{"id":41566,"date":"2015-06-29T20:58:36","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T20:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=41566"},"modified":"2015-06-29T20:58:36","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T20:58:36","slug":"what-president-obamas-historic-week-means-for-his-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=41566","title":{"rendered":"What President Obama\u2019s historic week means for his legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

What President Obama\u2019s historic week means for his legacy<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

MSNBC<\/a>
\n2015-06-28<\/p>\n

Benjy Sarlin<\/a><\/strong>, Political Reporter<\/p>\n

Every occupant of the White House<\/a> experiences more than one presidency. There\u2019s their actual time in office, an experience characterized by constant political conflict, a drumbeat of unanticipated crises large and small, and a trudging slog towards policy goals. Then there\u2019s the version of their presidency that comes after they leave, as memories fade and history chisels away the various minor dramas until eventually all that remains for most Americans is an ultra\u00ad-condensed summary. This is the version passed down through generations, to those who never experienced that president\u2019s tenure themselves and whose sense of history stems from one or two paragraphs in their high school textbook.<\/p>\n

More than any other period in his presidency, the past week\u2019s rapid succession of once\u00ad-in-\u00ada-\u00adlifetime moments closed the gap between President Obama\u2019s<\/a> day\u00ad to \u00adday travails and his larger place in history.<\/p>\n

\u201cProgress on this journey often comes in small increments, sometimes two steps forward, one step back, propelled by the persistent effort of dedicated citizens,\u201d as Obama put it in his response to the Supreme Court\u2019s same sex marriage ruling Friday. \u201cAnd then sometimes, there are days like this when that slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a few days in June, change was dizzying in pace and so real it could be touched. Universal health care, as one conservative put it, is forever, thanks to the Supreme Court knocking down the Affordable Care Act\u2019s<\/a> last significant remaining challenge. Marriage equality is forever. This week\u2019s bipartisan exorcism of the Confederacy\u2019s 150\u00ad-year old demons is forever.<\/p>\n

The avalanche of news sparked a discussion of two emerging views on Obama\u2019s legacy \u2013 one focused on his policy accomplishments, the other as a symbol of underlying changes in the country that will long outlive his presidency…<\/p>\n

…Obama\u2019s election as the first black president \u2013 powered by landslide margins with black and Latino voters and historic turnout by younger voters \u2013 was hailed as a historic moment, but it was eclipsed almost immediately by the massive challenges that landed on his desk and the intense backlash his policy responses provoked on the right. The scope of this achievement came jarringly back into picture on Friday, however, when, as the Associated Press described it, \u201dAmerica\u2019s first black president sang [Amazing Grace]<\/a>, less than a mile from the spot where thousands of slaves were sold and where South Carolina<\/a> signed its pact to leave the union a century and a half earlier.\u201d It will move more and more to the forefront once there\u2019s a new president dealing with the 24\/7 reality show that is the White House and Obama settles into the more non-partisan, ceremonial role his surviving predecessors occupy today…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What President Obama\u2019s historic week means for his legacy MSNBC 2015-06-28 Benjy Sarlin, Political Reporter Every occupant of the White House experiences more than one presidency. There\u2019s their actual time in office, an experience characterized by constant political conflict, a drumbeat of unanticipated crises large and small, and a trudging slog towards policy goals. Then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,8,26,20],"tags":[20325,2684],"class_list":["post-41566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-usa","tag-benjy-sarlin","tag-msnbc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}