He didn't really do anything for gay rights either. He didn't even support gay marriage until his second term. Gay marriage only became law because of the Supreme Court.
OK, well what the hell are you talking about? Who, "stripped gay people of their rights?" Because in my lifetime, there have been two major changes in gay rights. One was DOMA, which rejected gay marriage, and was passed by a Republican congress and signed by Bill Clinton. The other was the Obergefell v. Hodges, where a conservative leaning Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. So why is this your litmus test? Why does being ambivalent on gay rights for half his Presidency mean Obama can't be a, "conservative asshole?"
You just argued that Obama wasn't a conservative based entirely on the fact that he had a, "casual indifference," towards gay rights, but sure, I'm the idiot.
OK, we'll just set the hyperbole aside for a second, 'cause I really want an answer on this...why is gay rights your only barometer for what a conservative is? Like, if I want to lower taxes on the wealthy, cut social programs, increase military spending and ban abortion, but I don't have any problem with gay people, does that mean I'm not a conservative?
I just picked the first topic that came into my head. There's really a thousand different examples where Democrats are good or neutral but Republicans are mustache twirling evil.
OK, here's the thing; the Republicans are generally mustache twirling bad guys, but the Democrats are rarely good or neutral, especially at the federal level. They have nice rhetoric, but they never live up to it. Clinton gutted welfare, expanded mass incarceration, and ended Glass-Steagall (which directly led to the 2008 housing market crash). Obama abandoned universal healthcare, reneged on his promise to bailout homeowners, and created the largest domestic spying program in human history. Again, even in the topic you came up with, Democrats did literally nothing to advance gay rights, it was the Supreme Court.
It's very tempting to boil politics down to a binary, good/evil choice, especially now that at least half of the Republican party is openly supporting facism, but you can't just assume the Democrats are the good guys. If their voters don't hold them accountable for their broken promises and inaction, the country will continue to slide into this right-wing hellscape we're all facing.
I think it might actually be impossible to remain a good person as a president, even if you manage to somehow be a good person who can become president (also rare)
The president definitely has to be an asshole to some extent, because it's impossible to make everyone happy in this country.
With that said, we've seen presidents do what they say they're gonna do, even as progressives. We sat through four years of Trump using every possible resource to do the awful stuff he did, and there's no good reason why anyone should look at Biden and expect less than that.
Democrats deserve credit for ruling as conservatives. They reinforced the narrative that voting is pointless, at least in terms of federal elections.
Expecting Biden to rule like Trump is absolutely fucking insane. He ignored or broke any rule that stood in his way, and it got many of his policy initiatives shut down by the courts until he went back and did it the proper way, with the end result being that he was so busy fighting in the courts he didn't have time to do everything he wanted. He tried to exploit his powers to persecute his opponents and got impeached over it. He shut down the government over border wall funding and got nothing for it. The only areas he was actually successful in pushing the boundaries of acceptability were in grifting the government by staying at his properties and charging inflated prices I'm violation of the emoluments clause.
I'm a leftist because I believe government can be a force for good, and because I believe in the rule of law and in fighting against corruption. If Biden or any democrat acted like Trump did, I'd vote them out in a heartbeat.