01.19.2017 07:32 AM

The last day

I have had this poster beside my desk every day for eight years. 

I supported him right from the start, long before 2008. I couldn’t vote for him, but after I saw him speak at the DNC convention in 2004, that was it. I was with him. 

He has been a president who conducted himself with dignity and integrity and grace. No scandal, no laws broken. No loss of that extraordinary sense of hope that he embodied. 

Last night, at the Canada in a Trump World event I moderated, I ended things by quoting him to the hundreds in attendance: 

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

He believed that. It will be so hard to keep believing that in the dark time ahead, but we have to try. 

I am so, so sad today. I won’t be posting anything else but this. 

23 Comments

  1. Kevin says:

    Feeling pretty much the same way. But, a little story (because I’m in that kind of mood – sue me). About a year ago there was some shit happening so I took a mindfulness course at a local clinic to try and sort things out. Good course. One of the assignments was to write a note to myself with something to remember, seal it in an envelope and self-address it. The clinic would mail the message back to us in a number of months. So I did that.

    Fast forward to yesterday. Yesterday morning they moved my kid brother from the ICU to palliative care. His wife is there and my niece has been called back from university. It’s a vigil. So a letter comes for me in my own handwriting, and guess what it says? To quote: “give to myself: the recognition that bad experiences/situations are temporary and will pass”.

    Holy cow. I know it’s hokey, but it’s exactly what happened.

  2. Lance says:

    No scandal?

    Highest rate of poverty ever. Highest rate of food stamp dependence ever. Highest income inequality ever. Doubled the debt. Cratered rate of labor participation. Insanely low GDP growth rate seen ever. Household income down. Household net worth down. Totally screwed up their healthcare system. Worst race relations in decades. NSA spying. Most terrorist attack on American soil than ever. American prestige around the world in tatters. On the brink of WWIII.
    My God, good riddance!

  3. doris says:

    Lost me when he blew off the AFL-CIO and refused to implement the card check despite it being a major promise. Then he really lost me when he appointed a Wall Streeter to reform the financial rules and then I went ballistic when he refused to charge any of the criminal banks for ruining the world!

  4. Eric Weiss says:

    I thought he was weak on a number of issues, but he was FDR compared to the dolt he replaced and JFK compared to Putin’s bitch who is taking over.

  5. daveconstable says:

    It’s pretty easy to find on the internet John Pilger’s assessment of President Nobel Peace Prize winner’s regime. Pilger’s analysis and judgment varies somewhat from the hagiography we are inundated with.

  6. Derek Pearce says:

    FFS Lance do you have anything other than InfoWars/Fox/Breitbart bullshit boilerplate? I can’t wait to see how the Trumpkins get SO fucked over by their own man. It’s just too bad about the collateral damage to the MAJORITY who DID NOT vote for him.

  7. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    The absolute repudiation of the President-Elect will come unwittingly at the hands of Donald J. Trump. For most people, the job is an immediate reality check and evolving learning process from Day One.

    Trump may think he’s already too smart for that. If that’s the plan, then prepare for the swan dive, because it isn’t very far off.

    • Kevin says:

      You’re right of course. And there’s a side of me wants to say this is going to be a fun show. Except it’s not. Too many people are going to get hurt before this is over.

  8. Miles Lunn says:

    I too was a supporter of Obama earlier on, although I will admit unlike Trump, I don’t think Romney or McCain would have been bad presidents, but still glad Obama won. While not perfect he did help the US recover quite well from the recession and also from what I saw he seemed pretty pragmatic and middle of the road, not a leftist like some on the right accuse him of. Mind you the right in the US and increasingly in Canada is moving so far right that anyone who isn’t a right wing ideologue is called a leftist. I am a former Progressive Conservative, yet many say people with views like mine are no longer welcome in the party. I do hope Trump like politics stop at the border as I don’t want them in Canada.

  9. Tim says:

    Aside from that racist uncle many of us have, the world will come together tomorrow to collectively barf as one.

  10. ian turnbull says:

    He brought dignity, class and respect to the office. His family in the White House was also such an important symbol to all Americans and most importantly African Americans. Unfortunately he was a disaster of a president who’s failures directly resulted in 62 million people plugging their nose to vote for a misogynist, boorish, narcissist, who’s platform was nothing more than promising to reverse everything Obama did. In my view you can draw a line directly from Obama’s failures to Donald Trump.

    Obama’s policies disasters can be fixed over the next few years. The Obama family in the White House will have a forever positive effect on America. In short the disaster was worth it.

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