressive candidate.
