I had an opportunity to watch David Letterman interview Barack Obama on Netflix the other day. I can\u2019t recall the interview\u2019s length but Obama is such a captivating figure it didn\u2019t really matter. I was forced to recall his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention that thrust him into stardom. Without that speech, he\u2019s not President in 2008.<\/p>\n
And I\u2019ve been thinking about how words move mountains and are even more powerful than brute strength. Speaking of, also on Netflix was a documentary on the strongest men in the world. One guy lifted over one thousand pounds. But Obama was able to lift millions and lift himself to the most powerful position in the world because of how he was able to express words and connect.<\/p>\n
His ability to convey a message to another human being better than most human beings enabled him to reach heights attainable by only a select few. Partly why I voted for Obama in 2008 was because I thought when he left office he would be known as \u201cthe great communicator\u201d. In 2018, the moniker reserved for Ronald Reagan is still safe with him, sadly.<\/p>\n
Obama \u2013 in my opinion \u2013 is one of the most disappointing presidents I\u2019ve lived under. I know that\u2019s an angering statement for some who swoon at the mention of his name. Some are as starry eyed today as the speech in 2004.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n
Obama\u2019s greatest attribute hid a weakness he shares with just about every other politician, an inability to bridge the ideological gap of America. Heck, in this speech he talks about us not being a liberal America or a conservative America, but a United States of America. A feel-good sentiment if I\u2019ve ever heard one.<\/p>\n
It was a rousing speech and as he ran for office in 2008, he ran on a theme of Hope and Change. Even now, it stirs me to watch his 2004 speech. And he captivated a nation. All of this was on display again in his Letterman interview.<\/p>\n
Sadly, speech making does not make you a good president. Obama\u2019s presidency did not reduce the partisanship extant throughout the country. In fact, it did the exact opposite and we became even more polarized.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t think that was possible, but consider the fact that Donald J Trump is the successor to Barack H Obama. On the surface they seem like polar opposites with Obama\u2019s easy confidence contrasted with Trump\u2019s paper thin poise and forest thick narcissism. But while Trump\u2019s polarization is overt, Obama\u2019s was much more subtle.<\/p>\n
For instance, by the end of his presidency as he was stumping for Clinton, Obama simply was a well-spoken pitchman for the Democrats (see here: https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2016\/10\/obama-donald-trump-rise-229780) blaming Republicans. He was not the unifier from 2004\/2008 we all hoped he would be. I\u2019m hearing those of you who are saying shame on me for believing it in the first place. Yeah, yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n
And for those of you who support him and are angry with me as a black man for chiding our one black president, just ask yourselves if we\u2019re more polarized today in 2018 than we were in 2008? And when you answer yes we are, you cannot shirk blame from the man who was president for most of those years. And if you say, no we\u2019re not let me remind you that Donald J Trump is our president.<\/p>\n
So what do we do?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve considered that one day someone will rise up akin to the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr. or Ghandi and push the country forward. Those people tend to get assassinated and are few and far between but they do change the world. However, perhaps the change I wanted someone else to bring (see: Yay Obama 2008!) is the responsibility of you and I.<\/p>\n
If we truly want a less polarized nation, we need to begin to speak and act in less polarizing ways ourselves. What\u2019s that mean? Maybe we don\u2019t say, \u201cevery Republican is a nutjob\u201d or \u201cliberal is a bad word roun\u2019 these parts\u201d. Maybe every single thing Trump does isn\u2019t an incarnation of what the devil would do were he in office (and no, Trump is not the devil, sorry.)<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re pro-choice maybe think to yourself, \u201chmm, this pro-life person isn\u2019t crazy, I wonder why they believe what they believe. Let me ask them a question.\u201d Or if you\u2019re someone who believes you have a right to own every kind of gun known to man say, \u201chmm, maybe these people who don\u2019t want me to own all these guns have legitimate safety concerns. Let me hear what they have to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reality is, if we want to become less polarizing we need to listen. In his book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, habit number 5 is this \u2013 Seek first to Understand, then to be Understood. So, when talking with someone try to understand their perspective before we start spouting ours. Also, don\u2019t demean their perspective even if it is diametrically opposed to our own.<\/p>\n
Easy? No. It wouldn\u2019t be a habit of highly effective people if it were easy.<\/p>\n
If we want less polarization and a nation that works together (cue Kumbaya chorus) to face 21st century challenges, asking more and assuming less is our way forward. If we\u2019re comfortable name calling and staying within our own ideological bubbles, we\u2019re going to be passed by nations (cough, China) who have less freedoms but more unity because here in the states we\u2019ll tear one another apart.<\/p>\n
Our children\u2019s children are going to only wonder what it was like when America was leading the world because their America will have been left in the dust by other countries who recognized that it\u2019s more important to focus on what brings people together than what tears us apart.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s expect more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had an opportunity to watch David Letterman interview Barack Obama on Netflix the other day. I can\u2019t recall the interview\u2019s length but Obama is such a captivating figure it didn\u2019t really matter. I was forced to recall his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention that thrust him into stardom. Without that speech, he\u2019s … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/donroach.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/donroach.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/donroach.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donroach.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donroach.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/donroach.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29,"href":"https:\/\/donroach.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/29"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/donroach.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donroach.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donroach.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}