Lol. Come on, man.
You can disagree with Coates—that's fine, I often do—but don't stoop to presuming he's "unaware" when he frames his claims. He's well aware of recent Republican history, but he's making a point about why it's so important for then-candidate and now-President Trump to attach President Obama's name, specifically, in his attempts to dismantle and abnegate these policies.
Also: your NYT author quoted above re Coates would be wise to not equate Coates' "recent writing" to "leftist discourse", considering many on the left don't find Coates' frequent rejection of economic-material base causes of suffering to be particularly of "the left".