erik lundegaard

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Thursday November 10, 2016

Quote of the Day

“In his brief remarks [with President-Elect Trump], the President [Obama] left a great deal unsaid. Perhaps it was better this way. We need not contemplate the fact that his signature policy achievements, the Affordable Care Act and the Iran nuclear deal most notably, will be undone immediately. More distressingly, the very nature of Trump's campaign—its venomous bigotry, its radioactive contempt, its tribalism—may have already diminished Obama's significant cultural achievements. We revelled in the small moments of this Presidency: the image of a black man standing behind the Presidential Seal, quietly broadening our frame of reference for black men in this society; his open adoration of his wife, Michelle; the sight of his two daughters flourishing into young womanhood, recognizing along the way that we, a vast, sprawling, unwieldy entity, had common affinity for these two African-American teens. Trump's moment seems to represent an inversion of this. We now occupy an altogether less honorable place culturally. In the short term, at least, it seems that divisiveness has prevailed.”

-- Jelani Cobb, “Barack Obama in Defeat,” The New Yorker, Nov. 10, 2016

Posted at 05:19 PM on Thursday November 10, 2016 in category Quote of the Day