Obama’s presidential renaissance

Those who saw his eulogy to slain pastor could sense the ‘arc of history’ bending in the US president’s direction and the fierce relevance of his story

Sometimes change tiptoes up and surprises you. There could be no better illustration of America’s dramatic week than the White House lit up in rainbow colours as the confederate flag was lowered in the south. There was no starker moment than President Barack Obama urging the Christian doctrine of grace on the bible belt in the town where the first shot of the Civil War was fired. Last week, reality put the most far-fetched episode of West Wing into the shade — and there is probably more to come. Is Obama finally ushering in the change he promised?

The optics certainly favour that view. A week ago, Obama faced the spectre of his signature health-care bill unravelling in the Supreme Court and the defeat of his big trade agenda in the Pacific and the Atlantic. In either case, his presidency would have turned rapidly lame duck. But a week is a long time in politics. Both disasters were averted — one by a conservative-majority Supreme Court, the other at the hands of a Republican Congress. Events peaked with what Obama described as the legal “thunderbolt” that put same-sex marriage on an equal footing across all 50 states in the US.

Then came his eulogy to Clementa Pinckney, the pastor slain the previous week by a white supremacist along with eight of his congregation. With a force no other president could have summoned, Obama drew on the revivalist oratory of black church tradition to shame the culture of hatred that led to the massacre. Even by Obama’s standards, it was a striking performance that combined a repudiation of the south’s racist history with a rallying cry to a new era of social justice. Those who saw it could sense the “arc of history” bending in Obama’s direction and the fierce relevance of his story. Obama went to Charleston to speak at a funeral. He left at the emotional pinnacle of his presidency. Yet, change is a slippery thing. Five years ago, when Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, he said: “This is what change looks like.” It was a defiant statement after months of bitter wrangling. Last week, after countless Republican attempts to repeal “Obamacare”, and dozens of lawsuits, the Supreme Court rejected the latest challenge to the law. More in relief than defiance, Obama repeated his 2010 sentiments: the law was here to stay. This time, however, he had an eye on the 2016 election. Every Republican candidate has vowed to abolish the statute if they are elected to the White House.

Change that’s hard to detect

The most durable changes usually come from below. That is the case with gay marriage. Opponents of last week’s Supreme Court ruling claim it amounted to “legislating from the bench”, much as in 1973 when the court legalised abortion in Roe v Wade. In fact, the Supreme Court was putting its seal on what has been a vertiginous shift in US society. A decade ago, more than two-thirds of Americans opposed same sex marriage. Now roughly 60 per cent support it. Even before last week’s ruling it was legal in 38 states.

Other kinds of change are so glacial they are hard to detect. Such is the case in US race relations. Many thought Obama’s election in 2008 would finally close a chapter on centuries of racial division. But as Obama said in his eulogy, nothing can be taken for granted — even under America’s first black president. Tensions between many US police forces and African Americans are as heightened today as at any time in recent memory. Large chunks of US society remain institutionally racist — from prison sentencing to job interview bias. The wealth gap between African Americans and whites is wider than when Obama took office. Meanwhile, politics in the US south remains stubbornly wedded to its “Lost Cause”.

Will Charleston make it different? Following the massacre, some southern states finally agreed to get rid of the Confederate flag. A bigger problem is the ease with which fanatics can acquire guns, something against which Obama has long railed. He reiterated his plea in Charleston last week. But the chances of Congress doing anything to hinder gun sales before he leaves office are very slim.

Sometimes things change so that they can stay the same. Gun control is the American north’s lost cause. At other times, such as with the health-care law, change is painfully built, “brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand”, as Obama put it after his first election. Last week brought to the fore both the majesty and limits of the US presidency. It would not have been the same on anyone else’s watch.

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