Although the pageantry of our politics and the ceremonial commencements of government can seem uninspiring and forgetful at times, President Barack Obama’s inaugural address last month was a good reason why it’s worth paying attention to the office of the presidency.
Obama made his strongest case yet for why his progressive vision for the country best represents the values and principles of the founders, evoking words from the Declaration of Independence.
“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths-that all of us are created equal-is the star that guides us still,” said Obama.
Given that the founding fathers wrote the declaration at a time of great social injustice that included the enslavement of African Americans, disenfranchisement of women and severe intolerance towards Native Americans, Obama in grand fashion fully embodied the words that have always been the aspirational hope of the Constitution.
“Just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on earth,”said Obama.”
Obama was also the first sitting president to include gay rights in his inaugural address.
He said that our journey as a country would not be complete until “our gay brothers and sisters” are treated equally before the law.
With the Supreme Court expected to take up gay marriage rights this year, the president strategically chose to politicize the court while they sat directly behind him during his speech.
Expanding on the high-minded notions of inclusion and the social compact, Obama renewed his pledge in fixing America’s broken immigration system.
His new plan would allow a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants who are productive members of society.
In rare form, the country saw a president who was unfettered by the need to be re-elected for a second term, and the challenges of an economy in freefall or the inheriting of the two longest wars in American history; his second-term agenda will be mostly of his own free will-barring future crises of course.
Basking in the hundreds of thousands of people who showed up to the capital for his last inaugural address, President Obama paused  to turn around at the stunning sight.
“I’m going to take a look one more time,” Obama said. “I’m not going to see this again.”