President Obama's accomplishments and the rocky road ahead

Politico recently published a very useful review of the Obama Administration’s record.  http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/obama-biggest-achievements-213487  Nothwithstanding Republican efforts to block virtually everything he campaigned on, President Obama has accomplished a great deal.

I think he has been a great President, and I am very pleased with nearly all of what he has been able to get done.  The biggest political factor underlying much of the disconnect between accomplishment and perception is, I believe, the inability to engage voters in non-presidential election years. And this disengagement severely limited his ability to accomplish much more.

Consider these numbers:

In 2008, the voter turnout was 58%. Obama received 69.5 million votes (53% of the total); House Democratic candidates received 65 million votes (54% of the total). Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008 and

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2008

Two years later, the turnout fell precipitously to 41%, and Republicans took over the House with 45 million votes (52% of the total). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2010

But in 2012, voter turnout leapt back to 55%, with Obama getting 66 million votes (51%) and House Democratic candidates getting 59.6 million votes, nearly 1.5 million more votes than the Republicans. Due to the 2011 gerrymandering, however, the Republicans retained a large House majority.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012 and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2012

In 2014, turnout dropped even more to 36%, and the House Republican candidates got 51% of the votes, translating to control of both chambers of Congress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2014 

These numbers show that in 2014, about 19% of the electorate chose right wing policies for the Congress, while in 2012, a presumably different 28% of the electorate chose the progressive policies of President Obama. So it is fair to conclude that of those who chose to vote, more support the progressive policies that not.  The problem is that too many of them are not motivated to vote in off-year elections -- and, given gerrymandering, even when more are motivated, the House results are still rigged.

But what in the world do the 42% of eligible voters who did not participate in 2012 (and presumably did not participate in 2014, either) actually think? The conventional wisdom I was taught by professors in the late 1960s was that non-voters were essentially satisfied with the status quo. That may have been true in the 1950s and early 1960s, but I suspect that now, in our polarized political climate, a large portion of those who don't vote are unengaged mostly because they think they will get screwed over no matter who is in power.  The reality is that once the rest of the world recovered from the devastation of World War II (from which we were spared), they would catch up with us; the prosperity we experienced in the quarter century following the end of the War could only continue if we adjusted wisely to a changing world; we failed in that adjustment in too many respects.  So the assumptions of the disengaged are not frivolous.

Even within the current constraints, there is potential for successful organizing to secure a fairer society.  But given the huge power concentrated wealth has over elections and public policy, and the fear and resentment that is used by a certain portion of the wealthiest to convince people to vote against their best interests, the challenges are immense.