North Cook News

Steve Cortes, president of the League of American Workers, has said that Barack Obama's positions and economic record left most Americans worse off and contributed to the political rise of Donald Trump. This statement was made during an interview.

"Well, and in 2008, he ran on a platform insisting that marriage was between one man and one woman, right," said Cortes. "Only 90, excuse me, only 10% of all Americans saw their net worth increase during his administration. The other 90 lost ground with the progressive in office. Now, I believe there is no Trump if there's not Obama."

During his 2008 campaign, Barack Obama opposed same-sex marriage and only supported civil unions, stating that states should decide the issue. By 2012, he publicly endorsed marriage equality, marking a historic shift that influenced national debate and helped set the stage for the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in 2015. According to The New Yorker, this evolution reflected broader cultural changes on LGBTQ rights during his presidency.

Household and nonprofit net worth in the U.S. grew from $54.4 trillion in early 2009 to $92.8 trillion by the end of 2016, representing a 70% increase. Median household wealth also recovered after the Great Recession, though much of the growth favored the top income groups, widening inequality. As reported by Wikipedia using Federal Reserve data, total wealth rose nearly 30% from its 2007 pre-crisis peak by 2016.

A study published in 2018 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that Donald Trump’s support in 2016 was linked less to economic decline than to "status threat," where cultural and demographic shifts during the Obama presidency left many white voters feeling politically and socially displaced. This research suggests that conditions during Obama's era indirectly shaped Trump's rise by fueling resentment among groups perceiving lost dominance.

Cortes is a political commentator and former financial strategist who worked over two decades in global markets before serving as Chief Strategist at BGC Partners. He later became a broadcaster on CNBC, Fox News, and CNN, and was a senior spokesperson for Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns with a focus on Hispanic outreach. According to Key Speakers Bureau, he now serves as president of the League of American Workers.