Jack White: President Obama and the New America
[Jack White, a former national editor of Time magazine, is a frequent contributor to The Root.]
Today is the midpoint of Barack Obama's first term as president of the United States of America. When scholars look back at this moment a century from now, what will they make of it?
They, of course, will have the advantage of knowing facts about which we can only speculate, starting with whether Obama was re-elected to a second term. And with the passage of time, they will be able to put into calmer perspective the ferocious partisan politicking over such issues as health care reform in which we're embroiled, discerning overall patterns and trends where those of us in the storm can only perceive the waves.
My guess is that, to future historians, our times won't seem merely like a struggle between liberals and conservatives, or Republicans and Democrats, or advocates of big government and those of limited government, or blacks and whites. Instead they will be seen as something much more fundamental: the birth pangs of a new version of America -- one that not only looked different from the country it displaced but also occupied a different, more mature place in the world....
Read entire article at The Root
Today is the midpoint of Barack Obama's first term as president of the United States of America. When scholars look back at this moment a century from now, what will they make of it?
They, of course, will have the advantage of knowing facts about which we can only speculate, starting with whether Obama was re-elected to a second term. And with the passage of time, they will be able to put into calmer perspective the ferocious partisan politicking over such issues as health care reform in which we're embroiled, discerning overall patterns and trends where those of us in the storm can only perceive the waves.
My guess is that, to future historians, our times won't seem merely like a struggle between liberals and conservatives, or Republicans and Democrats, or advocates of big government and those of limited government, or blacks and whites. Instead they will be seen as something much more fundamental: the birth pangs of a new version of America -- one that not only looked different from the country it displaced but also occupied a different, more mature place in the world....