An Oprah Winfrey special titled First Lady Michelle Obama Says Farewell to the White House was aired on CBS last Monday, December 19, 2016. In it, Oprah asks the first lady if she felt her husband, President Obama, had achieved that concept of hope for the American people that he represented when they first ran nine years ago. She responded unequivocally, “Yes, because we feel the difference now. Now we’re feeling what not having hope feels like. Hope is necessary, is a necessary concept. Barack didn’t talk about hope because he thought it was a nice slogan to get votes. He and I, and so many of us believe, what else do you have if you don’t have hope? What do you give your kids if you can’t give them hope?”
The first lady said she feels her husband has given our nation hope that, over time, the American people “will come to appreciate having a grownup in the White House, who can say to you in times of crisis and turmoil, ‘Hey it’s going to be okay; let’s remember the good things that we have; let’s look at the future; let’s look at all the things that we’re building. All of this is important—that our kids stay focused, their work isn’t in vain, that their lives aren’t in vain. What do we do if we don’t have hope, Oprah?”
When our first lady mentioned we need a grownup in the White House, it was a veiled reference to President-elect Donald Trump. One thing you can say about Trump is that he consistently acts like he’s stuck at the pubescent level of development and for him to say that he’ll able to act “presidential” when the occasion so warrants it, well, he better start practicing now, because the only time he appears to be presidential is when he’s reading his speech off the Teleprompter. Even then, he finds it hard to stay on message, for he frequently finds a need to regress and revert to his apparently more comfortable, non-presidential behavior, which he is—so famously and quite consistently—inclined to make. I would imagine his “handlers” must have fairly frequently and as tactfully as possible urged him to toss off the embarrassing and sometimes obscene hallmarks of his persona or public personality and to act more presidentially. That will certainly be important when, on January 20, 2017, he is sworn into office to become the 45th president of the United States.
On the other hand, the Obamas’ concept of hope is essential for us to nurture and develop in ourselves if we are to live a life filled with integrity, empathy, compassion, and service to others. Kathryn and I talk about these concepts a lot in our book Political Straight Talk: A Prescription for Healing Our Broken System of Government, identifying them as the four simple truths necessary and sufficient for living a life that can’t help but be successful, fulfilling and all that any of us would wish for it to be. That is true regardless if you’re any other kind of politician—president of the United States, member of Congress, member of the Supreme Court, member of the local school board—or just a common ordinary human being who is simply trying to engage authentically with others, whether privileged or oppressed, more or less fortunate than themselves. In other words, these four simple truths are both necessary and sufficient to live a life of hope and well-being, instead of in fear, despair, hopelessness and desperation.
We are holding these truths in the core of our beings, and with them, we stand with you.