A Promised Land
Former President Barack Obama released his long-awaited presidential memoir, A Promised Land, just weeks after his former Vice President, Joe Biden, clenched the 2020 Presidential Election victory. The decision to publish after the furor that bubbled up this election season—intentional or not—can be viewed as poetic justice in the face of an ever-growing polarized body politic. Central to the accounts inscribed in this hefty, 700-plus-page tome rests a message that Obama believes to be America’s ethos: a society wherein we might put others before ourselves, with every decision we make hinging on its impact of others. Obama views his presidency through this lens and does his best to help realize a more perfect union that heading toward the “promised land.”
Saturated with incredible descriptiveness of key characters both before and after his ascension to the highest office in the land, Obama offers measured perspective on difficult decisions made during his presidency and offered some tough lessons in politicking that urges readers to face the reality that ethical causalities succumb to personal suasion of elected officials in a representative democracy.
Little Fires Everywhere
During Obama’s first four years as president, this young, optimistic leader amounted to little more than a firefighter-in-chief. From managing two active military campaigns in the Middle East to bringing the United States back from financial crisis and staving off a global economic collapse to fighting for an expansion in healthcare coverage for nearly 45 million uninsured or underinsured Americans to entering multilateral treaty negotiations to address climate change, the man rushed to extinguish (or at least manage) little fires in every corner of the world every day from 2009 to 2013.
Irrespective of political leanings and personal assessments of his shortcomings as the nation’s leader, it is hard not to concede that Barack Obama worked harder than many of his immediate predecessors. He was tasked with uniting a country suddenly threatened by high unemployment levels and still embittered about a “War on Terror” that appeared to be more concerned about chasing its tail than engaging strategic military operations to bring those responsible for the 9/11 attacks to heel.
Obama tended to assume the best of everyone in his administration, even those whose political views were generally opposite his on matters like the economy, social policy, and foreign relations. This couldn’t have been more apparent in his decision to keep on many of the high-ranking officials in the Department of Defense following George W. Bush’s departure from the White House. This was likely for the betterment of ending two costly military campaigns abroad. Dismissal of those officials would’ve resulted in a disruption that would’ve certainly been felt on the ground and would’ve spelled political assassination for America’s first Black President.
Obama provides his readers with a beautiful literary arc that begins with recollections of a mediocre student-turned-intellectual glutton and ends with a dutiful world leader committed to a holistic risk assessment before arriving at a decision bound to affect millions at home and abroad. His leadership stylings dripped with civility and calls for unity. Perhaps that was no more evident in his acknowledgement of Bush 43’s role in beginning aggressive efforts to take down the Taliban and al-Qaeda and hold all actors responsible for their roles in the 9/11 attacks.
The memoir’s coda details Obama’s pinnacle achievement in the global theater—the capture of Osama bin Laden. President Obama offered little dramatic flair to his retelling of this narrative, choosing to describe the moments leading up to this pivotal movement in the War on Terror in the cool, calm, and collected manner that characterized his disposition as a politician. That same tranquil demeanor he attributes to his upbringing in Hawaii would engender scorn from supporters and opponents alike. The left would consider this level-headedness and disdain for histrionics or impassioned speech as indifference towards causes they were championing like affordable housing, education, and healthcare, while commentators on the right interpreted his words and actions as bravados flowing from an arrogant, (third) coastal elite.
Obama’s diverse upbringing likely established his sincere reverence towards others. Every story he tells in his book honors the humanity of the individuals involved, even if their actions might trigger a visceral reaction to do otherwise. Obama’s mention of ensuring bin Laden’s body be properly disposed of according to Islamic burial traditions provides a clear example of this. He despised the horrific actions of bin Laden but also realized that someone’s humanity cannot be denied, even with personal knowledge of their most treacherous acts. Even if Obama made this decision in light of the potential fallout that could have occurred between the United States and its infringement on the sovereignty of Pakistan to extract bin Laden, this small concession speaks volumes about Obama’s character and presidential prowess.
Brokered Deals and Beyoncé
Within the first third of his work, Obama reflects on his shortcomings when leading the country out of its greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. He laments about his inability to set up his subordinates for success, especially on the messaging front. He distinctly recalls a time when then-Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner (Give a rouse to my Dartmouth brother!) blundered in an initial appearance before a press corps anxious to relay President Obama’s grand plans of returning American families to a sense of economic normalcy.
Obama also devoted a significant portion of his book to healthcare reform. He couched the retelling of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) passage in a narrative that wove together his mother, who had died from ovarian cancer 15 years prior to the bill’s passage, and Ted Kennedy, the late Democratic Senator of Massachusetts. Often touted as Obama’s crowning domestic achievement by voices on the left, he communicated to readers that for him, the personal was political. His mother’s inability to pay for the expenses not covered by her employer-based health insurance acted as a driving force during his 2004 senatorial campaign and grounded his domestic policy proposals in his run for the presidency. He eschewed criticism from those unwilling to concede on certain details to broker a deal for the ACA, consistently reminding the rebellious camp of his party of the actual life-and-death choices millions of Americans faced when it came to weighing medical treatment options.
Perhaps the most surprising tidbit tucked away in this book involves Queen Bey herself. Obama briefly mentioned Beyoncé’s performance of Etta James’s “At Last” at one of the many inaugural balls that comprised that dizzying night. But one similarity between the two might have eluded even the most astute reader. Both Obama and Beyoncé share more than an affinity for Jay-Z’s discography; they also kept honey beehives. While Beyoncé admits to using honey as a multi-purpose salve for a range of ailments, Obama opted to use the liquid gold to brew his own beer.
Toeing the Line
A substantial conversation on race and race relations in America was noticeably absent in this volume. Obama even acknowledged that his poll numbers nosedived with White voters at the suggestion that the “birtherism” ploy put forth by Trump and amplified by media was rooted in racism. Perhaps he thought that if he devoted a considerable portion to the status of race relations in this country and how he might’ve differently addressed such a “hot-button” issue, he might not have sold as many copies of the book. Perhaps that’s also why he devoted an excruciating amount of detail on decisions related to foreign policy, the capture and neutralization of Osama bin Laden, and other external affairs that deflected from the United States’ internal problems. He also acknowledged (albeit briefly) that it was much easier for Americans to look outward as the suppression and devaluation of human lives when it existed beyond our shores. Turning that mirror around would likely provoke annoyance and huffed proclamations from certain White folks who “don’t have a racist bone in [their] body.”
Based on previous books and in personal observance of his political career, Obama has always been a very deliberate person. One might wonder about his reticence in writing down the truths he held, instead deciding to speak his thoughts aloud in more casual settings, like an interview with Oprah or with Stephen Colbert. Perhaps the permanence of a book gives him pause. His scant coverage of the status of race relations in the United States might be attributed to the fact that he plans to address these issues more substantively in his next volume.
Alternatively, the move could have been political. As mentioned earlier, with the 2020 presidential election just in the rearview mirror of his book’s release date, one conjecture that whirred about the brains of political junkies is that Obama might have thought it prudent not to focus so much on race and race relations in an increasingly polarized political environment. Leaks of a manuscript where this was more than just a passing mention could have adversely impacted chances of sending the Biden-Harris ticket to the White House. Obama did after all mention that his poll numbers and approval rating among White voters took a hit when he spoke unequivocally about race.
Despite an otherwise paltry treatment of race writ-large, Obama manages to offer commentary about how the racist ilk of the Republican Party (and to a lesser degree some Democrats) gave way to a conservatism seething with nativism and ire for all things perceived to be anti-American or foreign. Obama delivers his clearest in his testimony about the role that race played in stoking fears among an ultra-conservative base of the Republican Party who had come to be known as the “Tea Party Movement.” This “movement” widened avenues for the xenophobic and bigoted among Republicans ranks to burst forth and command considerable attention from the party’s more moderate and fiscally conservative/socially moderate wing. Even with Tea Party voices gaining more political power, first-term Obama tended to avoid saying anything publicly that would amount to express denouncement of historical atrocities done in the name of American exceptionalism and contemporary acts of violence visited upon Black and Brown communities.
Instead, against the backdrop of a diplomatic visit to Russia, Obama poignantly discusses the rise of fascist sentiment in Central and Eastern Europe. Waves of populist, far-right movements sprang up across the continent and would soon land ashore in the U.S., paving a way for Trump’s political upset of the Republican establishment and election as the country’s forty-fifth president. Perhaps true to form, Obama earnestly believed that expansion of and access to democracy through education, housing, healthcare, and voting, both at home and abroad, would be enough to overcome centuries-old wounds of interracial and intertribal conflict.
When speaking of global citizenry, Obama also teetered between uplifting the politically repressed, maintaining amicable relationships with leaders in those volatile regions, and respecting cultural differences in approach and attitudes. Broader discussions about the Arab Spring of the early 2010s shed light on Obama’s wholesale commitment to the promotion of democratic ideals across the globe, even at the cost of instigating friction within the diplomatic community and stifling inroads in counterterrorism efforts in the Middle East. While traveling abroad and addressing crowds of people who gathered to hear him speak, Obama imparted messages that prized human dignity and decency above all else:
To be known. To be heard. To have one’s unique identity recognized and seen as worthy. It was a universal human desire, I thought, as true for nations and people as it was for individuals. If I understood that basic truth more than some of my predecessors, perhaps it was because I’d spent a chunk of my childhood abroad and had family in places long considered “backward” and “underdeveloped. Or maybe it was because as an African American, I’d experienced what it was like not to be fully seen inside my own country.
Despite lack of quantity, the quality of his analysis of race is reassuring. Obama treats Blackness and “otherness” in a global community dominated by Western European ideals and ideologies in a pan-Africanist manner. He wants his example to provide a sense of hope and ambition not only for African Americans but also for Afro-descendants and similarly situated minorities around the world.
Obama’s likening of his struggles to those of Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln appear self-aggrandizing on the surface, but he carefully tempers these analogies, by limiting those realities he faced as the first Black president and as one who endured similar struggles of pulling a country back from the growing divisions in political ideologies (like Lincoln) and in restoring confidence in the federal government after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression (like Roosevelt). His toeing of that line also tracks with his express desire not to appear caught up in the austerity and grandeur that comes with the Office of the Presidency.
Throughout the book, Obama speaks about the United States as his collective and integrates himself in a broader American historical tapestry that serves as a stark contrast to now-outgoing President Trump. It is laughable to think Trump tried to smooth things over with Obama by extending offers great and small during Obama’s first term. Trump flashed a veneer of sincerity, as if it would somehow make up for the inflammatory rhetoric regarding Obama’s U.S. citizenship he peddled on just about every major news network. Peace offerings included plugging the Macondo well below the Deepwater Horizon rig that spewed tens of thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for more than four months, and Trump even offered to build “a beautiful ballroom” for a dinner on the South Lawn of the White House. Luckily, Obama paid him dust.
More to Come
Obama acknowledges, with painstaking detail, the shortcomings of his first term as president. He noted the unity of Americans around the defeat of foreign enemies but remarked on the difficulty in galvanizing similar enthusiasm in addressing domestic challenges like inadequate health services, rampant poverty in rural areas, and religious extremism. However, he persevered, undeterred by the forces seeking to encumber the progress he, political leaders, and grassroots organizers helped bring to fruition.
More than his previous memoirs, Obama shares raw feelings (and occasionally profanity-laced language) that shaped difficult decision-making amid competing moral, ethical, and political interests. A Promised Land sets the stage for the kind of difficult truth-telling likely to emerge in the second installment of his reflections on his presidency. Events like the Sandy Hook shooting, the rise of unpunished police brutality and extralegal killings of Black and Brown people, Boko Haram’s burgeoning children’s army, and the slaughter of the Mother Emanuel Nine in Charleston, S.C. at the hands of a White radical extremist, will force readers to revisit their stances on gun violence and regulation, White supremacy and domestic terrorism, and American intervention in international human rights violations.
In all, Obama’s guiding principles might be summarized in a prayer he scribbled on a piece of paper and stuffed into a crevice of the Western Wall: “Lord...protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will.” A focus on family, optimism, and discernment allowed him to make even greater strides in his second term. Triumphs that might be bound in second volume hopefully sooner than later.
