Posted on 01/23/2013 9:54:43 AM PST by frizzled
There is an Obama majority in American politics, symbolized by Monday’s throng on the Mall, whose existence is both the consequence of profound changes to our nation’s composition and values and the cause of changes yet to come.
That majority, as the president made clear in his remarks, would not exist but for Americans’ struggles to expand our foundational belief in the equality of all men. The drive to expand equality, he said in his speech’s most historically resonant line, “is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall.”
Our history, Obama argued, is one of adapting our ideals to a changing world. His speech (like recent books by Michael Lind and my Post colleague E.J. Dionne Jr.) reclaimed U.S. history from the misrepresentations of both constitutional originalists and libertarian fantasists....
Having established that the moral and practical arc of U.S. history bends toward equality, Obama vowed to push his demands for equality still further--to ending the systemic underpayment of female workers; the voter suppression that compels some Americans, usually minorities, to wait hours to cast their votes; the deportations of immigrants who would otherwise help build the economy; and the laws that forbid gay Americans to marry....
The waning of the middle class is, with climate change, the most vexing item on the president’s agenda and requires far-reaching solutions....
On Monday, Obama, secure in the knowledge that the nation’s minorities had joined with other liberal constituencies to form a new governing coalition, voiced their demands to ensure equality and to preserve and expand the government’s efforts to meet the nation’s challenges....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Oh, don’t discount the “too lazy to work for the lifestyle they want to live” crowd.
They put him over the top.
Did you EVER think an American President (and I use that term very loosely in Obama’s case;) would cite a homosexual pick-up joint in his Inaugural Address???? He should tread lightly on the Seneca Falls references as well, those early feminists were AGAINST abortion...
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