Did Obama Live Up to the Audacity of Hope?

The Audacity of Hope is such a grand statement and the question of whether or not Barack Obama lived up to it is not one that can be answered as blatantly as yes or no. To me, the Audacity of Hope is the courage that is required when acting upon a desire for change. It takes courage to make change. Especially change that affects as many people as there are in the United States. The U.S. has one of the most divided politics in the world, making change increasingly difficult to achieve. Politicians from all parties get an incredible amount of criticism for their ideas. This makes fighting for progress even more difficult. Obama overcame the struggles brought to him by opposing politicians and advocated for hope.

Obama was incredibly ambitious. He wanted change in the country. From the moment he entered the political spectrum, he had the goal of creating hope in the hearts of Americans for a better future. He used the political tactic of creating a sense of unity in order to inspire change. On election night, all eyes were on him. He had the power to reach out to millions of people and show them how close we were to creating progress. He said the following in his election night speech,

"This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of all people: Yes We Can." The goals he was setting were ambitious. Obama’s courageousness was contagious. It inspired Americans to think as boldly as he did. This is the audacity of hope: the courage necessary to make and promise change.

The unity that Barack Obama created among Americans allowed for him to act upon the audacity he had to make change, despite all of his critics. His goals and achievements were eloquently summed up in the following excerpt of his Farewell address "Our democracy won’t work without a sense that everyone has economic opportunity. Today, the economic is growing again: wages, incomes, home values, and retirement accounts are rising again; poverty is falling again. The wealthy are paying a fairer share of taxes even as the stock market shatters records. The unemployment is near a ten-year low. The uninsured rate has never, ever been lower. Health care costs are rising at the slowest rate in fifty years. And if anyone can put together a plan that is demonstrably better than the improvements we’ve made to our healthcare system - that covers as many people at less cost- I will publicly support it. That, after all, is why we serve - to make people’s lives better, not worse."

Obama saw the power of giving people hope. This hope that inspired all of the progress this country has seen in the past eight years and will inspire the progress that Americans will fight for for the rest of time. Obama care, low unemployment, and fairer tax distributions are just a few of the changes he has created during his presidency, but it is far from the last of his impact. He created a culture of progress amongst the younger generation of Americans.

Obama entered the White House in the midst of one of the worst financial crisis since the great depression. The crisis was creating a lot of unease amongst Americans. It was a time where hope and unity were essential tools in calming the public. Not only did he create over fifteen million jobs, but he united Americans. This was an essential component in order for the United States to rise above the recession. He said the following in his speech on the economy, “Our problems are rooted in past mistakes, not our capacity for future greatness… And we are still the nation that has overcome great fears and improbable odds. If we act with the urgency and seriousness that this movement requires, I know that we can do it again”. This moving forward that he is preaching created a sense of unity amongst Americans. It made them see that they were all in the same situation and that everyone was working towards a common goal: rising above the economic crisis everyone was being burdened with. This sense of unity and hope allowed for Americans to persist through the time of ambiguity.

One of the biggest issues he touched upon while campaigning was creating a comprehensive health care reform. The result of his work was Obamacare. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, he wrote the following on the health care system in 2006,

Our health-care system is broken: expensive, inefficient, and poorly adapted to an economy no longer built on lifetime employment, a system that exposes Americans to insecurity and possible destitution. But year after year, ideology and political gamesmanship result in inaction, except for 2003, when we got a prescription drug bill that managed to combine the worst aspects of the public and private sectors--price gouging and confusion, gaps in coverage and an eye-popping bill for taxpayers. (22-23)

What was most impressive to me was that he acted upon his desire for healthcare reform and created the most progressive health care plan in the United States’ history. The drive that he had sprouted from the hope for a better country. This drive gave him the courage to stand up for the change he wanted to see for the United States. Though the Affordable Care Act isn’t perfect; it requires all americans to have a health care plan, and 11.7% of Americans are still not covered; it has increased the number of Americans covered by 9.5 million people. States are expanding medicaid and medicare programs, and medicine costs are decreasing. Americans can now go to the doctor and worry about getting better, not whether or not they are going to be able to pay their bill.

Politicians had been speaking about race equality for centuries, but one of the demographics that had often been ostracized from society was the LGBTQ community. The United States was very behind in LGBTQ rights prior to Obama’s presidency. Prior to Obama’s ruling of denying same sex marriage unconstitutional , only 37 states had legalized gay marriage. In June of 2015, Obama said the following in a speech, “We are big and vast and diverse; a nation of people with different backgrounds and beliefs, different experiences and stories, but bound by our shared ideal that no matter who you are or what you look like, how you started off, or how and who you love, America is a place where you can write your own destiny”. Advocating for everyone in this country is a huge part of being president. Despite all of the wrath he received for his decision, he followed his beliefs and ensured equal rights and representation under law to everyone, despite their sexual orientation. This was a huge step forward towards equality.

Many people argue that Obama didn’t inspire hope because of his drone policy. Obama’s legacy is at risk of being squandered because of his drone policies. The United States’s self-determined obligation to police the world has been harming the country’s reputation. Foreign policy is a very rocky topic that most U.S. politicians fail to excel in. One of the reasons for why many Americans favor drones is that they save American lives because they remove American people’s contact with the war. Yes, bringing a fighter jet into the Middle East would put the pilot's life at risk, but it would dramatically increase the accuracy of the target. This would practically make civilian deaths obsolete and focus on killing actual terrorists. According to The article “Obama’s Drone War is a Shameful Part of his Legacy”, “Nearly eight years later, Obama’s decision to expand the drone war has lead to the deaths of hundreds of civilians, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a disturbing expansion of presidential power and harm to the country’s ability to fight terrorism”. The government knows this. They know that by saving the life of one American, they are taking the lives of hundreds. By using the argument that drones save American lives, we are blatantly saying that we value American lives over Pakistani lives, or Iraqi lives, which I find to be utterly xenophobic. I fear that Obama’s legacy is going to be haunted by the faces of innocent civilians lost to the war against terrorists.

Drones are only one instance where Obama’s administration failed to completely live up to the audacity of hope. Many liberals critique Obama on not being liberal enough. Of course, it would have been amazing if he had been able to accomplish all of his goals, but that is simply unrealistic. When assessing the societal impact made by a politician, many people fail to remember the amount of compromise that is involved in policies. In an ideal world, the president would do everything they wanted, but that is not how democracies work. There is a great deal of compromise involved in everything done in government. Overall, I think that the progress that Obama did make was extremely important. His legacy won’t remember what he didn’t do, that’s for the future, it will remember what he did.

Barack Obama didn’t only want to make a change that would last through his presidency, but he wanted to inspire the future generation of Americans to carry on his legacy and continue making change. In an interview conducted by Rolling Stones Magazine, Obama said the following, “So we have helped, I think, shape a generation to think about being inclusive, being fair, caring about the environment. And they will have growing influence year by year, which means that America over time will continue to get better”. The policies and ideas that Obama wrote and spoke about deeply resonated with the younger generation of Americans. He is the president that I grew up with and the president that I will likely base all of my future presidents on. He was in an incredible position with respect to molding the future of this country. He lit the spark of hope within the youth of this country that will only get bigger as time progresses. Obama was courageous, which will make being proactive that much easier for the future generations of Americans.