Liberal sachems all along the think tank world
Viewed against this fatalist backdrop, Obama’s presidency supposedly became a grimly instructive parable about what it feels like to come up short of your own lofty goals. There was a learned helplessness there, as well, as Obama—like Clinton—lamented the bad faith conduct of his would-be interlocu…
identification with Obama’s perceived wounds would become the leitmotif of the party’s politics
This pitch-perfect Enlightenment thinking would prove horribly out of step with a country in which reactionaries had found their footing as the self-designated guardians of a white Christian America in desperate need of restoration, and saw little value in coming together as a nation. Obama pleaded…
Obama’s speeches spelled out a world in shining absolutes; that was his teleological endpoint
