In 2008 after a career as a lawyer, Obama successfully ran for the US Presidency with his first initiatives being the Lilly Ledbetter Act (in honor of his grandmother) and the PPACA (aka – ObamaCare in honor of his mother). His presidency was marked with a bitter partisan divide, though he was able to navigate us out of the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

His Inauguration marked a hopeful turning point with plans to remove us from Iraq, correct our economic decline and replace the 8M jobs lost during the 2008 crash. He was regularly accused of being aloof as he would be home for dinner every night rather than conducting his affairs the way many politicians expect.

During this time Trump had been known as a womanizer, admitted predator and scurrilous businessman, racking up debt and being sued multiple times. He lost his casino empire and got married 3 times since the 70s and producing 5 children the youngest with his current wife and First Lady.

Even with the partisan fury against him, Obama’s centrist policies made him a beloved president with no scandals and a very effective agency apparatus. Then First Lady Michelle Obama became known for her activism and work for children establishing the Let’s Move campaign along with Joining Forces (in conjunction with Jill Biden) to help homeless veterans and get jobs through public private partnership.

Trump’s Inauguration was perhaps the bleakest ever spoken in DC as he railed about how bad America is doing, that the world holds us in ridicule and derision, leaving little hope for a bright path forward. Even as he was campaigning, it was discovered that Russia was interfering in the election with many of his appointed campaign officials being indicted on various charges. His first initiatives were far from those of the previous admin, with an immediate start to changing immigration policies, appointing unqualified people to cabinet positions and even giving his children places though they’ve never gotten official clearance.

Even in 8 years of his presidency Obama had less turnover than Trump’s first year with his numbers being recorded as 24% while Trump’s are 57% (1). The study also showed that among the most key and senior positions, such as Chief Of Staff, the rate was a startling 75%. Obama faired mush better with 41% and 41 and 43 were the lowest at 17%. When looking at the progress of the two admins, though Obama accomplished far more during his first months in office with a solid plan for continued growth.

Trump’s admin however has been a hodge-podge of “left field” characters, ideology and legislative goals. Obama was known for having the highest number of death threats while Trump has exacerbated a huge increase in hate crimes as his nationalism and isolationism has frustrated our allies and emboldened the autocrats.

Even in the realm of presidential golf we see a sharp contrast with one never mentioning it much but being rather conservative, mainly using nearby military base courses while the other who bragged “never going to have time for golf,” has cost the taxpayers upwards of $118M (2) in expenses going in some ways to his own pockets by spending the time flying to them and requiring Secret Service spending.

In 2008, just two days before he was elected his maternal grandmother passed away. When he entered office he quickly passed the Lilly Ledbetter Act in response to what he described as her “glass ceiling” as a female bank executive who trained men who were promoted over her. (3) , Next he expanded SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) originally created under Clinton’s admin with the initiative driven by the then First Lady Hillary Clinton after much partisan wrangling and the failure of a full reform.

He changed much of the foreign policy setup by Bush which in many ways made it more difficult for us to work with those we wanted to not alienate- especially in the Middle East. His efforts earned him a Nobel Peace Prize for a tour where he re-affirmed our commitments to peace. He was of course excoriated by the GOP for “apologizing” for America. His perhaps signature measure beyond the economic recovery successes would be the 2010 PPACA which offered a chance for most Americans to receive subsidized or un-subsidized health insurance.

By 2011, the economy began a consistent growth rate with the deficit falling vaster than at any time and eventually achieving the record for job growth of any president, even having to replace the 8M jobs lost at the end of 2008 into 2009. An avowed centrist Obama chose a pragmatic path and committed to vast changes in acceptance for normally marginalized communities with the advancement of legalized gay marriage and the elimination of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

In 2017, two days before he was to take office, Trump was required to pay a fraud settlement of $25M. When he entered office he quickly moved to eliminate as much of the ACA as possible regardless of the increased popularity of the options available. Even his inauguration was marred by a lie about crowd size. The speech itself was a testament to bleakness with talk of poverty and a loss of American vision.

Next he removed America from the Paris Accord agreed to by nearly every country and thought to be our best hope at avoiding catastrophic climate change and the TPP deal which would have opened up 40% of the world GDP for our cattle farmers. His next initiatives were the appointment of some of the most incompetent judges put forth, many to the objection of the National Bar Association whose judgments are usually agreed to.

Because the economy was riding high from the growth he inherited, much was tolerated if not tacitly approved by the GOP establishment and the base that had an eerie blind loyalty due to policies that echoed back to darker days in America’s history. Later tariffs, though, on even allies have soured much of the prosperity inherited as billions have gone to farm subsidies and companies like Ford reported losses up to a billion with 1000 layoffs. Even much of the progress in non-binary rights has been affected with a ban on transgendered military personnel, some of who have served with honor and distinction.

As a result, after completing 3 years, Obama had a largely positive approval rating while Trump has never reached 50% at any point of the presidency. At this time in Obama’s presidency, he was enjoying a lowering of the deficit, while Trump has seen a 68% increase according to Newsweek. Contrarily, Obama inherited a $1.4T deficit and left office at $585B (4) due to first and second year economic policy.

In 2008, after her husband was elected, Michelle Obama famously (or infamously) said “Today is the first time I’m proud of my country. Though many understood what she meant (being the direct descendant of slaves) others castigated her in what would be a common occurrence. She followed in the footsteps of all First ladies and started several initiatives to make lives better for all Americans, including the Let’s Move initiative designed to combat childhood obesity (reports in 2015 showed a marked improvement) though the initiative is currently inactive.

Michelle was also known for being a very accomplished student and is a Princeton and Harvard alumni. In addition to her work on childhood obesity, she teamed up with Second Lady Jill Biden for the Joining Forces initiatives to get jobs and housing for vets, eventually cutting homelessness and unemployment in half. There were other major ones including Reach Higher and Let Girls Learn but they weren’t as high profile as Joining Forces and Let’s Move.

In 2017, after her husband was elected Melania was accused of plagiarizing a Michelle Obama speech giving a not auspicious start to her stint in the Oval. And of course just as with their husbands, the life and times of the two couldn’t be more different. Melania was born in Slovenia, the first since Louisa Adams to not have been born here and not have English as their first language and also the first FLOTUS to be a naturalized citizen.

She did spend a year studying architecture and design at the University of Lubjjana but quickly moved to modeling which later led her to meet Trump at a party in NYC while he was getting divorced from then-wife Marla Maples.

Unlike Michelle she was not drawn to service or education but to modeling and began her career as a successful model in her native Slovenia. Her first and seemingly only initiative has been roundly criticized as it seems to overlook the online and in public behavior of her husband who has been described by many as a bully. Her very thick accent also makes it very difficult for her to do public speaking events as many find it difficult to understand her.

But perhaps the most striking thing is her work as a nude model appearing with a woman in a now-defunct French magazine and also in GQ magazine. It’s rather difficult to gauge how her Be Best initiative is fairing as it gets very little press or even mention from either her or the president. And though she pales in comparison to her husband she has faced her share of criticism for what some called insensitive behavior including wearing a jacket that said “I really don’t care? Do U?” when visiting children being detained at the border and a trip through Africa that featured “the hat of Bwana,” a term used to denote earlier whites in Africa and not looked at positively by African-Americans.

away” on multiple occasions. Obama consistently appeared with his family but Trump rarely appears with his even though “Jarvanka” have internal jobs in the WH that have caused all manner of consternation among outsiders. Perhaps her greatest initiative could be making sure a certain acorn falls far from the proverbial tree.

As we won’t see the results of the second term of one of subjects of THIS tale of two presidents, we can only attempt to parallel the effects of first year policies and third year results. In 2009, Obama started with pragmatic policies that put people first including the ACA, ARRA and DACA all of which were roundly criticized by the opposing party. But by the third year, the benefits began to be reaped as went on a record-breaking streak of months above 200K jobs. Foreign policy was another place where the previous admin had made it difficult for the US to be taken seriously but Obama crated multiple international coalitions including for climate change mitigation, the sanctioning of bad actors and the removal of combat troops stationed around the world for our various conflicts.

YES WE CAN - Barack H. Obama

In 2017, Trump started with the opposite path, to enrich the already well-heeled while undoing much of the work done to combat climate change and give us a larger customer base for our products. By the end of 2017, a huge tax cut was passed which immediately added $2T to the debt and caused the deficit to begin to rise, though these policies were applauded by the party in power. By the third year, the deficit has increased by 68% from $585B to its current $1T+. Much of this came from the huge drop in receipts with no corresponding decreases in spending, but some comes from less economic activity due to tariffs and more spending on buybacks rather than wage increases.

ONLY I CAN DO IT - Donald J. Trump

A real similarity though is the fact that both oversaw huge losses in the midterms, Obama because of the unpopularity of ACA and Trump for the unpopularity of the tariffs and lack of legislation to help the working class and poor. In terms of scandals, that is the greatest divergence as Obama had few real problems while Trump has lurched from one scandal or instance of corruption or malfeasance in nearly every month of his term.

This has culminated in a late 2019 impeachment for abuse of power over a call to ask a foreign government for aid in damaging a political opponent and then obstructing all investigation into it after a whistle blower reported it. And with historically low overall approval going into the second term, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether Mitch McConnell’s proclamation of making a one-term president, he may have succeeded.