Abby Phillip

He was talking about issues like universal healthcare, poverty, hunger,

farmers, even this idea of America first, of the fact that he argued that America should spend way more time and resources and way more of its treasure domestically than it did internationally.

And those themes not only became themes that were picked up by Democratic candidates decades later, but also by

A Republican candidate in particular by Donald Trump.

And I think that we are in a sort of high watermark for that kind of politics right now.

And that's why understanding his legacy matters more than ever.

Yeah.

I mean, I think a lot of people regard the 1984 and 1988 Democratic National Convention speeches that he delivered, both of them, to be two of the best convention speeches ever delivered.

And when you look closely at those speeches, they are really a masterclass in a moral framing for American politics that tries to argue to people that there is a common thread, a common theme among all of the people in this nation.

And when you think about those speeches and the tradition that they came out of, which is the black church tradition, it's hard not to see the way in which Barack Obama's great speeches were influenced by that kind of approach to politics.

What struck me actually was the lack of ego in a lot of how he talked about what he did.

And when I talked to him about what he was trying to accomplish in these two campaigns, he saw it as moves on a chessboard of trying to move the Democratic Party closer to a form that would allow for a candidate like him to

to be successful.

And even when I asked him about some of the harder parts of his experience, which was the rejection of his candidacy by a lot of Black elites and establishment types, he wasn't judgmental about it.

He wasn't angry.

He wasn't bitter.

He understood that they had a political calculation that was different from him.

As he looked back, I think he kind of sees the arc of his political career as laying the groundwork for all the things that came next, whether it was Barack Obama or even someone like Bernie Sanders and beyond.

I think he sees it all as part of the building blocks that he was putting together at that time.

Thank you.