An Ode to Obama, The Man
Our evolution—mine and his—over a decade
I’m not blind to the broken promises, failures, or ugly successes of the Obama administration.
I’m not swayed by all of its doctored rhetoric about Guantanamo Bay, or the way it’s glossed over its own human rights violations, of which there are many. I’m cognizant of the fact that it’s deported more people than any administration prior. I’m disappointed, even embittered, about some of the places where it’s opted to compromise, in spheres both domestic and foreign.
I’m also, however, enthused to point out the places where it’s succeeded.
Take, for example, its recovery from the 2008 recession, its commitment to renewable energy sources, or its opposition (if more doctrinal than practical) to discrimination against people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and other disenfranchised communities. Although its healthcare plan was castrated by its detractors and then blamed for the consequences of its own castration, I applaud the fact that millions more Americans are now insured and tens of thousands have survived because of it.
For me, it started over a decade ago when Obama—the man, not the administration—immediately grabbed my attention. He’s held on ever since, defining my own political self in the process.
In 2006, I was on the phone with a friend who said, “I think this guy’s gonna be the next President of the United States of America.” He then showed me a ten-minute clip of Obama on a radio show talking about a few topics: on Congress, on previous failures of homeland security, and on mitigating the growing role of special interests on Capitol Hill.
He spoke pressingly with clarity and belief, two things I don’t think I’d ever heard from a living politician before. When the clip finished, I fully agreed: that guy was going to be the next President of the United States of America.
To be fair, we were just freshmen in high school at the time (shout-out to all the people who feel the sting from that one), so any reasonably articulate ideologue—is it still okay to call him “articulate” after the Biden thing?—was going to appeal to us. Heck, we might’ve voted for a dude in a Guy Fawkes mask if he spoke with enough conviction.
But the Barack Obama I remember from that clip so long ago was a much younger man. He was a a headstrong, scrappy senator with a rhetorical flair unlike any I’d ever seen. He smoked. He used more language of subversion and less language about cooperation. He was unconventional. He made politics look cool. He had ideas that reflected our own in a way that didn’t feel like distant echoes from a political chamber.
He was exactly what I, and much of America, was looking for.
Obama’s election felt like a moment of national triumph because it was the first time I’d been even remotely engaged in the process.
Two years later, when the results of the election were announced, my friends and I ran out into the street, gleefully shouting his name while the houses in the neighborhood stayed lit. By that time, I was fully immersed in the masterfully-crafted hype, after years of fatigue from pointless military actions and an economy on the cusp of collapse. Obama’s election felt like a moment of national triumph because it was the first time I’d been even remotely engaged in the process.
During his farewell address, I watched a speech given by a very different man.
The transformation wasn’t sudden by any means; by the time he’d announced his presidential bid, some of his ideas had already been tempered to appeal to a more generally moderate party. Sure, the campaign that developed relied on optimism and a need for substantive political change. Shepard Fairey’s “Hope” poster will forever be metonymic for his administration to the point where our children will probably see it in their history textbooks. But already Obama was a bit more soft-spoken than he’d once been. He retained his signature wryness and authoritative tone, yet by late 2008 he was already acting like a leader. And by that time, knee-deep in Bush’s mishaps, a leader was what I was looking for.
Now, in the wake of many jobs left half-finished and just days from the end of his term, he’s in a unique position to appeal to those very sensibilities that so soundly stole him the election eight years ago.
It’s for different reasons now, of course. He’s not trying to win anything for himself or his party, at least in the short-term. During the farewell address, he even made an off-hand remark about his status as a lame duck, which garnered a laugh from the audience. He’s doing it to drag up whatever sense of unity America has left in it. He’s turning these last moments of his legacy into the raw material that characterized its first moments. Hope was his message then. Hope is his message now.
I don’t think it’ll work the way he wants it to, but I do think it betrays some of his evolving thought processes about his works in progress across his two terms.
His evolving ideologies over the last eight years stick out to me because I’ve developed my own in tandem.
The scope of my intellectual pursuits have broadened as he’s broadened his own. Whether my own growth is the natural progression of things or it’s been prodded by his administration, I can’t say for sure. Whatever the answer, I feel like I’ve changed alongside him, growing from a boy into a man while he’s grown from a politician into something entirely new. I’m no longer content with a cool president. I demand a great one, because of him.
I feel like I’ve changed alongside him, growing from a boy into a man while he’s grown from a politician into something entirely new. I’m no longer content with a cool president. I demand a great one.
There’s something new about this man, the post-president Obama who packs up his suitcase and calls an Uber to pick him up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. (I picture him telling the driver, “It’s the one with the big fence.”) He’s still cool, but more contemplative. He’s had time to meditate more completely on democracy, republicanism, and the controversial notion of American exceptionalism. His early days were characterized by his anecdotes of everyday Americans, pouring their hearts and souls into projects designed to advance the state of our nation. Now, eight years later, he’s accumulated quite a stockpile of those, but he talks about them more in the abstract. He hasn’t had any runs-in with the Joe the Plumbers of the world; he’s retreated to a place where his only public confrontations are with an obstructionist Congress.
Meanwhile, while 2008-me was always looking for a fight, 2017-me is content to discuss ideas of greater complexity with many different political counterparts. I’m more committed to telling a full story, not just a part of it. And while I’m still always up for a healthy debate, it’s no longer because I’m insecure in my beliefs. It’s because I’m resolute in them; they have been turned over and finessed in my mind, guided by the American society Obama has so deeply influenced.
Obama has gained insight that virtually none of us can ever be privy to. It’s a complicated sort of enlightenment, one too defined by his own actions to be truly objective, yet too exclusive to be attainable by the layperson. He’s looked into the eyes of a country that voted its first black man into the highest office of the land. He’s looked into those same eyes while it voted its first orange catastrophe into the same office.
And yet, he’s never once seemed bitter to me. His critiques are pointed, yet on the whole observational. He doesn’t name-call or fist-shake. He always watches, and sometimes he speaks.
While I lack the poise and grace demonstrated by Obama, whose first days in office were besmirched by protesters holding up nooses and turban-clad caricatures while he held his tongue and dove into work, I’ve come to recognize them as immutably presidential qualities. Here’s a man who faced the ugliest his country had to offer, without ever once hitting back. His tough skin has become my own. He’s defined my notions of how a president ought to conduct themselves, and that has profound implications for what I’ll ask of future ones.
I’m doing a lot of thinking about how I’ll choose my future presidents and how my priorities have changed since 2008.
Would I pick a charismatic demagogue? Or would I demand a higher intellectual standard? Would I choose compelling dogma over hard policy? Perhaps I’d find that middle ground, preferring to truly know where a person stands over being preoccupied with whatever plans their staff of interns and cronies has cooked up.
Whenever you’re asked to participate in our republic and elect a new president, you’ll probably have a lot of questions. There are some obvious ones about policy, position, and posturing. But there are some less obvious ones that we don’t see getting asked (or at least answered) in even the most arduous of hardball debates. You might consider the following questions.
Ask them about life — what it’s worth, what constitutes it, what its relationship with liberty is — because it’ll be their job to protect yours.
Ask them about liberty — what it really means, what it entails, what measures must be taken to preserve it — because it’ll be their job to ensure yours.
Ask them about the pursuit of happiness — what parts of it can be protected, who can safeguard it, how the nation can help it along — because it’ll be their job to make yours difficult.
Ask them about democracy, and whether our country has one, or parts of one. Ask them about each unit in the political process — the nation, the state, the municipality, and the citizen. Ask them about the roles each one plays. Ask them how one can catch another when it fails. Ask them what the founders would say if they knew we spent decades on proxy wars meant to spread democracy across the world. Ask them if it even matters what the founders would say.
Ask them what it means to be an American, and don’t accept any half-assed answers about apple pie and freedom. Ask them about the nature of citizenship, and what it really means to be naturalized. Ask them what America can and should do for the world, and don’t accept any half-assed answers about being a “leader.” Ask them how one leads without dictating. Ask them what kind of America they want to leave behind. Ask them what kind of world they want to leave behind.
Ask them about love. What a person loves can tell almost their entire story. How a person loves can tell the rest of it.
Obama showed me how and why it’s important to ask these questions. This will be the last time for a while that I feel like I have a President who might have satisfying answers.
A decade after I first heard his voice, I sit here feeling like I’ve just said farewell to an old friend. One who inspires me. One who always likes my Facebook posts. One who’s sometimes slighted me. One who’s reneged on a few of his promises. One who still calls me on my birthday. One who tells me I’m good enough. And one I respect enough to believe him when he does.
He taught me how to shape my own ideas, compose myself, and ask the right questions.
To quote my editor-in-chief: Thanks, Obama. Sincerely.
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