Dear President Obama, Thank you

But now we need you more than ever.

First of all, I want to thank you and your family.

Thank you for fighting for all Americans, even though so many didn’t even try to appreciate you.

Thank you for the Affordable Care Act. Because of your persistence, millions of people have access to healthcare that didn’t before. Now, I can work the jobs I want to and have peace of mind that my family will be covered.

Thank you for caring about our earth. You didn’t just acknowledge climate change (which sadly, isn’t something we can count on from our elected officials), you took action. The Paris Agreement was an unprecedented pact to help our planet.

Thank you for helping rescue the economy. Sure, things aren’t perfect, but you were handed a decimated economy and you helped reverse it.

Thank you for Dodd-Frank. It helped put checks on banks and force them to be more financially responsible. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also helped stop the abusive lending practices that led to our housing crisis.

Thank you for bringing our troops home. They were fighting a war that wasn’t right and we were spending millions in dollars and more importantly, thousands in lives. Thank you for having a mostly diplomatic foreign policy, choosing to come to the table and talk before attacking.

Thank you for trying to stop gun violence.

Thank you for acknowledging that this country is filled with all kinds of religions and belief systems. Thank you for protecting non-theists.

Thank you for supporting same-sex marriage.

Thank you for expanded Pell Grant funding. Thank you for reducing the numbers in our prisons. Thank you for investing in clean energy.

Thank you for helping veterans, expanding overtime pay, helping people keep their homes, improving school nutrition (shout out to Michelle for this), working for fair pay for women, protecting the LGBTQ community, and expanding health coverage for children.

Thank you for being accessible, for being cool, and for your family being the epitome of class, grace, and elegance. Thank you for transcending all the horrible things people said about you and your family.

You truly are and will always be the first president I voted for. For eight years, you were my president.

But now, we must ask more of you.

You mentioned last year that after you were done serving as president, you might be more vocal and upfront.

“Having had this office has given me this incredible perch from which to see how the world works. The power of the office is unique and it is a humbling privilege. With that power, however, also comes a whole host of institutional constraints. There are things I cannot say. There are things that I cannot say, not out of any political concerns, but out of prudential concerns of the office. There are institutional obligations I have to carry out that are important for a president of the United States to carry out, but may not always align with what I think would move the ball down the field on the issues that I care most deeply about.”

You mentioned possible things you might do after you are done being president, like being a law professor or an owner of an NBA team. You mentioned that you don’t want to be in office again.

These were ideas from a different timeline. A time when we all assumed your legacy would carry on through Hilary Clinton. We assumed the progress we’ve made with you wouldn’t be immediately threatened or destroyed.

But obviously, things have changed. Trump and his administration threaten to undo everything you’ve helped us achieve. Our progress and your legacy are at stake. You seem to have identified this, as you’ve been more open to having an active voice post-presidency, even going as far to say that you would have won a third term if allowed (we all know it’s true).

In a more recent interview with David Axelrod, you backed off a bit:

“I have to be quiet for a while. And I don’t mean politically, I mean internally. At a certain point, you make room for new voices and fresh legs…

But President Obama, I ask of you. Don’t be quiet.

Don’t back off. The country needs you and your family. The Democratic party needs you to help them rebuild. I agree that new voices need to rise up and new leadership needs to take over, but you need to help your party and your country find and raise those voices.

You need to fight for the progress you brought to our country.

Seriously, stop being so polite and partisan. Your intellectualism and grace are unmatched and greatly appreciated, but the Democratic party is in shambles and it needs to bare its teeth. We all need to fight harder.

You have nothing to lose except for your legacy. And you cannot lose that if you fight harder and meaner than you have the past eight years. You can only lose your legacy if you stay quiet and don’t join us all in resisting and protecting the disadvantaged groups you have spent so much time trying to help.

Fight harder for black lives. Fight harder for our children. Fight harder for women. We know you have the audacity to hope, but we want you to have the audacity to fight a little tougher. Don’t give up your optimism, but understand why there is so much cynicism and help us be hopeful again.

In your farewell speech, you warned us about economic inequality, racial tensions, closed-mindedness, foreign threats, and the need to rebuild our democratic institutions. These threats and more are imminent and real. As much as we would have loved to let you fade into the background and enjoy your well-earned break, we need all hands on deck.

We hate to ask more of you after all you’ve done. You were my generation’s first hope in a tumultuous time. Now, we need hope again.

“Yes we can.”

“Yes we did.”

“Yes we can.” Again.

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