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Answer:
Twelve years ago, Barack Obama introduced himself to the American public by way of a speech given at the Democratic National Convention, in Boston, in which he declared, “There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America, an Asian America; there’s the United States of America.” Few of us believed this to be true, but most, if not all of us, longed for it to be. We vested this brash optimist with our hope, a resource that was in scarce supply three years after the September 11th terrorist attacks in a country mired in disastrous military conflicts in two nations. The vision he offered—of national reconciliation beyond partisan bounds, of government rooted in respect for the governed and the Constitution itself, of idealism that could actually be realized—became the basis for his Presidential campaign. Twice the United States elected to the Presidency a biracial black man whose ancestry and upbringing stretched to three continents.
At various points that idealism has been severely tested. During his Presidency, we witnessed a partisan divide widen into an impassable trench, and gun violence go unchecked while special interests blocked any regulation. The President was forced to show his birth certificate, which we recognized as the racial profiling of the most powerful man in the world. Obama did not, at least publicly, waver in his contention that Americans were bound together by something greater than what divided them. In July, when he spoke in Dallas after a gunman murdered five police officers, he seemed pained by the weight of this faith, as if stress fractures had appeared in a load-bearing wall.
It is difficult not to see the result of this year’s Presidential election as a refutation of Obama’s creed of common Americanism. And on Wednesday, for the first time in the twelve years that we’ve been watching him, Obama did not seem to believe the words he was speaking to the American public. In the White House Rose Garden, Obama offered his version of a concession speech—an acknowledgement of Donald Trump’s victory. The President attempted gamely to cast Trump’s victory as part of the normal ebb and flow of political fortunes, and as an example of the great American tradition of the peaceful transfer of power. (This was not, it should be recalled, the peaceful transfer of power that most observers were worried about.) He intended, he said, to offer the same courtesy toward Trump that President George W. Bush had offered him, in 2008. Yet that reference only served to highlight the paradox of Obama's Presidency: he now exists in history bracketed by the overmatched forty-third President and the misogynistic racial demagogue who will succeed him as the forty-fifth. During his 2008 campaign, Obama frequently found himself—and without much objection on his part—compared to Abraham Lincoln. He may now share an ambivalent common bond with Lincoln, whose Presidency was bookended by James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson, two lesser lights of American history.
Explanation:
My fellow citizens:
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.
On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.
For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.
Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.
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