Obama warns Americans to defend their democracy
● President uses farewell speech to call on need for ‘common purpose’
The outgoing US president, Barack Obama, has called on the country to defend its democracy in a valedictory speech that sought to bridge a nation divided while also warning of potential dangers ahead.
In an elegant and emotional address which asked Americans to be tolerant, yet also vigilant, and which reflected on the legacy of his two terms in office, America’s first black president stressed that the country’s potential “will be realised only if our democracy works”.
“Only if our politics reflects the decency of our people,” he said. “Only if all of us, regardless of our party affiliation or particular interest, help restore the sense of common purpose that we so badly need right now.”
While Mr Obama only once referred directly to his successor, president-elect Donald Trump, he used the speech in his home city of Chicago to caution against a series of looming threats, including economic inequality, racial divisions, and the retrenchment of segments of society into “bubbles” where opinions are formed “without some common baseline of facts”.
Protecting America’s way of life, he said, was the job of citizens as well as the military, adding: “Democracy can buckle when we give in to fear.”
To cheers from the crowd, Mr Obama, referring to Mr Trump’s calls for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to the US, said he rejected discrimination against Muslim Americans “just as patriotic as we are”.
In a further deconstruction of Mr Trump’s vision for America, Mr Obama lamented politicians who question climate change, stating: “To simply deny the problem not only betrays future generations, it betrays the essential spirit of innovation and practical problem-solving that guided our founders.”
However, he said he had pledged to Mr Trump that his administration would “ensure the smoothest possible transition” just as his predecessor George Bush did for him, and said the nation’s politics needed to reflect “the decency” of the American people.
But when Mr Obama noted how close that change was, the 18,000-strong crowd at the Mccormick Place convention centre began to boo. He responded by saying: “No, no, no, no, no”, and reiterating that one of the nation’s great strengths “is the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next”.
In the televised speech, which lasted just under an hour, Mr Obama spoke more expansively about the trials and triumphs, promises kept Clockwise from left: Barack Obama speaks in Chicago; an emotional moment; a farewell from his family and vice-president Joe Biden and his wife and promises broken that made up his eight years in the White House.
He said that by almost every measure, the country he was elected to lead in 2008 was a “better, stronger place” in 2017.
Arguing that his faith in America had been confirmed, he said he ended his tenure inspired by its “boundless capacity” for reinvention, declaring: “The future should be ours.”
His delivery was forceful for the most part, but by the end he was wiping away tears as the crowd embraced him one last time. He and his wife Michelle hugged former aides and other audience members long after the speech ended.
It was the reference to his family that moved Mr Obama most. He paid tribute to the sacrifices made by his wife and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, who were young girls when they entered the big white home in Pennsylvania Avenue and now leave as young women.
Mr Obama praised his wife for taking on her role “with grace and grit and style and good humour” and for making the White House “a place that belongs to everybody”.
In his closing remarks, he said he had one final request for Americans. “I am asking you to believe,” he explained. “Not in my ability to bring about change, but in yours.”
At one point, the crowd chanted “Four more years”, to which Mr Obama simply smiled and said: “I can’t do that.”
Steeped in nostalgia, Mr Obama’s return to Chicago was less a triumphant homecoming and more a bittersweet reunion, where his sense of frustration was never far from the surface. The event brought together Obama loyalists, many of whom have long since left his service, moved on to new careers and started families.
They came from across the country to be present for the last major moment of Mr Obama’s presidency.
Seeking inspiration, Mr Obama’s speechwriters spent weeks poring over his other momentous speeches, including his 2004 keynote at the Democratic National Convention and his 2008 speech after losing the New Hampshire primary to Hillary Clinton.
They also revisited his 2015 address in Selma, Alabama, that both honoured America’s exceptionalism and acknowledged its painful history on civil rights.
After returning to Washington DC, Mr Obama will have less than two weeks before he accompanies Mr Trump in the presidential limousine to the Capitol for the new president’s swearing-in.
He then plans to take some time off, write a book, and immerse himself in a Democratic re-districting campaign to make polling district boundaries fairer.