The Presidency of Barack Obama: Promise and Polarization
Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the University’s Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. A popular public lecturer and frequent news commentator, his writings appear in The New York Times, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, The Atlantic, Newsweek, Time, and other media. Professor Suri has received the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas and the Pro Bene Meritis Award for Contributions to the Liberal Arts. Professor Suri hosts the weekly podcast, “This is Democracy,” and is the author and editor of eleven books, including: The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office; Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama; and Henry Kissinger and the American Century. His most recent book is entitled: Civil War by Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy.
Overview
Barack Obama was a transformative president, but not always in ways that he intended. His election marked the arrival of a more diverse and divisive American electorate. His foreign policies showed the possibilities and limits of American power abroad. His domestic policies revealed strong reforming ambitions and stubborn, racist resistance to change across the country. Obama’s legacies are mixed: a model of liberal governance with integrity and a firestorm of renewed white supremacy and anti-democratic violence. This lecture will show how a reconsideration of Obama’s presidency can, in fact, help to renew our democracy at a crucial moment. Obama’s legacy is still in the making.