I suspect that future historians are likely to focus on the rising inequality in the American economy during the Obama years, the deepening precariousness experienced by people who once anticipated a greater level of security and prosperity, and on the poisonous impact this has on the entire American political system. The crash of 2008 and its aftermath may come to be seen as a moment when greater reform was possible — a resolution to the crisis that placed greater weight on holding the financial system accountable and on aiding middle-class people who were hurt, as well as a chance for the deeper reassessment of the basis of the American economy, an opportunity to pursue policies that could have restored a greater level of equality. This didn’t happen, and it’s the great missed opportunity of the Obama presidency.

President Obama’s actions suggest that he is truly passionate about climate change in a way that we haven’t fully grasped. Clearly he hasn’t done enough. But it’s important to consider how little political incentive Obama has had to do anything. Obama could have easily gotten away with talking soberly about the issue but never really doing anything about it. Instead, he’s done a lot: tough EPA constraints on coal, a meaningful accord with China to cut emissions, serious stimulus spending on clean energy, new emissions standards for cars and trucks. History may well reveal that Obama showed more personal courage on this issue than any other.

Perhaps Obama’s least-heralded achievement was his effort to prepare the country for its future as a genuinely multiethnic and multicultural society. People of color will soon outnumber white Americans, religious diversity continues to grow, and differences in sexual orientation are increasingly accepted. Obama’s presidency may one day be seen as a watershed in the construction of a genuinely “rainbow” America. But then there’s Ferguson.

Here is one historic trend-break that has occurred during the Obama administration that has major significance for the well-being of African-Americans: the beginnings of a decline in the national prison population, after decades of expansion. The Obama administration deserves a fair share of credit. In 2010, Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, reducing prison time for convictions involving crack cocaine. Under Attorney General Eric Holder, sentencing guidelines were made retroactive, leading to the release of thousands. To date, the reductions have been small compared to the total incarcerated population, but the reversal is historic, and its disproportionate significance for African-Americans is evident.

Obama’s efforts on behalf of women and girls are one of the least understood or commonly overlooked aspects of his presidency. From creating the White House Council on Women and Girls to appointing two women to the Supreme Court and a strong team of women leaders to his Cabinet and White House staff, Obama has taken concrete steps to ensure that women’s voices are heard. He has expanded economic opportunities for women, fought pay discrimination, increased women’s access to quality and affordable health care, worked toward combating sexual assault on college campus and in the military, and expanded services for victims of domestic violence and their children.

Eric Holder, because legal developments — from LGBT equality to internal legal opinions about targeted killing, surveillance, and secrecy — are likely to have staying power.

Hillary Clinton, of course, assuming that her presidency ends in 2024.

John Brennan, the figure with cardinal-like bearing and hidden influence, who consistently protected the CIA’s interests, both from his job on the National Security Council in the first term and as CIA director in the second.

Valerie Jarrett, chief insulator and purveyor of “boardroom liberalism.”

Elizabeth Warren, whose work on consumer protection might seem as important as anything else.

Rahm Emanuel, had his hand in everything, not just Obamacare. He was the New Democrat attack dog who did the insider dirty work while Obama tried to rise above, or at least stand back from, the fray.

Michelle Obama, the woman who the broader public has come to see as more “authentically black” than any other leader in U.S. history.

The fact that he was the first black elected as president will always be the most astonishing thing about his presidency to most Americans of all races 20 years from now. And most interestingly, his name and his presidency will be used by those on both sides of that divide as proof of their argument as to whether we still have a long way to go or we’ve finally arrived.

The post-civil-rights racial order is coming undone on Obama’s watch. Thanks to affirmative action and the normalization of values of diversity within elite institutions, the country has more racial and gender inclusivity at the top than perhaps at any other time in its history. At the same time, a racially disparate criminal-punishment system will, under current trends, lock up one in three black men during the course of his lifetime. The contradiction Obama embodies—“one black man in the White House; 1 million black men in the big house”—has something to do with this.

I question the assumption that Republicans were guilty of “obstructionism.” There are strong arguments that Congress owes the president some deference on matters that are especially close to his constitutional authority, such as foreign affairs and appointments. But it has no duty to pass his bills on core issues of legislative responsibility, particularly taxing and spending. Rather than partisan opposition, the real story is the shrinking of the legislative branch, in favor of a model of governing in which Congress passes vague enabling statutes and leaves executive agencies to work out the content of the law.

Social media and the internet have allowed the hard right to focus their message in a way that would have been impossible in what will seem more obviously an “antique” time before the web. We today do not perceive this as vividly as we might, because those of us over about 40 do not live 24/7 online/cloud as deeply as those younger than us. No 20-something Reddit fan wonders why a smart professional black Adlai Stevenson such as Obama hasn’t been able to marginalize mean right-wingers; they would only wonder why anyone would expect, given the ready platform any bozo has, such a thing.

Historians do Obama a disservice when they implicitly compare him to LBJ. There have not been many social movements of the left during the Obama years, movements that provide exterior power to push him, and which he can co-opt with progressive reforms in a manner that legitimates him with the center. In a sense, Obama has had to have been his own social movement, and this puts him in vulnerable territory. The exceptions — the gay and lesbian movements and the Hispanic mobilization around immigration — show exactly what I mean, for in these areas Obama has been demonstrably responsive.

We’re just now beginning to see how Obama has been moving the country into a postimperial foreign policy, which involves a willingness to talk to partners and enemies alike. The right wanted to keep military force in Iraq and demanded we put boots on the ground in Ukraine. Instead, we’ve seen Obama do a jujitsu with Iraqi internal politics, turning lemon into power-sharing lemonade, and work with the Europeans behind the scenes. I haven’t heard anyone talk about China’s move toward soft power, and what a vital pivot away from aggressive military brinkmanship this represents. But it’s entirely to Obama’s credit. He has forged military and economic alliances with China’s neighbors even as he has continued to engage the Chinese leadership, telling them the U.S. supports China’s “peaceful rise.” The enormously significant announcement of China-U.S. cooperation on global warming is an indication of how Obama’s quiet “talking” diplomacy has born results.

In time, historians will see how significant Obama’s lack of prior experience in foreign affairs was. Americans now distrust experience. They assume that all we need in our leaders is fresh eyes and a soul unsullied by the Beltway or the U.N. Our best and brightest do not go into the diplomatic core, our congressional foreign-policy committees are chaired by provincials, and the National Security Council is staffed with area specialists. No one has enough experience or the temperament to take the long view and see the big picture. President Obama was no different. He did not have enough experience to draw on to articulate his own distinctive approach to foreign affairs, leaving the American public and the world in the dark about his intentions and capacities. The evaporation of his “red line” in Syria says it all. What would his foreign-policy record have been had he stayed in the Senate for one or two more terms before becoming president? That is the interesting counterfactual question.

The most lasting legacy of this administration will be the “pivot” to Iran — away from Israel. Everything that has happened in the Middle East since 2001, including the unnecessary wars and “surges,” has magnified Iran’s importance from the standpoint of U.S. national interests and, to the same extent, diminished Israel’s significance.

It is probably not accidental that the Arab Spring first occurred during a relative lull in American intervention in the Middle East. However badly Obama responded to those democratic movements once they broke out, prior to that he had turned American politics from foreign policy to domestic. That move left greater degrees of freedom for democratic movements to put pressure on their own autocratic governments without being smeared with the accusation of being agents of imperialism. That can hardly have been Obama’s intention, but it does seem to me a consequence of his foreign policy at that time, and a factor that will be clearer in time and can fairly be judged as positive.

Prosecute those American officials that tortured detainees and publicly censured their enablers such as CIA officials and legal theorists.

Just say he made a mistake talking about meritocracy and claiming that everyone getting a college degree is the key to success, job security, and middle-class life. It would make a difference if Obama were simply to recognize America’s class structure and say explicitly that those who didn’t get an education do not deserve their underpaid, insecure employment.