Barack Obama Presidency: Fears
Today is 01/19/2009. Tomorrow is Barack Obama's Inauguration. After that he'll start his work as the President of the United States. Hence, we have stopped collecting your fears and hopes for his presidency. We are leaving the site up so that everyone could come back to it and compare the hopes and fears people expressed with the reality of Barack Obama's office.
| Category | Fear/Concern | Name | Votes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abortion-related | He will do everything possible to promote abortion and many more innocent babies will die as the result of this. | Frank | 10 |
| Assassination-related | Any harm that comes to him will result in civil and potentially world war. | 5 | |
| Assassination-related | My ONLY fear is that some bigoted idiot will try to end a wonderful man's life. Secret Service: PLEASE Protect Obama!!! | 43 | |
| Assassination-related | My fear is that someone with hate in their heart will try to hurt him | 11 | |
| Campaign Money | Ahmadinejad will want his money back that he donated to the campaign. And tax payers will have to foot the bill. | 10 | |
| Economy | A flood of new grants will cause another hi-tech stock bubble, while bailouts keep unprofitable businesses open, while higher taxes move all the profitable industries overseas. We'll have hyperinflation and no future. | steve w | 3 |
| Economy | He will grow national debt by increasing government | 42 | |
| Economy | He will throw out billions of taxpayer dollars to bail out eternally-failed Detroit carmakers, instead of letting them go bankrupt and disappear | 20 | |
| Economy | He will increase public debt so much that the US economy will suffer | 19 | |
| Economy | He will turn back on middle class economic relief promice | 21 | |
| Economy: Taxes | He will tax small businesses out of existence | 34 | |
| Economy: Taxes | He will increase the taxes so much that the US economy will suffer | 87 | |
| Education/Science | He will throw more money at the disfunctional public education system instead of fixing it | 22 | |
| Energy / Global Warming | He will fail to achieve energy independence of the US | 27 | |
| Energy / Global Warming | He will focus on long term energy policy and not what is doable short term to - thus continuing our dependence on foreign oil for the foreseeable future | Carol | 8 |
| Foreign Policy | He will allow/facilitate Russia to become superpower | 30 | |
| Foreign Policy | He will fail to prevent Taliban return to power in Afghanistan | 18 | |
| Foreign Policy | He will show US weakness to the terrorists around the world | 32 | |
| Foreign Policy | He will not go forward with plans to build missile launching bases in Poland and Czech Republic | 11 | |
| Foreign Policy | He was only elected to "make history" which raises concerns since many individuals while voting for him did not know what he stood for and here it is... he will not support our military | 15 | |
| Foreign Policy | He will take the credit for ending the war in Iraq, after it has been won. | 10 | |
| Foreign Policy | In 2004, the US faced one conflict only, in the Middle East. In 2008: 1)Iraq is half-stabilized but needs a residual force even after the pullout, 2) Taliban strengthened, 3) Russia reasserting herself in "near abroad", 4) Mexico failing to fight drug cartels, a President needs to be devious to balance the US forces. I am afraid the elect lacks the experience / decisiveness. | 5 | |
| Foreign Policy | My fear is that he will not end the wars fast enough | 5 | |
| Foreign Policy | He will stop war in Iraq | 6 | |
| Foreign Policy | He will loose/not finish war in Iraq | 24 | |
| Foreign Policy | He believes too much in our European allies to fight the Taliban, Iran, resurging Russia, and other hotspots (Somalia). He will fail to secure their committment early in his presidency. | hackett | 1 |
| Foreign Policy | He'll continue the policy of disrespect towards Russia | 13 | |
| General | He will send this country into civil war. | 7 | |
| General | He will become a dictator | 14 | |
| General | He will be the USA's Gorbachev | 19 | |
| General | He will turn this country socialist | 67 | |
| General | Barak Obama will increase socialism tendencies in American economy and social life. | 1 | |
| General | My fear is that we elected a wrong president. A dirty politician instead of a real american hero. Shame on this country.. | 1 | |
| General | He will find himself way in over his head | 28 | |
| General | Despite his promise not to do so, his policies will cater more to Corporate America and less to We The People. | 3 | |
| General | The candidate of "change" will change next to nothing. | Anacharsis Cloots | 16 |
| General | He is not a natural-born US citizen. | 9 | |
| General | He will change his mind more frequently than his underwear | 31 | |
| General | Empty promises, that were promised just to win an election | 49 | |
| General | People who donated money to him, voted and supported his candidacy will be gravely disappointed | 22 | |
| General | He will become another Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini, Castro who all gained power by endorsing “change†as election strategy | 24 | |
| General | He's going to loose in every thing he's starting, he doesn't have experience for this job. | 3 | |
| General | He will recreate Clinton administration, fill his cabinet with Washington insiders, lobbyists and it will be yet another corrupt government...well at least he will not become a dictator!! | Fortune cookie | 9 |
| General | Very quickly, he will run out of steam and loose interest in reforms he will start. | 16 | |
| General | He will be unable to implement meaningful reforms. | 17 | |
| General | He was in it for the thrill of the race, not for the unpleasant chores of the Prez. | 4 | |
| Gun Control | After swearing all through his campaign that he respects the Second Amendment, the first hing he'll do in office is piss all over it any way he can (this, too, has already begun), and the INEVITABLE reaction from betrayed law-abiding gun-owners will give us another religious-right administration in four years. (Perhaps even Huckabee ... now there's a horrible thought for you.) | 2 | |
| Healthcare | He will weaken healthcare system by increasing bureaucracy | 43 | |
| Healthcare | I think the economy was stalled by democrats on purpose, so that a new elected president will look like he did much improvement without fullfilling any of his campaign promices. Watch, there will be no healcare for all... | fortune cookie | 1 |
| Healthcare | He will proceed with the following item in his Health Care plan: force hospitals to have a certain % of minority physicians on staff | Vladimir Itkin | 14 |
| Israel-related | He will not support Israel the way it needs to be supported | 34 | |
| Israel-related | He will diminish Israels ability to defend themselves from terrorists | 48 | |
| Israel-related | Barak Obama does not undestand that Israel as the Jewish state is the key point of Western civilization. | 1 | |
| Israel-related | He will continue to support Israel in all cases, even if they are doing 'unjust' things to other countries instead of when they direly need us. | 16 | |
| Israel-related | He will not support Palestinian Independence to the extent it needs to be supported. He will continue to support Israel (with that huge chunk of money and arms assistance to that tiny, absolutely un-important nation.) | 2 | |
| Lack of Time | He won't have time to show to Americans that living in a country with decent primary education and health insurance for everyone is NOT a bad thing, even if one has to stop a (useless) war to achieve it. | 18 | |
| National Security | He will sell US out to terrorist organizations/countries (economically) | 27 | |
| National Security | He will weaken US defenses | 33 | |
| National Security | He will divert attention/efforts from controllling terrorism, allowing it to strengthen | 33 | |
| National Security | He will change immigration policy allowing unfriendly to free world people to enter and stay in the US | 19 | |
| National Security | He will allow transit of goods from Arabic countries without customs control | 12 | |
| National Security | We will suffer a fresh round of terrorist attacks from extreme Islamic jihadists who will claim he is an apostate. At least the rest of us are mere infidels to them ... Islam hates apostates worse than possibly anything else in the world. | 1 | |
| No support | American people will lose interest and he will no longer have the support he needs to carry out the changes we need. | 9 | |
| Other | None. | 21 | |
| Other | He wont be able to make this country into a country with decent primary edication and healthcare for everyone as there is not enough "Rich" people to pay for that, so he will start another war with Afganistan. | 8 | |
| Other | He will make community service "voluntarily-compulsory." | 18 | |
| Other | I fear he won't reinstate some form of the Fairness Doctrine and crush right-wing nutjob radio. | Tom | 6 |
| Other | People have put this man up on a pedestal. And that is a difficult place to live and work. I hope the idiots of this country remember that when they don't get their way. | jj | 3 |
| Partisanship | He will send this country into economic hell, will weaken its defenses, and somehow the republicans will be blamed for it anyway. | 3 | |
| Partisanship | I fear Republicans will try to blame Barack for problems they helped create. | 8 | |
| Partisanship | He won't rule from the left. | 4 | |
| Partisanship | His racist/right-wing enemies will blockade his efforts, then tar him as ineffectual. | 22 | |
| Partisanship | After all the rhetoric about change, his policies will turn out to be just Democratic Party Business As Usual and it'll be the Clinton administration all over again. This is already beginning. | 3 | |
| Partisanship | He will succumb to the left-wing extremism of the Democratic party, sowing seeds for re-emergence of the right-wing extremism of Bush years | 12 | |
| Race Relations | White people will experience racism even more then before | 65 | |
| Race Relations | Americans will become even more outwardly racist and xenophobic | 20 | |
| Religion-related | He will continue to promote Christianity as the only "real" religion in the USA and ignore all the citizens who are not Christians. | 11 | |
| Religion-related | He doesn't have any real beliefs: he doesn't respect religion, he doesn't respect the country, he doesn't work for American people, he only makes his own career. | 7 | |
| Rule of Law | My fear is that he will not punish Bush and Cheney | 7 | |
| Rule of Law | He will eliminate death penalty. | 9 | |
| Supreme Court | He will appoint as many as two Activist Supreme Court justices who will legislate from the bench. | 15 | |
| Welfare / Social Expenditures | New Welfare programs, and a lot of people on Welfare | 26 | |
| Welfare / Social Expenditures | He will increase spendings to subsidize lazy people by giving more welfare money | 63 |