Obama vows to fight on
This week, President Obama gave his farewell speech to the nation.
The first bars of U2’s City of Blinding Lights played as he strode onto a Chicago stage in a navy blue suit, surrounded by a crowd of boisterous and diverse supporters.
Chicago, his adopted home, is where he was born into public service as a community organiser in the mid-1980s. He was a boy. Fresh out of College. He worked in the Altegard Gardens housing project on Chicago’s impoverished South Side. He collaborated with residents to achieve common goals: a job centre; clean water; asbestos-free public housing.
On a cold winter night, some 30 years later, he stood in the shoes of giants.
The first American president to farewell the nation was George Washington who penned a 35-page letter to America in 1792. In his own farewell address, Obama echoed Washington’s calls to protect the young American experiment of self-government as the foundation of safety, prosperity, and liberty: ‘‘From different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken ... to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth.’’
In Chicago, Obama asked Americans to strengthen the ties that bind them rather than weaken them with rancorous political discourse or the notion that some are more ‘‘American’’ than others. This was, undoubtedly, a reference to the rough and tumble of the 2016 presidential campaign and a rising tide of disparagement of ‘‘others’’ (minorities, immigrants, and refugees) from some corners of the Republic.
In his first address to the nation as President in 2009, Obama committed to expanding healthcare, decreasing foreign oil dependence, improving infrastructure and the lives of working people, ending the war in Iraq, returning to soft power and diplomacy, and ending the petty squabbling in Washington DC.
He won some, he lost some. His healthcare reform was imperfect, but around 20 million more Americans now have healthcare coverage thanks to Obamacare. American foreign oil dependency has been cut by half, although that is in part because of fracking on private lands. Obama did end the war in Iraq, he captured Osama bin Laden, and he halted torture and surveillance programs, but ISIS has risen under his watch.
Between the Iran nuclear deal, the Russia reset, and the anti-Assad alliances in Syria, his administration has turned away from wars of choice and towards collaboration and diplomatic solutions.
Many hoped, as the President likely hoped, that his years of community organising would help him bring political partisans together.
This, despite the fact that during his 2008 presidential run, this work was derided by many, including one conservative commentator who described it as relying on ‘‘a community of homeless people and ex-cons to organise for the purpose of registering dead people to vote, shaking down corporations and using the race card as a bludgeon’’.
In fact, his Presidency was marred (some would say sabotaged) by hyper-partisanship. Actual and threatened government shutdowns. A Republican Congress that repeatedly blocked legislation Obama favoured, from infrastructure to immigration reform. A Republican Congress that tried (and failed) to repeal Obamacare 60 times in six years.
Looking ahead to the days and years that stretch out beyond January 20, 2017, Obama is likely to be the most involved and vocal former President this country has ever seen. He’s young, he’s staying in Washington DC (for now), and he’s indicated that when he feels core American values are threatened, he’s going to speak out.
There is speculation that he will work across the nation to foster engagement in the political process and to build a bench of young, inspiring Democratic leaders.
Obama’s community organising and his ability to bring diverse people together to achieve a common goal was laughed off in elections and frustrated in government. But it is clear that he will return to those days, or at least the gift that underpinned them, once he leaves office. As U2 sings in City of Lights: Time, time, time Time won’t leave me as I am But time won’t take the boy out of this man
New Zealand lawyer Danielle McLaughlin is based in New York as a political commentator for the Sunday Star-Times, Fox News and MSNBC. Twitter: @MsDMcLaughlin