He is the great President of my lifetime.
His Bills rescue the economy from collapse, introduce banking regulations to try to prevent it from occurring again, and extend health insurance to millions of Americans. He protects additional wilderness lands for future generations, takes us out of Iraq, saves the US auto industry, ends the use of torture as American policy, and negotiates the Iran Nuclear Arms Agreement. He does all this under relentless attack by the Republicans. He does all this as the first black man elected to the Presidency and therefore under increased public and media scrutiny about how he will conduct himself. He and Michelle perform their duties with integrity and grace. His administration completes 8 years of office scandal free. Think of that in the present tense — scandal free.
He had been granted immense power, and there are things I wish he had attempted or done differently. He reached out to Republicans hoping for compromise, but when he saw that was not going to occur, I wish he had gone over their heads and traveled to Red States, to their communities, to speak to a constituency who had not voted for him and in that way used his time and presence to try and demonstrate that he was not the caricature his opponents made him out to be. I wish he could have often dropped the ‘professorial’ tone and persona and told stories rather than lectured. Voters respond to stories more so than to facts. Build them a narrative and they are more likely to come to you. Sometimes Obama seemed too much the technocrat. I wish, now, after Newtown and Parkland, that he had pushed hard for gun control legislation. Despite McConnell’s threat, I wish he had gone public with the information he had on Russian efforts to subvert the election. In some cases I wish he had been more aggressive, less cautious, especially in Syria where Assad and the Russians are obliterating the last rebel stronghold in a suburb of Damascus. Syria is his great failure.
But I cannot inhabit the skin of the first black man as President and honestly imagine the pressures he faced because of his race — the unending focus on every innocent movement, smile, and remark — all interpreted through layers of stereotypes a white person cannot hope to feel.
Obama’s run for office exhilarated the core believers in white superiority who have always been with us. Their target becomes obvious. Obama, however, is a believer in Lincoln’s “better angels of our nature,” and in March of 2008 gives one of the great speeches about race in America. This excerpt reveals his essential optimism: “The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is … that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress had been made; as if this country — a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black, Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen — is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope — the audacity to hope — for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.” Such idealism puts the ascension of Trump in stark contrast. Trump’s election created an existential moment — what are we as a people? What path will we choose?
Obama’s eight years and his success called forth Trump. He is not responsible for Trump. Let’s set that at the feet of Russian bots, disinformation and the collusion of the Trump campaign with Putin’s agents. Let’s set that at the feet of Hillary Clinton, so heavy with the baggage of her husband and her own arrogance that she became the worst possible candidate to oppose him. Let us also tell the truth about the force of white racism in his victory — voter suppression in Wisconsin, racially charged code words used by the Trump campaign itself. Almost 30% of those who voted for Trump believed Obama is a Muslim. Trump begins his rise to power by embracing “birtherism”. He knew exactly whose support he wanted.
After over a year of Trump, Obama’s eight years seem to belong to another era, as if we should be remembering it in daguerreotypes. Since he left office, we have been under siege by several thousand lies and shameless liars, dishonor, disgrace and crimes in high places, perhaps even treason.
President Obama made the country a better place than he found it. He did so without staining his reputation. He left the Office with an indelible example of both competence and human decency.
