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English Honors Theses English
2018
“Yes We Did”: Barack Obama, Narrating Change, and Rede;ning “Yes We Did”: Barack Obama, Narrating Change, and Rede;ning
America America
Allison Trunkey
Skidmore College
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Trunkey 1
Allison Trunkey
English Dept.
Senior Thesis
3 May 2018
“Yes We Did”: Barack Obama, Narrating Change, and Redefining America
Introduction: An Ethos of Change, Elevating Citizenship, and the “Bully Pulpit”
During his eight years in office, Barack Obama used his presidency as a platform to
highlight the voices and experiences of ordinary Americans. His refrain was often that, “in a
democracy, the most important office is the office of citizen.” Illustrating this belief, his
1
speeches were littered with references to Americans whose stories exemplified whatever moral
vanguard Obama was then attempting to advocate. He identified these citizens as part of both the
historical record and the contemporary moment: slaves and abolitionists, coal miners and
parents, servicemen and corporate leaders of industry. They were not always names known to us,
though Obama does favor stories of the Founding Fathers and civil rights leaders like Martin
Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis. In Obama’s narratives, rather, the heroes were more often
“ordinary Americans with extraordinary courage,” who helped to bend the “arc of the moral
universe,” to borrow King’s phrase. By challenging systems of oppression or instances of
2
injustice, these individuals exemplified the gradual process of moving toward what Obama
envisioned of “a more perfect union.” Citizen engagement, for Obama, was part of a communal
3
process required to render a freer, fairer world.
1
Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
(New York: Three
Rivers Press, 2006), 135.
2
Barack Obama, “Remarks at John Lewis’s Sixty-Fifth Birthday Gala,” in We Are the Change We Seek:
The Speeches of Barack Obama
(New York: Bloomsbury, 2017),
20.
3
Obama, “A More Perfect Union,” in We Are the Change We Seek,
63.
Trunkey 2
As president, Obama framed his role in this process as a conduit. He positioned himself
as filling a void in contemporary life, which he characterized as lacking in personal
connections—he aimed to become that connection. Having been privy to positive examples of
4
citizen engagement as a grassroots organizer and then as a candidate on the campaign trail,
Obama sought to transmit them to the nation at large as didactic devices. By Obama’s measure,
5
if more Americans could only be exposed to such stories as proof of the change that he
championed, more would embrace the communal project of enacting that change. Thus Obama
6
used his speeches as spaces to initiate or reorient national conversations to more inclusive,
productive directions. Within them, he included anecdotes as microcosmic models of how
ordinary Americans could create positive change in their own lives and communities.
7
One of the clearest examples of this occurs in his Farewell Address, delivered just ten
days before he left office. In this speech, Obama concludes, “I do have one final ask of you as
your president—the same thing I asked when you took a chance on me eight years ago. I am
4
Barack Obama, “Why Organize? Problems and Promise in the Inner City,” Illinois Issues
, 1990; In
“Why Organize?” Obama argues community organizing “enables people to break their crippling isolation
from each other.”
5
In his prologue
to The Audacity of Hope
, Obama articulates that the book
“grows directly out of those
conversations on the campaign trail.” He connects his personal encounters with Americans with his belief
in a “a common set of values that bind us together despite our differences; a running thread of hope that
makes our improbably experiment in democracy work.” He continues that those values “remain alive in
the hearts and minds of most Americans — and they can inspire us to pride, duty, and sacrifice” (8).
6
In numerous places, including The Audacity of Hope
and his Farewell Address, Obama introduces his
explanation of the Founding Fathers’ concept that we are all created equal, with certain unalienable rights,
but that “these rights, while self-evident, have never been self-executing,” and that “change only happens
when ordinary people get involved, get engaged, and come together to demand it” (Farewell Address).
7
Not all speeches come with such involved intentions, of course—Obama has stump speeches like every
politician. This thesis focuses on moments where I believe intent can be identified with relative certainty,
based largely on the occasions of given speeches’ deliveries. Moreover, because this thesis seeks to
identify ongoing themes across his full term in office, I have worked from the assumption that while his
methods may have shifted, Obama’s core ideology has not changed.
Trunkey 3
asking you to believe. Not in my ability to bring about change—but in yours.” Here, Obama
8
emphasizes the decade-long continuity of his call to action. In the climactic final moments of the
speech—itself one of his final public appearances as president—he chose to reiterate this
message. Thus, with the finite situational power of a Farewell Address, Obama made a final plea
for nationwide investment in civic life. As this thesis will suggest, the idea of an individual
citizen’s ability to bring about change through collective action suffused his presidency, as
represented in his speeches. His Farewell Address thereby exemplifies Obama’s frequent
rhetorical mode of extending the responsibilities of citizenship to all of us, challenging
traditional assumptions about hierarchies of power.
Moments like the conclusion of his Farewell Address epitomize the core concern of this
thesis: to examine how Obama’s speeches can be analyzed as symptoms of an ongoing
sociopolitical project, driven by his personal ethos of the power of citizenship. To this end, it
benefits us to consider Obama as a community organizer first and a politician second; after his
victory in the Illinois Senatorial race in 2005, Michelle Obama described her husband as “a
community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change.” Similarly, Obama
9
himself once argued, “Organizing can also be a bridge between the private and the public,
between politics and people’s everyday lives.” These testimonies reflect Obama’s ethos—his
10
view of politics as an arena through which dedicated individuals have the power to generate
meaningful social change. They also situate Obama’s moral assertions as president within a
8
Obama, “Farewell Address,” in We Are the Change We Seek,
340.
9
Ryan Lizza, “Barack Obama’s Unlikely Political Education: The Agitator,” in Election 2008: A Voter’s
Guide
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 30; Barack himself later responded to his wife’s
comment, “I take that observation as a compliment.”
10
David J. Garrow, Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama
(New York: William Morrow, 2017), 372,
373.
Trunkey 4
wider sociopolitical project, traceable from his early days of grassroots organizing in Chicago,
through his presidency, and into his post-presidency efforts. Based on the rhetorical work he
produced in each of these periods, this project can be understood as Obama communicating and
modeling the possibilities of sociopolitical change. The project frames the progress considered
fundamental to American history as a product of ordinary people’s actions, future change as
predicated on the current generation accepting that same role, and the end goal as the fulfillment
of what the Constitution calls “a more perfect union.” In scholarly publications, formal
11
speeches, and other speaking engagements, Obama capitalized on whatever platform his current
position provided to communicate his message to as wide an audience as possible.
An early instance of this rhetorical approach appears in his critical essay, “Why
Organize? Problems and Promise in the Inner City,” published when Obama was the president
(effectively editor in chief) of the Harvard Law Review. Having just spent three years as the
director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a community organizing non-profit on
the South Side of Chicago, Obama wrote about generating change from personal experience.
12
Obama argues that once formed, a community organization acts as a “vehicle,” and
holds the power to make politicians, agencies, and corporations more responsive to
community needs. Equally important, it enables people to break their crippling isolation
from each other, to reshape their mutual values and expectations and rediscover the
possibilities of acting collaboratively—the prerequisites of any successful self-help
initiative.
13
11
Obama, “A More Perfect Union,” in We Are the Change We Seek,
52.
12
James T. Kloppenberg, Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 25.
13
Obama, “Why Organize? Problems and Promise in the Inner City.”
Trunkey 5
Aside from the underlying perspective operating in this argument, that Americans would be
better off embracing “mutual values,” the critical detail to note here is Obama’s framing of
organizations as “vehicles,” capable of remaking power structures into better servants of the
community. The role Obama identifies for organizations echoes the one he identifies for their
leadership. Articulating that, “a viable organization can only be achieved if a broadly based
indigenous leadership—and not one or two charismatic leaders—can knit together the diverse
interests of their local institutions,” Obama again prioritizes the role of leadership only so far as
it can produce positive outcomes for the public it serves. As James Kloppenberg suggests in his
14
analytical biography, Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition
(2012), “Why Organize?” laid out a model for community organizing as a tool to engender an
engaged citizenry. In Obama’s estimation, engaged citizens give organizations and leadership
15
power, not the reverse.
Consequently, this thesis maps Obama’s framework of citizens as the true possessors of
power in “Why Organize?” onto his presidential speeches. Expanding his platform from a local
audience to a national one, Obama continued to model the importance of civic engagement. As
he says in his Farewell Address, his hope was “Not in [his] ability to bring about change—but in
yours.” In both cases, Obama acknowledges the need for leaders as directional aids, but
16
ultimately locates the ability to enact change with the public. Through his formal speeches,
Obama addressed the nation and delivered countless versions of this argument, united under his
wider project of communicating and modeling change.
14
Ibid.
15
Kloppenberg, Reading Obama
, 137.
16
Obama, “Farewell Address,” in We Are the Change We Seek,
340.
Trunkey 6
Of course, the general conception of the presidency as a model for improving the nation
does not lack historical precedent. The power to persuade—what Theodore Roosevelt (TR)
called the “bully pulpit”—remains one of the most renowned of presidential capacities. TR first
17
uttered the now iconic phrase in 1909 during a gathering of the press in the Oval Office, as
reported by the journalist and Congregationalist theologian Lyman Abbott. In his article for
Outlook
Magazine
, Abbott described TR sitting at his desk, working on an upcoming speech,
only to whip around and exclaim, “I suppose my critics will call that preaching, but I have got
such a bully pulpit!” (At the time, “bully” would have had a positive connotation, along the lines
of “excellent.”) Abbott reflected in the same piece that TR had “inspired in his countrymen a
fervor of patriotism, and wisely directed it in practical channels to the public service.” Having
18
emerged at this time, the term would only grow in significance.
TR’s service-oriented model of the “bully pulpit” can be understood through his
Progressive politics. At the turn of the century, he fronted the Progressive Movement’s effort to
address the many sociopolitical problems that had arisen from the rapid industrialization of
previous decades. He believed that the government should “serve as an agent of reform for the
people,” and that the president should use his unique relationship with the public “to challenge
prevailing notions of limited government and individualism.” TR viewed the presidency as an
19
instrument for communicating with and advocating on behalf of the people, but also for initiating
a paradigm shift in the political consciousnesses of an American public in need of his guidance.
17
From Lyman Abbott, “A Review of President Roosevelt’s Administration,” Outlook
, 91 (February 27,
1909), http://college.cengage.com/history/ayers_primary_sources/abbott_president_roosevelt_1909.htm.
18
Ibid.
19
Sidney Milkis, “Theodore Roosevelt: Impact and Legacy,” Miller Center
, accessed February 20, 2018,
https://millercenter.org/president/roosevelt/impact-and-legacy.
Trunkey 7
Later 20th century presidents adopted similar attitudes toward the “bully pulpit” in order
to galvanize public support for their policy agendas. Through speeches and broadcasts over
increasingly prolific mediums (radio, television, and now the internet), the “bully pulpit” has
remained a favored tool of presidents, highlighting the significance of the relationship between
the executive and the public. For example, although TR coined the term “bully pulpit,” it would
be his distant cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), who implemented what would become its
most commonly cited use. Broadcast throughout his presidency, dealing with most major policy
issues, and communicated directly to a national audience, FDR’s Fireside Chats embodied the
full persuasive potential of the “bully pulpit.” Empowered by the advent of the radio, FDR used
20
the broadcasts to speak conversationally with the American public and engage them in an
ongoing, nationwide discussion. FDR’s radio speeches “helped make participants—even
activists—out of his audience,” according to Roosevelt biographers Lawrence and Cornelia
Levine. Far from projecting empty rhetoric, FDR’s use of the “bully pulpit” allowed him to
21
successfully engage with the nation at large.
The phenomenon of Fireside Chats created a precedent of increased personalization in
Americans’ relationship with the presidency. While TR used the “bully pulpit” as an instrument
to guide the public from above, FDR conceptualized the “bully pulpit” as a means of fostering
sociopolitical results through a more horizontal relationship. His mode of communication relied
on the expectation of an actively listening, participatory audience, as the Levines suggest above.
A number of scholars have consequently referred to FDR’s as the “rhetorical presidency,”
20
Lawrence W. Levine and Cornelia R. Levine, The People and the President: America’s Conversation
with FDR,
(Boston: Beacon Press, 2002), xi.
21
Levine, The People and the President,
4, 5.
Trunkey 8
because he treated speeches as “events” wherein he could communicate directly with the public,
“over the heads of the legislature and the newspapers.” As what presidential scholar Jon Roper
22
called the “architect” of the “modern presidency,” FDR altered the dynamic between the
Commander in Chief and the public in ways that that have fundamentally shaped the
transformative capacities of his successors. Modern presidential power, particularly in terms of
23
the president’s relationship to national institutions and the American public, can be traced back
to FDR’s subversive use of the “bully pulpit.” His Fireside Chats became a space for
implementing that newfound relationship.
Through their invocations of the “bully pulpit,” each president since FDR has had to
renegotiate his particular relationship with the public, including Obama. As the first president to
be wholly immersed in the so-called “Internet Age,” Obama had the choice to utilize social
media as a powerful new communications device in the same way that FDR utilized the radio.
Scholars have indeed situated Obama as a philosophical descendent of both Roosevelts,
particularly FDR, intent on influencing the direction of public debate through argumentative
communications strategies. But while Obama did dabble in his era’s emergent communications
24
medium, for example devising his Facebook page as “a place for conversations with the
American people about the most important issues facing our country,” as president he relied
more on traditional mediums like the formal speech. We can look to his loyalty to the
25
22
Levine, The People and the President,
4.
23
Jon Roper, “Chapter 7: The Presidency,” in Developments in American Politics,
ed. Gillian Peel,
Christopher J. Bailey, Bruce Cain and B. Guy Peters (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 104.
24
William E. Leuchtenburg, “Franklin Delano Obama,” in In the Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to
Barack Obama
(Ithaca: Cornell University PRess, 2009),
229-312.
25
Kori Schulman, “President Obama: ‘Hello, Facebook!’” White House,
November 9, 2015,
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/11/09/president-obama-hello-facebook.
Trunkey 9
Roosevelts’ use of the “bully pulpit” as a likely context and rationale for this approach, as
Obama’s speeches exemplify several of their core characteristics.
From TR, Obama adopted his Progressive view of the government as “an agent of reform
for the people,” recalling his service-oriented view of the presidency. A specific instance of
26
Obama’s invocation of TR is discussed in detail in the following analysis of his “Remarks on the
Economy.” However, differences arise in TR’s view of the “bully pulpit” as reflective of a
traditional hierarchical attitude, which clashes with Obama’s ethos of awakening ordinary
Americans to their own power. To understand this disconnect, another source should be
acknowledged here, this time from Obama’s experience with the DCP. In Chicago, he studied
the techniques of “agitation,” taken from the radical South Side social scientist Saul Alinsky. In
Alinsky’s words, “agitation” seeks “to rub raw the sores of discontent.” When asked, Obama
27
readily acknowledges the influence of the Alinsky method, which he defines as “challenging
people to scrape away habit.” Numerous presidential speeches find Obama “agitating” in this
28
way, challenging the nation to rediscover what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our
nature.” Thus understanding the concept of “agitation” helps reconcile the apparent paradox of
29
Obama’s leadership style—akin to TR’s theory of the president as the “agent” of change—and
his ethos—which allocates power to the people.
Meanwhile, Obama’s use of the “bully pulpit” also has strong connections to FDR, both
in terms of their shared economic motivations and rhetorical responses. Both men inherited the
26
Milkis, “Theodore Roosevelt: Impact and Legacy.”
27
Lizza, “Barack Obama’s Unlikely Political Education: The Agitator,” in Election 2008,
28.
28
Ibid.; Obama’s fellow DCP organizer, Mike Kruglik, describes Obama as “a natural, the undisputed
master of agitation, who could engage a room full of recruiting targets in a rapid-fire Socratic dialogue,
nudging them to admit that they were not living up to their own standards.”
29
See: “Remarks on Trayvon Martin,” and “Introduction,” in We Are the Change We Seek
, 241, xii.
Trunkey 10
country in the midst of devastating economic crises. Political scientist Gillian Peele argues that,
“So severe were the problems faced by Obama in 2009 that many commentators drew parallels
with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s advent to power in the aftermath of the Great Depression.”
30
Indeed, Washington Post
business and economics writer Steven Pearlstein commented that, “Not
since Franklin Roosevelt delivered his first fireside chat, eight days into his presidency, have
Americans been more hungry—and more desperate—for economic leadership.” Others
31
observed a not-so-subtle link to Roosevelt’s “bold” New Deal interventions in Obama’s promise
to “assert regulatory control over an anarchic marketplace,” and found that “echoes” of FDR’s
handling of the economic crisis “resound[ed] everywhere” in Obama’s actions. FDR became an
32
inevitable and profitable model from which Obama could find policy inspiration, and from
whom commentators could draw speculation.
But Obama’s rhetorical strategies, particularly his take on the “bully pulpit” as a mode of
direct communication with the American people, even more powerfully invoke FDR’s legacy as
the “rhetorical presidency.” In the lead-up to his inauguration, one of Obama’s staffers revealed
33
to the New York Times
that Obama had studied FDR’s first 100 days extensively, “and in
particular had seized on the notion of Roosevelt having a ‘conversation with the American
public.’” Obama’s attitude toward this idea can be found in The Audacity of Hope
(2006).
He
34
explains his belief that,
“if I could reach those voters directly, frame the issues as I felt them,
explain the choices in as truthful a fashion as I knew how, then the people’s instincts for fair play
30
Gillian Peele, “Chapter 2: A New Political Agenda?” in Developments in American Politics,
ed. Gillian
Peel, Christopher J. Bailey, Bruce Cain and B. Guy Peters (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 32.
31
Leuchtenburg, “Franklin Delano Obama,” in In the Shadow of FDR,
307.
32
Ibid.,
307.
33
Levine, The People and the President,
4
34
Leuchtenburg, “Franklin Delano Obama,” in In the Shadow of FDR,
302.
Trunkey 11
and common sense would bring them around.” These words reveal a yearning for the kind of
35
responsiveness that FDR experienced from those who listened to his Fireside Chats. When he
36
became president, Obama had the platform he needed to enact those conversations. Moments
where he speaks directly to the American people mid-speech find him following in FDR’s
footsteps. It is largely through the model of FDR’s Fireside Chats that we can thus understand
Obama’s formal speeches as rhetorical, didactic tools to accomplish his larger sociopolitical
project.
In sum, this thesis addresses the consistent argument Obama made as president, traceable
as a connective thread throughout his personal history, but also in part to his presidential and
ideological forebears (and as the conclusion will address, extending into his post-presidency). I
consider Obama’s presidential speeches as part of his project of communicating and modeling
the possibilities of sociopolitical change. One site where this occurs would naturally be in
legislation, but I am more interested in the ways in which Obama sought to communicate these
ideas directly with the American people. Therefore what this thesis addresses are the expressions
of Obama’s ethos not in legislation, but in rhetoric.
37
I analyze three speeches for their particular expressions of Obama’s ethos, arguing that
Obama utilized the speech as a tool to disseminate and instill his beliefs about active citizenship
on a national scale. His speech on race in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (March 2008), his remarks
on the economy in Osawatomie, Kansas (December 2011), and his address commemorating the
35
Obama, The Audacity of Hope
, 18.
36
Levine, The People and the President,
6.
37
Though much could be said of Obama’s effects on the United States’ international standing, this thesis
only attempts to reconcile the way Obama used speeches in domestic conversations. It should be noted
that I approach the three speeches with the belief that they did, in fact, effect change. There are certainly
speeches for which that assumption would not be true.
Trunkey 12
fiftieth anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Alabama (March 2015) each respond to a
national controversy, crisis, or event, ostensibly charging them with above-average importance
for Americans across the country. They also each contain blatant examples of Obama
38
articulating his ethos, but through different lenses of race, the economy, and history. This
rhetorical move links inextricably to Obama’s wider project of modeling change for everyday
Americans’ adaptation as it suggests the multitude of ways in which Americans are connected to
one another. Finally, each speech profoundly invokes its setting, reflecting Obama’s desire to
ground his somewhat abstract arguments of citizenship not just in people, but also in place. After
analyzing each speech, I offer an example of how each has been implemented or enacted in some
way. Ultimately, given their overlapping thematics, I argue that each speech was designed to
model specific, identifiable changes to the American conception of civic life.
“A More Perfect Union”: Speech at the National Constitution Center
Philadelphia, PA, March 18, 2008
In the latter months of Obama’s first campaign for the presidency, a media firestorm
erupted and became the Jeremiah Wright controversy. In March of 2008, recordings of Reverend
Wright went viral, capturing Obama’s pastor of twenty years using language that mainstream
American media considered racially inflammatory. Video recordings published by NBC find the
Reverend saying, for example:
38
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, “How Well Has President Barack Obama Chosen from the Available Means of
Persuasion?” Polity
45, no. 1 (2013); However well composed they are, or well-intentioned, most
presidential speeches are not well remembered by everyday Americans. As Professor of Communications
Kathleen Hall Jamieson remarks, “Most presidential rhetoric lives on not in memory but only on the
C-SPAN website, on the White House web page, or in the University of California, Santa Barbara’s
internet archives” (154). Similarly to Jamieson, the three speeches I chose rose to an above-average
degree of public notoriety, due to their topics, particularly “A More Perfect Union” and his remarks at
Selma.
Trunkey 13
"[The U.S.] is a country and a culture that is controlled by and run by rich white people."
"You [black men] are primary targets in an oppressive society…”
"Not God bless America, God damn America for killing innocent people!”
39
The Reverend’s sharp rebukes appeared in stark contrast to the meditative (and as many
outrightly suggested, “postracial” ) tones Americans had grown accustomed to associating with
40
the young Senator. Reverend Wright’s comments proved problematic for Obama because they
invited a sudden public conversation about polarizing racial issues. The mainstream press took
41
the Reverend’s comments as racially divisive, unpatriotic, and in terms of Obama’s relationship
to him, potentially damning. Meanwhile, public opinions were divided along racial lines. While
42
black Americans polled during the controversy were unsurprised by Wright’s comments, white
Americans expressed newfound uncertainty about Obama’s ability to lead a country with such
poignant and unresolved racial issues.
43
When the story broke, Obama quickly released statements condemning Wright’s words.
But with no end to the controversy in sight and mere weeks left to secure the Democratic
nomination, Obama had to act. He took the stage at the National Constitution Center in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to deliver a historic speech that redirected the conversation about
39
Brian D. McKenzie, “Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, and Public Opinion in the 2008 Presidential
Primaries,” Political Psychology
32, no. 6 (2011), 946.
40
Martell Teasley and David Ikard, “Barack Obama and the Politics of Race: The Myth of Postracism in
America,” Journal of Black Studies
40, no. 3 (2010).
41
McKenzie, “Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, and Public Opinion in the 2008 Presidential Primaries,”
944; Note: This speech operates largely through the black-white binary in the United States, though
Obama does mention other ethnic-minority groups as part of his overarching argument about the realities
of racialization in the United States.
42
Table 2, referenced in McKenzie, 954.
43
McKenzie, “Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, and Public Opinion in the 2008 Presidential Primaries,”
945.
Trunkey 14
race in the campaign and halted attacks against his association with Reverend Wright. His
44
37-minute address, presented as a historical narrative of racial injustice and inequality in the
United States from the time of its foundation, posited that rage like Reverend Wright’s illustrated
the consequences of the “unfinished” project of American democracy. While he again
45
condemned Reverend Wright’s words, he contextualized them to explain why he found it
impossible to simply “disown” his old pastor. Obama offered an alternative: rather than deny
46
them, the country needed to confront the issues the controversy had stirred up if its citizens had
any hope of achieving “A More Perfect Union.”
Even on a structural level, the speech embodies Obama’s ethos of modeling change. As is
typical of his addresses, “A More Perfect Union” takes narrative form, relying largely on
histories and anecdotes, powerfully enacting his belief in everyday citizens. Organizationally, the
speech contains roughly four movements: an opening discussion of race in American history, his
campaign, and his relationship with Reverend Wright; an examination of how the legacy of
racial violence and inequity has found a “voice” today in people of all races; an exploration of
the choice Americans have in response to the unresolved racial crisis; and finally, an extended
advocacy for seeking a “more perfect union” through finding common cause with one another.
47
In the simplest of terms, the sections can be summarized as contemplations of the past, the
present, the choices available in the present, and the possibilities contained in the future.
44
Jay Newton-Small, “How Obama Writes Speeches,” TIME
, August 28, 2008,
http://content.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837368,00.html.
45
Obama, “A More Perfect Union,” in We Are the Change We Seek,
52.
46
Ibid,
58.
47
Obama, “A More Perfect Union,” in We Are the Change We Seek,
51-69.
Trunkey 15
This semi-linear organization mirrors the assertion at the heart of the speech that,
however divisive and consuming the present appears, the history of progress in this country is
long and ongoing. Remembering Obama’s frequent references to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s idea
of the “arc of the moral universe” helps explain the perspective that drives this chronological
structure. Because the arc “bends toward justice” through the tireless exertions of “ordinary
48
Americans with extraordinary courage,” Obama suggests that the past gives us hope for the
future. Therefore in this speech, he positions the past as fodder for the present and future:
49
quoting William Faulkner’s language that, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even
past,” he foregrounds the idea explicitly. Meanwhile, the present contains a pivotal moment of
50
change: “For we have a choice in this country,” he says before defining that choice in terms of
the election. Finally, he frames the future as the place “where the perfection begins” by
51
declaring, “what gives me the most hope is the next generation.” By this model, the work we do
52
now should always be to the benefit of the future. For Obama, no part of human history
happened without cause. And thus, just as he describes history bleeding perceptibly into the
present—and onward—Obama’s loosely demarcated structural elements blend into one another.
Together, the form and content of his speech emphasize that we must understand the past,
present, and future as deeply interrelated.
This quality of past, present, and future’s interrelated relationship infuses the speech.
Both through reference to the setting at the National Constitution Center and through an
48
See: “Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention,” in We Are the Change We Seek,
20.
49
Ibid., 20.
50
Obama, “A More Perfect Union,” in We Are the Change We Seek
, 59.
51
Ibid., 65.
52
Ibid,
67, 69.
Trunkey 16
examination of his own experience in comparison to Reverend Wright’s, Obama offers several
concrete examples of how past racial inequality manifests in the present. In regard to setting, the
choice to deliver a speech on race while standing in the National Constitution Center grounds
Obama’s argument that the American experiment, from its first moments, has been
“unfinished”—just as the Constitution has required work over time, so has the nation. Obama
53
defines that work as efforts of successive generations, “through protests and struggle, on the
streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk—to
narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals,” as defined by the Constitution, “and the
reality of their time.” In confronting the Wright Controversy, this speech participates in that
54
multi-generational struggle by modeling productive dialogues about race.
By extension, invoking the setting also recalls Obama’s wider project of investing
Americans in civic life. The National Constitution Center was home to the original example of
American civic engagement, and so embodies the spirit of action that Obama hopes to impart to
the nation. As he concludes in the speech, “this is where we start,” and furthermore, “as so many
generations have come to realize over the course of the 221 years since a band of patriots signed
that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.” National, wholesale
55
progress may seem a daunting task when viewed from our current vantage point on history, but
Obama’s use of the setting serves as a reminder that all change must begin somewhere, initiated
by someone.
53
Ibid., 52.
54
Ibid.,
54.
55
Ibid.,
69.
Trunkey 17
Similarly, in his own story and Reverend Wright’s, Obama offers two contemporary
examples of the United States’ relationship with race. His own story as a biracial man running
for national office reflects significant progress, but also the work still left to overcome racial
barriers. While celebrating the fact that his story “has seared into my genetic makeup the idea
that this nation is more than the sum of its parts—that out of many, we are truly one,” Obama
reminds his audience that “some commentators have deemed me either ‘too black’ or ‘not black
enough.’” While he personifies the “sum” of American anti-racist efforts, his candidacy also
56
illuminates the nation’s continuing discomfort with racial identity.
Meanwhile, Obama positions Reverend Wright as a different embodiment of the past’s
effects. He says that the Reverend’s comments gave “voice” to a “powerful” anger not typically
heard by the white mainstream, and cautions that, “to simply wish it away, to condemn it without
understanding its roots only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between
the races.” He identifies those “roots” as the history of racial inequality between black and
57
white Americans, which has never been satisfactorily addressed. His wider admonition is that
58
the Reverend’s personal experience proves that ignoring the past perpetuates it—his rebuke
applies equally to the white audience who rejected Reverend Wright’s criticisms and to the
Reverend himself for being closed-minded. Of the Reverend himself, Obama critiques the
suggestion that our society is “static,”
as if no progress had been made
; as if this country—a country that has made it possible
for one of his own members
to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition
56
Ibid.,
54.
57
Ibid., 61.
58
Ibid., 60.
Trunkey 18
of white and black, Latino, Asian, rich, poor, young and old—is still irrevocably bound to
a tragic past [emphasis added].
59
In this way, Obama positions their two models in opposition. His entire enterprise is to
demonstrate the viability of change—he considers Reverend Wright’s enterprise to be stasis, and
complacency with the past. Having mapped national change onto himself, he uses the Reverend
to illustrate why national conversations about race are not well served by antagonistic
perspectives. He regards Reverend Wright’s ideas to be “a profoundly distorted view of this
country,” and “not only wrong, but divisive...at a time when we need unity.” Instead, he
60
advocates building coalitions and embracing the progressive racial attitudes his own story
demonstrates are possible. The past manifests in both men’s experiences, but Obama views the
model proposed by Reverend Wright as unproductive.
But lest listeners think that Obama is proposing himself as a universal model to remedy
the country’s “racial stalemate,” he later clarifies, “I have never been so naive as to believe that
we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle or with a single candidate,
particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.” Rather, he offers the anecdote of Ashley
61
Baia, a white campaign organizer in South Carolina. Ashley’s example takes up almost four
minutes of the speech, or roughly ten percent of his total speaking time, giving her story a
significant focus enhanced by its placement as the conclusion. Her story, as Obama tells it, goes
as follows. One day, Ashley participated in a roundtable discussion about why everyone present
had volunteered for the campaign. She shared the story of how her mother had been diagnosed
59
Ibid., 64.
60
Ibid., 55; A different analysis might examine the efficacy and morality of Obama’s race-neutral,
colorblind rhetoric. I discuss the idea briefly in the conclusion to this thesis.
61
Ibid.,
63.
Trunkey 19
with cancer when Ashley was a child, and soon found herself in crippling economic straits. To
help her family save money, Ashley convinced her mother that she only wanted to eat mustard
and relish sandwiches. She joined the campaign to help other children who wanted to help their
parents, too. The last person at the table to share a story was an elderly black man who, when
asked why he was there, responded simply, “I’m here because of Ashley.”
62
Drawing the speech to a close, Obama repeats that sentence twice, lingering on it. He
signifies the interaction as an example of how upcoming generations’ openness to change has
“already made history.” He says with equal simplicity that,
63
by itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old
black man is not enough… But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger.
And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the 221 years since a
band of patriots signed that document here in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection
begins.
64
Obama imbues small moments of mutual respect and understanding with enormous importance.
Ashley’s connection with the elderly black man epitomizes the change Obama hopes to model to
the wider nation, wherein ordinary Americans feel personally invested in one another, regardless
of racial difference. This model does not disregard the historically charged realities of race
relations, but asks that Americans look for those shared values that transcend them. While here
the specific context remains that of race relations, the moment exemplifies his larger project as
president of elevating the role of citizen. This move is particularly effective because it brings the
62
Ibid., 67-69.
63
Ibid., 67.
64
Ibid.,
69.
Trunkey 20
weighty concepts of race and future-shaping decisions to a personal level; Ashley’s story could
be any of our stories. Obama’s message becomes about taking accountability for each of our
65
own actions. In doing so, he posits, individuals contribute to the broader project of American
renewal.
66
The effects of “A More Perfect Union” were profound. As a precedent, Dionne and Joy
argue, this speech “was the first instance of what became an Obama habit: using a lengthy,
detailed address to solve a political problem and quell a crisis.” Obama would return to this
67
model of the speech as argumentative explication countless times during his presidency, as the
speeches examined here exemplify. But even more particularly, like FDR’s Fireside Chats, “A
More Perfect Union” functioned as an “event” in and of itself. The speech not only responded to
the controversy, but also redirected the conversation about race and his candidacy in the short
term, and provided Obama with a venue wherein he could assert his ongoing syncretic
perspective on the state of the union, with race relations as a critical indicator. In other words, the
speech went further than simply answering to the media frenzy. It asked and answered new
questions, drawing powerfully on Obama’s beliefs about citizen engagement and the
perfectibility of the union.
Whether he succeeded in transmitting his depth of feeling to the wider nation is virtually
impossible to know. However, “A More Perfect Union” does offer some evidence of public
internalization and implementation as a pedagogical tool for generating new conversations about
65
By not giving the “elderly black man” a name, Obama frames the story about Ashley, and relates the
moment mostly for a white audience—presumably as a way to placate the polling data that indicated
white Americans were uneasy with his candidacy, following the Wright controversy. In saying Ashley's
story could be any of our stories, I mean only that Obama’s use of her story is meant to model the
presumably universalizing message of his speech of overcoming racial wrongs.
66
Obama, “
Keynote Address at the Call to Renewal Conference,” in We Are the Change We Seek
, 31.
67
Obama, introduction to “A More Perfect Union,” in We Are the Change We Seek
, 51.
Trunkey 21
race. Author and Professor of Literacy Denise Davila offers us one example of the speech in use,
signaling that for at least one demographic—educators—Obama had succeeded in making his
arguments about race salient and enactable for his listening audience. In her article, “‘White
People Don’t Work at McDonald’s’ and Other Shadow Stories from the Field: Analyzing
Preservice Teachers’ Use of Obama’s Race Speech to Teach for Social Justice,” Davila analyzes
the outcomes of two preservice teachers’ (PSTs’) attempts to engage high school seniors in a
discussion of race and racism using “A More Perfect Union” as their core text.
68
Fulfilling the speech’s proposition that more Americans need to engage in activities in
order to overcome racial divisiveness, the PSTs’ initial use of the speech and Davila’s later
strategic analysis suggest that both sets of educators considered the speech to be a workable
teaching device for exactly that purpose. Though Davila’s core purpose is to reflect on the
efficacy of the PSTs’ teaching strategies in educating students about social justice, her study also
allows us to consider the particular ways in which the participants utilized “A More Perfect
Union” as a model. The PSTs Allen and Bernardo (pseudonyms), students, and Davila herself all
respond to the speech in different ways. For the PSTs, “A More Perfect Union” represents an
example of a text that facilitates social justice education, which they hoped would allow them to
“make space” for students to talk. For students, the speech becomes a sounding board for their
69
developing ideologies. For Davila, the speech offers an analytical framework for future social
justice education—of the three parties, her analysis offers the most compelling application and
exploration of the speech.
68
Denise Davila, “‘White People Don’t Work at McDonald’s’ and Other Shadow Stories from the Field:
Analyzing Preservice Teachers’ Use of Obama’s Race Speech to Teach for Social Justice,” English
Education
44, no. 1 (2011), 15.
69
Davila, “‘White People Don’t Work at McDonald’s,’” 44.
Trunkey 22
Responding to how the classroom discussions unfolded, Davila’s use of “A More Perfect
Union” is to suggest a more productive means of guiding such discussions in the future.
Acknowledging the “uncomfortable, multidimensional space” mediating contrasting student
positions created for the PSTs, Davila ultimately critiques their particular implementation of the
lesson plan. However, as a future framework, she posits that a teacher better familiarized with
70
the speech and comfortable fulfilling various instructional roles, especially one she terms a
“Contextual Mediator,” “could reference Obama’s review of contemporary institutionalized
racism” to provide context and help move the students to an understanding of antiracist
counternarratives. She cautions that “without adequate pedagogical, procedural, or contextual
71
knowledge and experience, even the most well-intentioned teachers could unintentionally
reinforce the kind of hegemonic shadow stories and tropes that they hope to interrogate.”
72
Recognizing the trouble the PSTs encountered in addressing students’ racial biases speaks to the
wider challenges of facilitating racial dialogues without accounting for the “chasm of
misunderstanding that exists between the races” that Obama references in “A More Perfect
Union.” Davila’s final takeaway emphasizes how ahistorical, uncontextualized discussions
73
merely reify pre-existing biases.
Davila’s use of “A More Perfect Union” is therefore as a model for demonstrating the
importance of education in disrupting prevalent stereotypes and essentializing depictions. Her
framework for future implementations of the speech as a classroom teaching device resonates
with Obama’s arguments for a more inclusive, historically conscious treatment of race.
70
Ibid., 28.
71
Ibid., 29, 23.
72
Ibid., 46.
73
Obama, “A More Perfect Union,” in We Are the Change We Seek
, 61.
Trunkey 23
Consequently, Davila’s use of “A More Perfect Union” comes full circle, from analyzing the
speech’s implementation to arguing implicitly for its merits. She utilizes the speech as a
pedagogical tool for future teaching strategies. In doing so, consciously or not, she aligns her
critiques of American teaching habits with the model for “a more perfect union” that Obama
provided.
“I Am Here to Say They Are Wrong”: Remarks on the Economy
Osawatomie, Kansas, December 6, 2011
Largely due to the stalled economy, late 2011 was a grim time for the Obama
administration. Though the “nadir” of the Great Recession had passed more than a year before,
for many Americans, the effects were ongoing. The public made its anxiety known by giving
74
the Obama administration some of the lowest ratings of his presidency. Gallup poll data for first
week of December found that when asked, “Do you approve of the way Barack Obama is
handling his job as president?” only 43% responded approvingly, while 50% disapproved.
75
Despite two massive bailout packages, the state of the economy meant that many Americans
were still struggling.
The events of the summer—the disastrous debt ceiling crisis—unfolded as a result of the
bitter power struggle between Congressional Democrats and Republicans. Midterm elections in
2010 had ceded Democratic control of the House to Republicans and vastly reduced the
74
Floyd Norris, “Crisis Is Over, but Where’s the Fix?” New York Times
,
March 10, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/business/economy/11norris.html?.
75
“Presidential Approval Ratings—Barack Obama,” Gallup
, last accessed March 17, 2018,
http://news.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx; His approval ratings
from the same week of December 5-11, 2011 can be broken down to 10% approval among Republicans,
38% among Independents, and 82% among Democrats, demonstrating a typical example of the radical
ideological differences in attitude toward the administration associated with party affiliation.
Trunkey 24
Democratic majority in the Senate. Of particular concern for the Obama administration was the
fact that many newly elected Republicans identified with the emergent Tea Party Movement,
which opposed high taxation and government intervention in the private sector—two principles
that clashed with Obama’s interventionist economic recovery plans. The divided government
76
proved unable to pass compromise legislation, including a bill to reauthorize the traditionally
routine increase to the Treasury’s debt ceiling. Congressional Republicans had vowed not to vote
for reauthorization unless Democrats agreed to accept significant spending cuts. Hoping to
forestall a default, Obama attempted to “circumvent” his party to make a deal with Republican
House Speaker John Boehner. He did not succeed. Abroad, the crisis elicited a deluge of
77
disbelieving headlines from international news outlets. At home in Washington, the process
78
produced a confusion of failed compromises and tense negotiations, even after a new budget was
eventually passed in August. As the year drew to a close, this tense climate persisted.
79
Accordingly conscious of both the economic straits affecting the nation and the battle
over reelection soon to come, Obama’s advisors proposed a strategic recasting of the president as
the progressive champion he had promised to be in 2008. He desperately needed to provide a
80
compelling economic narrative for the country—Obama would later recognize his failure to do
76
Michael Ray, “Tea Party Movement,” Encyclopedia Britannica,
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tea-Party-movement.
77
Introduction to “Remarks on the Economy,” in We Are the Change We Seek,
172.
78
See: Ujala Sehgal, “World Tells Us What It Really Thinks About Our ‘Absurd’ Debt Crisis,” Atlantic
,
July 30, 2011,
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/07/world-tells-us-what-it-really-thinks-about-our-
absurd-debt-crisis/353486/.
79
“Debt Ceiling: Timeline of Deal’s Development,” CNN
, August 2, 2011,
http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/07/25/debt.talks.timeline/index.html.
80
Introduction to “Remarks on the Economy,” in We Are the Change We Seek,
172.
Trunkey 25
so earlier as the “biggest mistake” of his first term. Though policy matters, “the nature of this
81
office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose
and optimism, especially during tough times,” he conceded in a July 2012 interview with CBS
News. Thus, to reclaim his image, the weary president embraced the illustrious memory of his
82
presidential forefather by traveling to the small town of Osawatomie, Kansas.
Over a century earlier, the original Progressive champion, TR, had delivered his pivotal
“New Nationalism” speech in Osawatomie. “New Nationalism” reflected the Progressive
philosophy of government intervention to promote the public good, or as TR said, “the executive
power as the steward of the public welfare.” Roosevelt used his “New Nationalism” speech to
83
propose greater government regulation of corporations, and moreover as a call to action against
economic injustice. TR’s criticism was rooted in concern for the country, which had just
experienced several decades of rapid industrialization, leading to the “Gilded Age” of industrial
tycoons that TR sought to regulate. Obama’s decision to address the economy in Osawatomie
drew powerfully on TR’s previous appearance in the town.
Bolstered by the historic setting, Obama’s 50-minute address is characterized by a
somewhat belligerent tone, contrasted with a reliance on his hopeful ethos of citizen. As was true
of “A More Perfect Union,” this speech relies on a loose structure of roughly four movements.
First, Obama grounds the immediate occasion of his speech by referencing the “Great
81
Alice O’Connor, “Narrator-in-Chief: Presidents and the Politics of Economic Crisis from FDR to
Obama,” in Recapturing the Oval Office: New Historical Approaches to the American Presidency
(Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2015), 54.
82
Ibid., 54.
83
Megan Slack, “From the Archives: President Teddy Roosevelt's New Nationalism Speech,” White
House
, December 6, 2011,
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/12/06/archives-president-teddy-roosevelts-new-national
ism-speech.
Trunkey 26
Recession,” the unfinished economic recovery, and articulating his thesis (“my deep conviction”)
for how to move forward. Next, he offers two historical contexts for his speech: TR’s “New
84
Nationalism” and the conservative line of opposition to progressive reforms. He then defines the
choice he sees the country poised to make, between the conservative theory of economics and his
ideas about how to pursue an economy “built to last.” Finally, he builds to another description
85
of the current moment, including a description of his proposed steps and the Congressional
Republican refusals to enforce them.
Though the first movement stands as the shortest and most topical, it leads fluidly into
Obama’s following section of contextualization. Here he adds greater personal input and
emphasizes the historical dimensions that have produced the contemporary moment. As he does
in “A More Perfect Union,” Obama moves from the historical precedent to the contemporary
choice facing Americans, making the third movement by far his most ideologically driven. The
last and longest movement brings Obama’s argument back to everyday Americans’ lived
experiences, where he suggests that rebuilding the economy will require everyone from bankers
and CEOs to teachers and parents to “take some responsibility.” This section includes his most
86
biting criticisms of his adversaries in Congress, recalling that part of the occasion of this speech
is the growth of Tea Party isolationism. Holistically, this speech offers a value-driven argument
for rebuilding the economy, particularly the middle class, by also rebuilding trust in government,
the future, and each other. In addition to a searing criticism of Conservative economic attitudes,
Obama argues that the economic choices we make today are moreover choices about the
84
Obama, “Remarks on the Economy,” in We Are the Change We Seek,
176.
85
Ibid., 183.
86
Ibid., 190.
Trunkey 27
“nation’s welfare” and therefore need to be acknowledged as defending the most fundamental of
“American values.” In this way, Obama positions his reform proposals as de-politicized while
87
simultaneously delivering a deeply partisan criticism. Ultimately, he forces listeners to see the
crisis not simply as financial, but moral, in keeping with his long-term ambition to reshape
national conversations.
While this is undoubtedly still a speech about the economy, it is significant that Obama
chose to make it as much about the values of democracy and fairness as about finance. With the
devastating consequences of the economic collapse as the backdrop to his speech, Obama asserts
that any philosophy that ignores collective needs is “wrong.” He continues,
88
I’m here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we’re greater together than we are
on our own. I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when
everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules. These aren’t
Democratic values or Republican values. These aren’t 1 percent values or 99 percent
values. They’re American values. And we have to reclaim them.
89
Obama’s statement of purpose offers us a distillation of his personal ethos. He utilizes it here and
throughout the speech to establish a directive for how he believes Americans should “reclaim”
our fundamental values. In the context of this speech, that directive is to reduce economic
inequality. Obama posits that to do so, Americans need to embrace an economic strategy that is
both “truer to our history” and embraces “today’s innovation economy.” He clarifies, “If we
90
want a strong middle class, then our tax code must reflect our values. We have to make choices.”
87
Ibid., 186, 176.
88
Ibid., 176.
89
Ibid., 176.
90
Ibid., 182, 183.
Trunkey 28
Obama sustains this kind of simple, direct connection between economic viability and values
91
throughout the speech.
This value-based relationship allows him to make the same topical pivot present in “A
More Perfect Union,” when he redefines race relations as the speech’s takeaway, rather than the
Wright controversy. Instead of merely addressing the economic crisis in financial terms, Obama
frames it as a moral choice. In “A More Perfect Union,” Obama had also asserted his “firm
conviction” that, “working together, we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds and
that, in fact, we have no choice...if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.” In
92
Osawatomie, this time with a broadly moral lens instead of a specifically racial one, we see
Obama navigating an equally national crisis by examining the past and asserting that, once again,
to rectify the situation requires working together to defend fundamentally American values.
Predominantly discussing values is not to say that Obama ignores the pressing financial
details that compelled this speech. For example, he says, “Look at the statistics,” and references
average incomes of the top one percent of American earners over the past decade. But the
93
numbers represent evidence, not his core deliverable. True to form, Obama chose to weave a
historical narrative reliant on beliefs about American values, longterm national welfare, and what
is morally right and wrong, rather than one about hard numerical evidence. Stating that, “This
94
kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise that’s at the very heart of America: that this is a
place where you can make it if you try,” Obama frames economic inequality as clashing with the
91
Ibid., 185.
92
Obama, “A More Perfect Union,” in We Are the Change We Seek,
63.
93
Obama, “Remarks on the Economy,” in We Are the Change We Seek
, 180.
94
Ibid., 175, 176, 181, 186.
Trunkey 29
moral image of a fair America. Obama challenges listeners to see the contradiction made
95
visible by the economic crisis and act on it.
The contexts Obama chooses to reference also help to broaden the topic from economic
to moral by positioning the moment on a continuum of American history. By invoking TR’s
speech on “New Nationalism” through setting, thematics, and direct rearticulations of his
political objectives, Obama legitimizes his own contemporary assertions about how to best
respond to the current economic situation. The setting in Osawatomie establishes a baseline
association with TR’s authoritative presence, but even more pointedly, Obama’s references to
TR ensure that his historical echoes will not be forgotten. Obama cites TR at the beginning and
end of his speech, bookending his contemporary economic arguments as he did with
Constitutional references during his Philadelphia address on race. Framing his ideas this way
historicizes and imbues them with patriotic candor, folding them into the speech’s wider interest
in advocating a return to communal values. And as his wider use of the speech suggests, this
address exemplifies how Obama has aligned himself ideologically with TR and his concept of
the “bully pulpit.”
Obama first quotes TR’s “New Nationalism” statement that “Our country means nothing
unless it means the triumph of a real democracy… of an economic system under which each man
shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him.” Democracy depends
96
on the accountability of market systems to the public they ostensibly serve; an ill-functioning
economy undercuts democracy by exacerbating an unequal distribution of wealth. Obama draws
both hope and contemporary criticism from the overlap in the two historical moments’
95
Ibid., 181.
96
Ibid., 177.
Trunkey 30
democratic failures. Hope, because despite pressure to do otherwise, TR successfully
implemented systems that continue to benefit the country. Today, Obama reminds listeners, “we
are a richer nation and a stronger democracy because of what he fought for in his last campaign:
an eight-hour work day and a minimum wage for women—insurance for the unemployed and for
the elderly, and those with disabilities; political reform and a progressive income tax.”
97
Furthermore, Obama reassures the audience that there is hope in remembering TR’s regulatory
accomplishments because it sets a precedent for how we might respond to the current economic
“transformation.” Obama seems to suggest that proactive steps to match the advances of
98
technology in today’s globalized markets should parallel the regulations TR implemented.
99
However, Obama also finds cause for criticism in the continuity. Arguments against
progressive reforms have gone relatively unchanged since TR’s time, and yet, whenever they
have been implemented, have failed to remedy economic inequality. He addresses trickle-down
economics as the “same old tune” that exhorts, “The market will take care of everything.”
100
Somewhat glibly, Obama dismisses such attitudes by saying, “I mean, understand, it’s not as if
we haven’t tried this theory.” Such emphasis on continuity places the current economic crisis
101
on a temporal scale that stretches back to TR, if not further. Only by addressing these concerns
does Obama envision Americans moving closer to the Founders’ vision of a “more perfect
union,” which is irrevocably consumed with the question of how to achieve equality. This speech
97
Ibid., 177.
98
Ibid., 177.
99
Ibid., 178.
100
Ibid., 178.
101
Ibid., 178.
Trunkey 31
pursues the question of economic inequality as much as “A More Perfect Union” pursues racial
inequality as a roadblock to that vision of perfection.
A second significant instance in which Obama invokes TR occurs at the end of the
speech. Having expanded into half a dozen examples of how inequality still “distorts our
democracy,” Obama returns to the lessons he wants listeners to draw from the previous
president’s speech. Obama quotes TR’s line, “We are all Americans. Our common interests are
102
as broad as the continent.” Aside from its relevance in this speech, TR’s quote also notably
103
foreshadows how Obama would argue in his 2004 DNC address for de-politicizing American
racial identities. In Osawatomie, Obama upholds TR’s model of spreading this message
104
throughout the country, believing that, “everybody would benefit from a country in which
everyone gets a fair chance.” Given modern technology, Obama can do the same thing but
105
with an even greater capacity to reach Americans in every corner of the country. Despite obvious
changes to the world since TR’s time, Obama asserts that,
[What] hasn’t changed—what can never change—are the values that got us this far. We
still have a stake in each other’s success. We still believe that this should be a place
where you can make it if you try. And we still believe, in the words of the man who
called for a New Nationalism all those years ago, “The fundamental rule of our national
life,” he said, “the rule which underlies all others, is that, on the whole, and in the long
run, we shall go up or down together.” And I believe America is on the way up.
106
102
Ibid., 180.
103
Ibid., 192.
104
Obama, “Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention,” in We Are the Change We
Seek
, 11: “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of
America.”
105
Obama, “Remarks on the Economy” in We Are the Change We Seek
, 192.
106
Ibid., 192.
Trunkey 32
This conclusion maintains that the power of the American experiment in democracy resides in
our ability to return to this question over time. To establish a freer, fairer economic reality for
everyday Americans, Obama’s version of progress prioritizes willingness to test the experiment
to its limits. He encourages his listeners to embrace the uncertainty embedded in that willingness
to try. Even in desperate times, fundamental values sustain the nation, equipping us with the
ability to experiment, try, even fail, in the project of securing “a more perfect union.”
As a model for implementing these fundamental American values, Obama lists several
examples of companies already enacting them. He describes how during the recession, the
workers and owners alike of Marvin Windows and Doors, from Warroad, Minnesota, agreed to
give up some pay, rather than allow any layoffs. Obama contends, “That’s how America was
107
built. That’s why we’re the greatest nation on Earth. That’s what our greatest companies
understand. Our success has never been about survival of the fittest. It’s about building a nation
where we’re all better off.” Just as he had earlier defined the speech’s impetus as about values,
108
rather than hard numbers, this move echoes the rhetorical pivot he made in “A More Perfect
Union,” when he reframed the speech to be about race relations rather than the Wright
controversy. Obama positions Marvin as an embodiment of American values, as applied through
economic practices.
Less concrete evidence exists to suggest that the public internalized Obama’s remarks on
the economy than did for “A More Perfect Union,” perhaps because however simply Obama
framed his recommendations, practically speaking, the market dissuades such changes. However,
evidence of correlating attitudes in influential business moguls like Starbucks CEO Howard
107
Ibid., 191.
108
Ibid., 192.
Trunkey 33
Schultz suggests that Obama’s ideas have grounds for application elsewhere. Three months
before Obama delivered his speech in Osawatomie, he called Schultz to praise the CEO’s recent
political activities. Though known as a long-time Democrat, Schultz had made headlines for his
announcement that he would halt all of his campaign contributions to either party until
lawmakers put aside their partisanship and began working toward the “well being of the people.”
More than one hundred executives joined his campaign, prompting much attention from the
109
media and eventually, from the president himself. In addition to his campaign contributions
110
freeze, Schultz announced “Create Jobs USA,” which Fortune
reported would function as a
grassroots private fund to provide loans to small businesses in underserved markets across the
country. These activities reflect Schultz’s wider ambitions for Starbucks as a responsible,
111
for-profit, public company. The company’s website states, “We have always believed Starbucks
can—and should—have a positive impact on the communities we serve. One person, one cup
and one neighborhood at a time.” Causational or not, the overlap between the Starbucks
112
responsibility statement and the one Obama makes in his speech on the economy is distinct. In
Osawatomie, Obama said that rebuilding the economy as one fairness “will require all of us to
see that we have a stake in each other’s success. And it will require all of us to take some
responsibility.” In both cases, the responsibility of the whole is distributed on an individual
113
level. Schultz’s long-term dedication to fostering positive material effects for the wider country,
109
Charles Riley, “100+ CEOs Promise No Campaign Donations,” CNN
, August 26, 2011,
http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/24/news/economy/ceo_pledge_donations/index.htm.
110
Ibid.
111
David A. Kaplan, “Howard Schultz Brews Strong Coffee at Starbucks,” Fortune
, November 17, 2011,
http://fortune.com/2011/11/17/howard-schultz-brews-strong-coffee-at-starbucks/.
112
“Responsibility,” Starbucks
, accessed April 23, 2018, https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility.
113
Obama, “Remarks on the Economy,” in We Are the Change We Seek
, 190.
Trunkey 34
and particularly his efforts within the business community in 2011, embody the moral leadership
Obama championed in Osawatomie.
“For We Were Born of Change”: Remarks on the Fiftieth Anniversary of “Bloody Sunday”
Selma, Alabama, March 7, 2015
Every year, hundreds gather to remember the Selma to Montgomery marches, “Bloody
Sunday,” and the coordinated civil rights efforts that coalesced on the Edmund Pettus Bridge one
afternoon in 1965. As part of the fiftieth anniversary weekend of celebrations, Obama spoke that
Saturday before walking across the bridge in honor of the original marches. Packed crowds
joined him, including Civil Rights leaders Martin Luther King III and Reverend Jesse Jackson,
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and upwards of one hundred Congressmen and women.
114
Aside from its historic meaning, the weekend was also critical as political leverage for
Obama—efforts to renew key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, originally spurred by the
events in Selma, were stalled in Congress. Nodding to this fact mid-speech, Obama called on
115
the gathered Congressmen to “honor those [who marched] on this bridge” by pledging to restore
the act. Obama directed his rhetoric in Selma not just toward the nation, but also toward
116
political leaders in Washington.
A second, pressing context foregrounded Obama’s presence in Selma, emphasizing the
urgency of racial dialogues in the present day. Just days before the commemoration, the
114
Los Angeles Times, “Bloody Sunday 50th Anniversary: Thousands Crowd Selma Bridge,” Washington
Post
, March 8, 2015,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/thousands-join-second-day-of-selma-remembrances/2015/03/0
8/60d6784c-c5da-11e4-a199-6cb5e63819d2_story.html?utm_term=.ea19d6104ae2.
115
Ibid.
116
Obama, “Remarks on the Fiftieth Anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday,’” in We Are the Change We Seek,
262.
Trunkey 35
Department of Justice (DOJ) had released a “scathing” report, summarizing its investigation into
the events of August 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Following the shooting of Michael Brown
117
by Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson police officer, the DOJ opened investigations into Brown’s
shooting and into the Ferguson police department’s operations. The Ferguson Report concerned
the latter case, and found that African Americans were impacted to a severely disproportionate
degree in “nearly every aspect of Ferguson’s law enforcement system.” By March of 2015,
118
similar examples of police brutality against African Americans, particularly Trayvon Martin in
Sanford, Florida, Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York, and Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio,
had become prominent national news. Obama’s presence in Selma that weekend poignantly
119
evoked the legacy and contemporary consequences of racial inequality in the United States. He
would address the report’s narrative as “sadly familiar.”
120
In a way, Obama’s speech in Selma communicated a turning point in his presidency.
During his first term, black leaders had frequently criticized Obama for avoiding meaningful
conversations about race. His appearance commemorating “Bloody Sunday,” along with the
121
additions of sentencing reform and police misconduct to his agenda and the creation of “My
117
Mark Berman and Wesley Lowery, “The 12 Highlights from the DOJ’s Scathing Ferguson Report,”
Washington Post
, March 4, 2015,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/03/04/the-12-key-highlights-from-the-dojs-s
cathing-ferguson-report/?utm_term=.175920a312f2.
118
Ibid.
119
See: Rodney Gainous Jr., “Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Alton
Sterling, Philandro Castile, and Other Victims, Part 1,” Medium
, July 7, 2016,
https://medium.com/@rodneyg/sandra-bland-tamir-rice-trayvon-martin-rekia-boyd-eric-garner-alton-sterl
ing-philando-castile-d148f053bd89.
120
Obama, “Remarks on the Fiftieth Anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday,’” in We Are the Change We Seek,
259.
121
See: Perry Bacon Jr., “The Professor vs. The President: Has Obama Done Enough for
African-Americans?” NBC News
, February 28, 2016,
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/professors-vs-president-has-obama-done-enough-african-america
ns-n523811.
Trunkey 36
Brother’s Keeper,” a mentoring program for young black men, concretized the commitment he
made in his second term to make race relations a greater priority. His speech, however,
122
presents a mixed message of specific and universalizing lessons from the events of fifty years
before. Despite Obama’s celebration of Civil Rights leaders and activists’ achievements at Selma
as a critical moment for the Civil Rights Movement, he frames the site as an example of his
wider project of engaged citizenship, which itself fits neatly within a narrative of American
progress. Dionne Jr. and Reid categorize the speech as an “American elegy,” given its odes and
poetic quality, which facilitates its overall message of harmony. Given Obama’s role as
123
president, we can understand this as a strategy to invest all Americans, regardless of race, in his
wider project of “a more perfect union” by bettering race relations.
At just 30 minutes, Obama’s speech at Selma is the shortest of the three examined here.
Despite its brevity, the speech’s exuberant tone, use of direct address, and invocation of setting
make it perhaps the most overt in its reliance on Obama’s core ethos. The speech’s prevailing
argument presents a perfect distillation of Obama’s core ethos: that America embodies an
unfinished project, wherein each generation must contribute to the process of remaking the
nation to better align with the promise of the Founding Fathers. Using the same idea of his
speeches composed of loose movements, we can view his remarks in three parts with a
broadening effect similar to the first two speeches. First, Obama responds to the immediate
occasion by imagining the audience back into the events of March 7, 1965, but quickly frames
“Bloody Sunday” within larger American narratives of destiny, character, and progress. He then
122
Edward-Isaac Dovere, “What Obama’s Trip to Selma Means,” Politico
, March 6, 2015,
https://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/what-obamas-trip-to-selma-means-115816.
123
Obama, “Remarks on the Fiftieth Anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday,’” in We Are the Change We Seek,
253.
Trunkey 37
addresses the recently released Ferguson Report, but largely as a transition into his third
movement. At this point, he discusses the ongoing “march” toward “a more perfect union.” The
third movement is particularly poetic, which allows Obama to conclude with resounding
declarations of hope for the future.
As ever, Obama’s narrative structure creates a sense of interrelatedness between the ideas
he highlights. He utilizes the poignant image of an ongoing “march” across generations, time,
and space to create the narrative organization of the speech, creating the same kind of visceral
connection between form and content present in “A More Perfect Union.” In this case, beginning
with the immediate context of the commemoration allows Obama to invoke the Civil Rights
Movement and metaphorically expand upon the ongoing “march” of progress into which his
wider project fits. At the beginning of the speech, he declares that “We gather here to honor the
courage of ordinary Americans willing to endure billy clubs and the chastening rod; tear gas and
the trampling hoof; men and women who despite the gush of blood and splintered bone would
stay true to their North Star and keep marching toward justice.” These lines transition
124
seamlessly from the specific purpose of the weekend—honoring the “ordinary Americans” who
were the original participants of “Bloody Sunday”—to Obama’s grander purpose for the
speech—symbolically hoisting the idea of a continuous “march toward justice,” extending from
their efforts to ours today.
This rhetorical move foreshadows the litany of similar instances Obama makes
throughout the speech. In the final minutes of the address, for example, Obama returns to the
124
Ibid.,
255.
Trunkey 38
idea of Selma as a project that “belongs to everyone,” and to which we must “continually try to
improve.” He continues,
125
Fifty years from Bloody Sunday, our march is not yet finished, but we’re getting closer.
Two hundred and thirty-nine years after this nation’s founding our union is not yet
perfect, but we are getting closer. Our job’s easier because somebody already got us
through that first mile. Somebody already got us over that bridge.
126
Situating the current moment as the result of the two time frames (the nation’s total history and
its history since Selma) emphasizes that the ongoing “march” has scope beyond the fifty year
anniversary being celebrated. Obama’s image of the “march” connecting Americans across time
and place poignantly illustrates his argument that “a more perfect union” must be the work of
everyone, not just black or white Americans or a few select leaders. That previous generations
have already accomplished concrete progress should give listeners hope. Obama’s loaded
reference to the “bridge” contains a similar combination of literal and symbolic resonances. The
symbolism at work here may be somewhat overdetermined, but Obama uses the overtness of the
metaphor to ascribe reverence to the image of a perpetual “march,” particularly as the implicit
destination of Obama’s imagined “march” is the fulfillment of the nation’s foundational ideals.
Such metaphorical reliance on the idea of a “march” and the “bridge” also powerfully
evokes the setting of Selma and the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Several times throughout the speech,
Obama invites a contemplation of setting through overt references. An early example occurs
125
Ibid., 265.
126
Ibid., 265.
Trunkey 39
when he asks, “what could be more American than what happened in this place?” Still
127
discussing Selma as a historically charged site, he continues,
What greater expression of faith in the American experiment than this, what greater form
of patriotism is there than the belief that America is not yet finished, that we are strong
enough to be self-critical, that each successive generation can look upon our
imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely
align with our highest ideals? That’s why Selma is not some outlier in the American
experience… It is instead the manifestation of a creed written into our founding
documents: “We the People… in order to form a more perfect union.” ...These are not
just words. They’re a living thing, a call to action, a roadmap for citizenship.
128
The idea driving this passage is that the United States is a product of change. Selma becomes
“not some outlier,” but instead a “manifestation” and a “roadmap” for the American experience.
Positioning Selma this way casts the site as a model, similarly to how Obama positioned himself
and Ashley Baia in “A More Perfect Union.” By indicating successful examples like their stories
or Selma’s, Obama proposes that their methods can be replicated by the current generation with
equal success. Of course, as a site of civil rights protest, Selma represents an inherently fraught
power relationship between citizens and nationhood that should seemingly be in tension with the
universalizing message Obama presents. But rather than address it as such, he frames Selma as
inherently American, and protest as the means by which the country enacts change and progress.
He solidifies this impression by listing iconically recognizable “places and moments in America
127
Ibid., 256.
128
Ibid.,
257.
Trunkey 40
where this nation’s destiny has been decided,” and declaring, “Selma is such a place.” By
129
rhetorically adding Selma to that list, which includes Concord and Lexington, Appomattox
Courthouse, Gettysburg, Independence Hall, Seneca Falls, Kitty Hawk and Cape Canaveral,
Obama recenters the actions of Civil Rights activists as a defining part of American history.
130
Sites like Selma embody his sense of American progress because they serve as permanent
witnesses to moments in history where ordinary citizens have eroded the boundaries of
inequality.
Engaging historically with Selma’s setting makes change a tangible force in this speech.
Indeed, the soaring rhetoric of his conclusion responds directly to the concept of change at work
in the American experience:
Fellow marchers, so much has changed in fifty years. We have endured war and we’ve
fashioned peace. We’ve seen technological wonders that touch every aspect of our lives.
We take for granted conveniences that our parents could have scarcely imagined. But
what has not changed is the imperative of citizenship.
131
Change, then, constitutes an inherent part of the American experience. Ironically perhaps,
Obama frames change as a constant force. Though not always positive, as the caveat of war
implies, he suggests that change on the whole has fostered a better reality for most Americans.
But the responsibility for fostering such positive change is no abstract thing—thus Obama
situates the “imperative of citizenship” as a single counterexample in his narrative of change.
132
The assertion bears striking resemblance to his argument in his remarks on the economy in 2011,
129
Ibid., 254.
130
Ibid., 254.
131
Ibid., 263.
132
Ibid., 263.
Trunkey 41
when he argued that “[What] hasn’t changed—what can never change—are the values that got us
this far. We still have a stake in each other’s success.” That same moral imperative manifested
133
in Selma, but also in other places and other figures throughout American history. Declaring, “We
know America is what we make of it,” Obama embarks on a list of more than two dozen
examples of such figures who, like Susan B. Anthony, “shook the system until the law reflected
that truth,” or like the “Tuskegee Airmen, and the Navajo codetalkers, and the Japanese
Americans who fought for this country even as their own liberty had been denied.” He infuses
134
the address with individuals who challenge traditional conceptions of the status quo, redefining
America by their examples. All of these figures fostered change during their lives, but Obama
calls on them to do that work again, rhetorically embodying his argument that small acts of
individual courage can change more than one’s own life.
As so often happens in Obama’s rhetoric, change as indicated by the past also reflects
hope for the future. He declares that, “If Selma taught us anything, it’s that our work is never
done. The American experiment in self-government gives work and purpose to each generation.
Selma teaches us, as well, that action requires that we shed our cynicism.” This lesson derives
135
from Obama’s ethos of citizen engagement, which is here clearly predicated on the hope of
current and future generations’ ability to improve the nation. As an example, he asserts that the
Ferguson Report’s narrative, while “sadly familiar,” was not entirely correct because racial
violence is no longer “sanctioned by law or by custom” as it was before the Civil Rights
133
Obama, “Remarks on the Economy,” in We Are the Change We Seek,
192.
134
Obama, “Remarks on the Fiftieth Anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday,” in We Are the Change We Seek,
263-264.
135
Ibid., 259.
Trunkey 42
Movement. Just as he asserted of his own ability to run for national office in “A More Perfect
136
Union,” Obama here frames change in the lived experiences of African Americans over the last
fifty years as tangible proof of progress. Furthermore, he argues, “We do a disservice to the
cause of justice by intimating that bias and discrimination are immutable, that racial division is
inherent to America.” Buying into cynicism creates a blockade to progress in this model. More
137
echoes of his argument in “A More Perfect Union,” that the Constitution contained the promise
of “a union that could be and should be perfected over time,” despite the original sin of slavery,
arise in Obama’s assertions in Selma. Obama’s hopeful redefinition of the American narrative
138
gives collective action against oppression precedence over the hardships that must be overcome.
Through a critical moment of direct address to the audience, this speech evokes the
Alinskian concept of “agitation” that Obama developed as a community organizer. Nearing the
139
end of the speech, having spent upwards of three minutes offering an anaphoric list of the
identities that make up the abstract concept of America, Obama rhetorically pivots to include
listeners in the list: “And that’s why the young people here today and listening all across the
country must take away from this day. You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention.
Unencumbered by what is, because you’re ready to seize what ought to be.” Rhetorically
140
expanding the definition of “America” to include the identities of all those listening, Obama
implicates us all in his vision. Whereas in many other speeches, Obama allowed his audience the
136
Ibid., 259; Continued racial violence since this speech took place undoubtedly cast doubt on the full
truth of this statement.
137
Ibid.,
259.
138
Obama, “A More Perfect Union,” in We Are the Change We Seek
, 52.
139
Garrow, Rising Star
, 372.
140
Obama, “Remarks on the Fiftieth Anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday,’” in We Are the Change We Seek,
265.
Trunkey 43
choice of making a personal connection, his use of direct address, the universalizing “you,” and
explicit directive of lessons to be learned denies listeners the choice.
By aiming his instruction at “young people,” Obama evokes his belief that the
possibilities of “a more perfect union” lie with future generations, and in the work of current
ones. In typical Obama fashion, he places great emphasis on this future-looking aspect of the
speech, as if to move audience attention from the past to the future. “We respect the past, but we
don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear the future, we grab for it,” he exclaims, just before
espousing this instruction. The energy of “agitation” infuses these declarations, particularly
141
when he characterizes the young generation with inventiveness. If youth embrace their
“unconstrained” and “unencumbered” status, Obama suggests, the first steps toward a fairer,
freer America will be achieved.
142
Obama’s interest in young generations emerges prominently across his career. His
education initiatives, success winning the “youth” vote in both general elections, and frequent
references to his two daughters, Sasha and Malia, have ensured this image. Speeches like the one
in Selma speak broadly to this interest, but also to the particular way in which he locates hope for
the future in youth’s organizing power. Since leaving office, Obama’s most recent public
statement to this effect was published as part of TIME’s 100
“Most Influential People of 2018.”
Obama writes that the students from Parkland, Florida, who have energized the nation’s
conversation on gun violence through “March for Our Lives,” have tapped into “the power so
often inherent in youth.” This is the power “to see the world anew; to reject the old constraints,
143
141
Ibid., 265.
142
Ibid., 265.
143
Barack Obama, “Cameron Kasky, Jaclyn Corin, David Gogg, Emma Gonzalez, and Alex Wind,” TIME
100,
April 18, 2018,
Trunkey 44
outdated conventions and cowardice too often dressed up as wisdom. The power to insist that
America can be better.” The former president’s short TIME
piece contains striking rhetorical
144
similarities to the speech in Selma’s conclusion, where Obama directly addresses “young
people” to declare, “You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered
by what is, because you’re ready to seize what ought to be.” Maintaining this assertion has
145
allowed Obama the chance to hone the language and parse its significance for different
applications. Even more critically, this continuity rhetorically invokes his earlier iterations each
time he makes statements to this effect.
The conclusion to Obama’s TIME
article also echoes the role of history in his Selma
speech. In a far more concise format, Obama argues that moments of change, where
complacency becomes impossible, define American history. Here, of course, Obama tunes his
language to young people’s particular influence on the historical record:
Our history is defined by the youthful push to make America more just, more
compassionate, more equal under the law. This generation—of Parkland, of Dreamers, of
Black Lives Matter—embraces that duty. If they make their elders uncomfortable, that’s
how it should be. Our kids now show us what we’ve told them America is all about, even
if we haven’t always believed it ourselves: that our future isn’t written for us, but by us.
146
http://time.com/collection/most-influential-people-2018/5217568/parkland-students/?utm_campaign=time
&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&xid=time_socialflow_twitter.
144
Ibid.
145
Obama, “Remarks on the Fiftieth Anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday,’” in We Are the Change We Seek,
265.
146
Obama, “Cameron Kasky, Jaclyn Corin, David Gogg, Emma Gonzalez, and Alex Wind,” TIME 100.
Trunkey 45
The piece celebrates putting words into action. Listing the Parkland leadership—Cameron
Kasky, Jaclyn Corin, David Gogg, Emma Gonzalez, and Alex Wind—alongside Dreamers and
Black Lives Matter broadens Obama’s message to include the entire movement of young people
who have become engaged in politics and civic life since the last election. All three serve as
successful models of the kind of engagement he advocated as president. In arguing that the future
is formed “by us,” Obama’s final words, in particular, recall his core ethos and the main
argument from his speech in Selma. Endorsed by its powerful publishing institution, TIME 100
stands as a highly anticipated form of national praise, making it an effective platform for
transmitting this message. Participation in the list indicates that since leaving office, Obama has
continued to evaluate the means of national communication at his disposal.
Conclusions: Obama and the Future of Communications Technologies
Obama’s speeches never relinquished his belief in the power of genuine conversation to
change people’s lives and attitudes. Obama believed that politics at its best allows people from
diverse backgrounds and perspectives to come together in mutual regard for productive
outcomes. Politics at its worst sends us back into old debates and hampers our ability to move
outside of our ideological circles. He entered office explicitly hoping to forge a “new kind of
politics,” and foster a national community environment that respected difference but
simultaneously cherished our shared qualities. His presidential addresses emphasized ordinary
147
Americans’ ability to change the course of the nation’s destiny. They invoked his belief in the
efficacy of civic life and his conviction that by working together, each new generation brings us
into closer alignment with the Founding Fathers’ original vision of democratic equality.
147
Obama, The Audacity of Hope
, 9.
Trunkey 46
In “A More Perfect Union,” Obama argued that historically perpetuated inequalities had
produced the current state of racial division in the United States. To achieve a “more perfect
union” of racial equality, people from diverse backgrounds would need to engage in new
dialogues where they listened and learned from one another. These ideas appeared through a
different but equally powerful moral lens in his speech on the economy in Osawatomie, Kansas.
Economic inequality prevents us from holistic equality, Obama asserted. Meanwhile, in his
address for the fiftieth anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” Obama returned to questions of history
and racial division, narrating an American history defined through the identities of every
disenfranchised American who has fought for greater equality. These speeches share several
distinct features, including invocations of place as a historical reminder of Americans’ ability to
triumph over divisiveness, statements that explicitly distill Obama’s ethos of citizen engagement,
and the use of individuals’ stories to form a composite image of American values. Together,
these three speeches exemplify Obama’s ambition to narrate into existence a past, present, and
future America capable of overcoming its sins. A gifted orator, Obama utilized his power of the
“bully pulpit” to extend his rhetorical persuasiveness to a national audience, whom he could only
hope would be listening.
A growing body of literature concerned with Obama’s rhetoric often attempts to locate
him in the realm of postracial and colorblind ideology. The question of whether his rhetorical
strategy presents an inspirational, optimistic, naive, or even irresponsible narrative remains
largely open to interpretation. Indeed, much of the language analyzed in this thesis supports a
reading of Obama as race-neutral, and perhaps guilty of ignoring critical divisions in favor of his
message of unity. At the same time, Obama’s position as president seemingly justifies his
Trunkey 47
impulse toward rhetorical unity. Given the complex nature of the public’s relationship to the
office of president, claiming definitive answers here becomes not only impossible, but also
deceptive and counterproductive in the presumed certainty of such assertions. Rather than
subscribing to an interpretation on either side of the debate, I propose a reading of Obama’s
rhetoric in line with what Professor of American Studies Brian Ward theorizes. Framing him as
representative of the power of “postracial fictions,” Ward posits that Obama offered “a way to
reconnect with America’s core civic ideals” by carefully occupying “a similar ideological space”
of postracialism, but without resorting to its essentializing, “simplistic” language.” As the
148
three speeches examined here illustrate, Obama’s dominant mode of speaking relied on examples
of the vast multiculturalism that he depicted as synonymous with the American experience.
Inclusivity, rather than homogeneity, defines Obama’s rhetoric, though the border between the
two remains blurry.
As a student of history and a biracial man in modern America, Obama could hardly be
unaware of the pitfalls of viewing the American dream through rose-colored glasses.
149
Regardless, the narrative he persists in telling relates a history of American progress, composed
of compromise, debate, and the spirit of democracy. Kloppenberg cites how, as a law student,
Obama developed the idea of the Constitution as a conversation between the Founders and the
present day. Obama reiterated this belief in The Audacity of Hope
, in his chapter called, “Our
150
Constitution.” He writes of the Constitution as a “living document,” rather than a “static” one,
148
Brian Ward, “‘I Want My Country Back, I Want My Dream Back’: Barack Obama and the Appeal of
Postracial Fictions,” in Freedom Rights: New Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement
, ed.
Danielle McGuire and John Dittmer (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011), 331, 341.
149
Introduction to “Second Inaugural Address,” in We Are the Change We Seek,
201.
150
Kloppenberg, Reading Obama
, 161.
Trunkey 48
which “must be read in the context of an ever changing world,” and which forces us to negotiate
arguments over the country’s future as a “deliberative democracy.” This dialectic
151
understanding perhaps explains why the wider project Obama appears engaged in conceives of
America as an unfinished undertaking—he views nothing as static. To communicate this vision
as president and inspire ordinary Americans to join in as active participants, Obama arrived at
podium after podium, ready with new framings and situations that modeled his belief.
However, as the remainder of this thesis will suggest, his formal speeches do not
ultimately represent the only (or potentially best) way of understanding Obama’s wider
sociopolitical project of communicating and modeling change to the American public.
Increasingly over the years, Obama has demonstrated a willingness to experiment with different
kinds of communications technologies. In his final interview as president Obama admitted that
he wished he had spent more time “thinking about new ways of communicating with the
American people,” rather than “standing behind a podium and giving a bunch of grim lectures.”
After two terms of delivering speech after speech about the need to engage creatively with the
152
world around us, Obama thus indicated that he was reconsidering the efficacy of the formal
speech itself. With this in mind, we can find evidence of his willingness to experiment with
communications strategies dating back to his early days as president.
One example arises in his first term. José Villalobos writes in, “Sitting with Oprah,
Dancing with Ellen: Presidents, Daytime Television, and Soft News,” that Obama’s first historic
appearance on The View
on July 29, 2010 sent media pundits into a spiral of speculation. Would
151
Obama, The Audacity of Hope, 90, 92.
152
Barack Obama, “Obama’s Last Interview,” Pod Save America
, 41:13, January 19, 2017,
https://crooked.com/podcast/obamas-last-interview/.
Trunkey 49
the appearance—billed as the first time a sitting president would appear on a daytime television
program—be appropriate? What kinds of topics would be covered, and would it affect the
public’s perception of him? When the day arrived, Obama spoke to a mixture of serious
153
political topics and light-hearted personal questions about his family and American pop culture,
leaving critics to continue the debate over whether he had successfully changed people’s
perspective of him.
154
Villalobos argues that despite relatively unchanged polling numbers immediately
following the appearance, the long-term results suggest Obama had significant foresight. He
engaged with key voting blocs that day, particularly women, in a way that they were more likely
to connect with than via more traditional “hard news” outlets. Such appearances allowed
155
Obama to engage with the public in less formal, mainstream channels, and perhaps to subtly
expose new audiences to his messages. Daytime television may have a limited capacity for
rigorous political debate, but Obama established a precedent in the age of social media of
moving beyond the borders of “high” and “low” brow culture. If we presume that his ultimate
goal is to reorient our national discourse by extending a nationwide invitation to act as equal
participants, appearing on The View
may have been one of Obama’s most significant
communications achievements.
Since that first daytime appearance, the president—and Michelle Obama as well—have
become savvy users of “soft news” outlets, which combine news and entertainment. Through
153
José D. Villalobos, “Sitting with Oprah, Dancing with Ellen: Presidents, Daytime Television, and Soft
News,” in Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics,
ed. Justin S.
Vaughn
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2013), 163.
154
Ibid., 164.
155
Ibid., 170, 174.
Trunkey 50
cameos and interviews, the Obamas have established themselves as unlikely pop culture icons,
appearing with viral success in dozens of programs. In the lead up to the presidential election of
2016, for example, Obama teamed up with BuzzFeed to star in a video called “5 Things That Are
Harder Than Registering to Vote,” capitalizing on the media conglomerate’s massive viral
success to encourage their young demographic to vote. The video opens with the president,
156
dressed in suit and tie, struggling to place plastic organs in the classic children’s board game,
Operation
, before concluding with a clip of him speaking directly into the camera. “That stuff’s
hard,” Obama says genially, “But you know what isn’t? Registering to vote. I hope you all
understand that you have the power to shape our country’s course. Don’t take that for granted.”
Recalling his speech commemorating “Bloody Sunday,” this appearance allowed Obama to
157
directly address the emergent younger generation. Moreover, in less than two minutes, the video
mimics what Obama’s appearance on The View
nearly eight years ago modeled: the fusion of
serious and comical through a popular medium to provide a vehicle for an important political
message.
Even more unconventionally, in March of 2018, sources confirmed that Netflix and the
former president were in “advanced negotiations” to produce a series of shows. Though their
158
formats remain unknown as of yet, speculation suggests that the programs will “highlight
inspirational stories,” and give the Obamas a “global platform” to address the trend of
misinformation that has gripped the country. It requires no great stretch of the imagination to
159
156
BuzzFeedVideo
, “5 Things That Are Harder Than Registering To Vote, Featuring President Obama,”
Youtube video, 1:31, published June 27, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eE7Da_6AMM.
157
Ibid.
158
Michael D. Shear, Katie Benner, and John Koblin, “Obama in Talks to Provide Shows for Netflix,”
New York Times
, March 8, 2018,
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/us/politics/obama-netflix-shows.html.
159
Ibid.
Trunkey 51
make the connection between Obama’s use of the “bully pulpit” as president and his use of
Netflix now—both platforms enact Obama’s project of modeling citizen engagement. The New
York Times
report analyzing the deal supports such conclusions. Eric Schultz, a senior advisor to
Obama, explains in the report that “President and Mrs. Obama have always believed in the
power of storytelling to inspire… Throughout their lives, they have lifted up stories of people
whose efforts to make a difference are quietly changing the world for the better.” In light of
160
Obama’s oeuvre of speeches, the Netflix deal appears as the former president’s latest approach to
the same goal of engaging the American public in serious debates about the quality of American
life.
The trajectory of his “soft news” appearances suggests that Obama has shifted his
emphasis from traditional mediums to contemporary ones. His first daytime television
appearance, his participation in viral social media campaigns, and his future Netflix
collaborations exemplify how, especially in recent activities, Obama has engaged actively with
the intersection of technology and communications. In retrospect, such mediums offer Obama a
form more appropriate to his goal than the formal speech—rather than a one-way delivery, they
allow Obama to facilitate two-way conversations with the public. Their capacity for reciprocity
and personalization changes the relationship Obama can nurture with the public, challenging
traditional, hierarchical divisions of power and authority. In search of an analogue for this
change, we might return to the example of FDR, whose Fireside Chats fundamentally altered the
president’s relationship with the public. FDR’s radio broadcasts also brought the president into
161
closer contact with ordinary Americans, but Obama’s innovation goes even further. Having
160
Ibid.
161
Roper, “Chapter 7: The Presidency,” in Developments in American Politics
, 104.
Trunkey 52
continued FDR’s tradition of facilitating a conversation with the American people through nearly
a decade of formal speeches, Obama’s series of new communications strategies have allowed
him not just to advocate for an engaged citizenry, but also to himself reengage in the process he
has so long championed.
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