Obama's America

(PHOTO: CSPAN - President Barack Obama takes the oath of office, administered by Chief Justice John Roberts, for a second term in the White House Blue Room on January 20, 2013.)
  
  In 1990, Barack Obama was still trying to find his place in the world and come to grips with his complicated identity. He came closer than ever before to finding himself that year. The young son of a white Kansan mother, once on food stamps, and an estranged Kenyan father rose to prominence as the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Talk of a political career was scant but it existed to the extent that the young Obama told Time magazine that he was interested in pursuing a career in elected office. Were he to pursue elected office, Obama made clear at the time what his vision was for the country. "We're going to reshape America," Obama said to the Illinois Daily Herald, "in a way that is...more generous." More than two decades later, the Harvard Law Review editor is strikingly close to seeing that vision fulfilled.

On Monday, Barack Hussein Obama will take the ceremonial oath of office for a second time as the 44th President of the United States and much will be made of the fact that he is greyer, older, and sterner this time. This analysis, based solely on trivial personal traits, should be less relevant than the fact that this time, he will be sworn in as a more accomplished leader as well. It is true that Obama notably failed, to his own admission, in fulfilling his signature 2009 inaugural task of changing the culture of Washington and overcoming "petty partisanship." There is a myriad of reasons for this failure (though the blame largely lies with an increasingly recalcitrant -- and increasingly powerful -- right wing faction of Congress that has been devoted from day one to defeating the President's agenda). As significant legislative achievements accumulated (the Lily Ledbetter Act, the Recovery Act, Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, etc.) and the GOP opposition hardened ("You lie"), it became clear that the Obama presidency would not fulfill that '09 Inauguration promise. Instead, it would achieve a different vision. That would be the dream to make America a "more generous" nation -- the goal a young and idealistic Barack Obama set when he first considered going into politics. As President Obama enters his second term, he takes the oath as a more accomplished man presiding over an America that is becoming, indeed, more generous.

The evidence of this progressive trajectory for our nation is clear. The proof is in the pudding. Gone is the somber time of 700,000 jobs being lost per month, an entire industry in shambles, and an economy on the brink of the second Great Depression. In its place is nearly three consecutive years of private sector job growth, a successful rescue of our storied auto industry, and historic investments in roads and bridges, high-speed rail, and alternative energy. Gone is a health care system that discriminated against women, Americans with preexisting conditions, and young Americans. In its place is the first kind of national health insurance safety net in our country's history -- a historic reform that expands Medicaid to 133 percent of the federal poverty level and provides enormous tax credits for middle-class families to purchase health insurance, among other provisions. Gone is an unchecked Wall Street run totally amok without any comprehensive protections for working Americans. In its place is the first ever federal consumer protection agency -- a bureau that has already returned hundreds of millions of dollars to customers wronged by Discover and Capitol One -- and FDIC regulation of infamously risky trading for the first time. Gone is a military policy that discriminated against and ousted gay and lesbian soldiers solely because of their sexual orientation. In its place is a military, still the finest in the world, where you do not have to lie about who you love to serve your country. Gone is a student loan system where banks were able to reap massive profits at the expense of college students seeking aid to go to school. In its place is the elimination of banks as the middlemen in this process and a system friendlier and more altruistic for millions of American middle class students and their families. Gone too is the evil mastermind of the worst terrorist attack on our country's soil, gone is a war in Iraq that we should never have begun, and gone is a dictator in Libya responsible for the deaths of Americans and the brutal repression of his own citizens.

A large bulk of these achievements were largely accomplished without bipartisan fanfare, without Republican votes in the case of domestic legislation, and without fulfilling the President's promise to bridge the gap that divided America's two major political parties. Nevertheless, these achievements are truly significant, consequential in the lasting effect that they will have on the next several generations of Americans who will feel the real world impact of a reformed health care system, stronger consumer protections, and other aspects of the Obama legacy. When Barack Obama is sworn in for a second term in front of a crowd of 800,000 people, including me, in the cold of Washington -- keep in mind, as a Chicago community organizer, his crowds were often as small as *13* people -- his Inaugural address should not be a rehashing of his promise of restoring bipartisanship. That admirable but unrealistic hope of early 2009 has largely vanished. Instead, his address should focus on what his presidency is shaping up to be: the realization of a "more generous" America. It is what President Obama set his sights on achieving in 1990, it is what the story of his presidency has been thus far, and it should be the focus of his second Inaugural address. Perhaps he could use some pointers from his fellow Illinoisan Abraham Lincoln, who in his stirring second Inaugural in 1865, proclaimed, "with malice toward none and charity for all." Here's to creating a society that lives up to that promise. Best wishes, Mr. President.