One hazard of the trolling that the United States has been subjected to from the White House for the past twenty months is that even the most alarming patterns can be hard to discern, and the most prominent dots impossible to connect.
Less than 24 hours after an astonishing joint news conference between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, in which Trump sided with Putin over his own intelligence agencies, former President Barack Obama finally did what his supporters have waited for him to do since he left the Oval Office.
It is not easy being the first black of anything let alone the first black president of a racially fraught country. Contending with deeply entrenched pessimistic views of black leadership – being the first black president leaves little margin for error; your success as the first black is bound up with the image of an entire people which you represent. You are the vessel for their redemption and success.
At the heart of Obama’s narrative was a belief that progress, in the larger scheme of things, was inevitable, and this belief underscored his position on every issue from marriage equality to climate change. His idea of progress was neither the rigid millennial faith of Woodrow Wilson nor Bush’s shallow God-blessed optimism. It was human-scale and incremental.
Riding in a motorcade in Lima, Peru, shortly after the 2016 election, President Barack Obama was struggling to understand Donald J. Trump’s victory. “What if we were wrong?” he asked aides riding with him in the armoured presidential limousine.
Read Here – The New York Times
At a moment when many of his former voters believe that America is facing a genuine democratic crisis, former President Barack Obama has been largely silent about what is happening in American politics. Other than a handful of appearances—an interview with David Letterman in a new Netflix show, or an oral history project at MIT—he insists on following protocol and tradition for former presidents, resisting the temptation to jump back into the political fray.
Donald Trump’s first year in office seems to have been marked, above all, by his verbal incontinence. America’s tweeter-in-chief kept several continents rapt with his early-morning offerings. In his lack of inhibition and tact, Trump is the opposite of Barack Obama. At the same time, Obama’s decorum managed to conceal many unpleasant realities, which we would have had to confront sooner or later. Trump has expedited this confrontation — and, hopefully, inaugurated a new age of progressivism.
President Donald Trump prides himself on being able to communicate with the American people directly through his Twitter account, but when it comes to resonating on that platform, former President Barack Obama still had an edge in 2017. Three of Obama’s tweets were among the 10 most retweeted this year, while none of Trump’s made the list, according to Twitter’s year-end analysis.
Once upon a time, all the experts said that America was the guarantor of security in the Middle East. To the extent that it’s still true, it’s not at all what you’re thinking. Actually, it’s probably the exact opposite of what you’re thinking. Israel Defense Forces chief Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot gave an unprecedented interview last week to the Saudi media. In a hold-the-presses moment, Eisenkot disclosed that Israel was ready to share sensitive intelligence with moderate Arab countries for the purpose of countering Iran. He credited President Donald Trump with creating an opportunity for a new alliance in the region.
Hillary Clinton says she made a mistake when she gave speeches on Wall Street after leaving government. Taking money from banks, she writes in her new memoir, created the impression she was in their pocket. Her old boss doesn’t seem to share her concern.
