By Paul Benson
Reporter
The rain clouds cover the sky before the sun peeks over the horizon. Calm rain spills into the puddles and mud on the Main Quad. Students and staff are lined up on the Quad walkway. The line stretches from Foellinger Auditorium to the northern part of the Quad. Despite the rain lightly beating down on the crowd, spirits were high. I cut through the crowd to get to the press entrance.
The press line is short. One man tries to get in, but his name’s not on the list. His reporter friend sympathizes with the man as he’s turned away. I get worried about my credentials. Sure enough, my name was on the list. They tell me to throw my umbrella into an umbrella pile. A staff member comments, “someone’s gonna walk out with a new umbrella,” a couple staff members laugh. Security takes my camera bag. They get me to take everything out my pockets while they scan me with a metal detector. A police dog sniffs through the bags on the floor. Security lets me grab my bag and I walk into the auditorium.
The auditorium slowly fills up. I check my camera settings. CNN has an entire row reserved. Politicians are up front. Many people scramble over to JB Pritzker. Security scans the room in a very professional manner. The room goes quiet in waves as it gets closer to Obama’s time to speak. Everyone has a camera or a phone at the ready. First, U of I President, Timothy Killeen, greets the audience and introduces a Junior industrial design student, Amaury Saulsberry. Amaury gives a wonderful opening, reflecting on the impact Barack Obama has had on him since the age of 11 and how Obama has empowered many Americans who strive for change. His introduction for Barack Obama was short and well executed.
Faster than we could comprehend, Obama walks on stage and greets the people of Illinois. He remarks with, “It is good to be home. It’s good to see corn.” Obama goes on to thank everyone at the U of I who made it possible for him to speak on this day. Obama then gets into the heart of his speech, “As a fellow citizen, not as an Ex-President, but as a fellow citizen, I am here to deliver a simple message and that is that you need to vote, because our democracy depends on it.” He goes on to explain that the stakes for this upcoming election in November are higher than any other time in his life. Obama also mentions that this isn’t the only time the American people have had to make a tough decision, he affirms, “Democracy has never been easy.” As the speech continues, people are tapping away at keyboards and camera shutters are constantly clicking.
Obama alludes to the point that America is about making progress and, “Progress doesn’t just move in a straight line[….] Throughout our history every two steps forward seems to sometimes produce one step back.” There are always people who push back for the sake of the status quo. There are people in positions of power who want to stay in power by keeping the United States divided and then there are many people with no power who are afraid of change. Trump was not previously mentioned up until this point, Obama states, “It did not start with Donald Trump, he is a symptom not the cause.” He implies here that Trump is pushing the status quo like many other politicians in the past. Trump is making America step back again. Obama ultimately says that an appeal to fear is as old as time and it will not work in a healthy democracy.
In contrast to a healthy democracy, fear wins when there is a void, Obama explains, “When we take our basic rights and freedoms for granted, when we turn around and stop paying attention, and stop engaging, and stop believing, and look for the newest diversion, the electronic versions of bread and circus, then other voices fill the void.” He makes it clear that this appeal to fear is not about Republicans versus Democrats or liberals versus conservatives. In these times, we cannot afford to be divided and hateful towards our friends, families, and neighbors. He goes over the progressive leaps each political party has made over America’s history and claims, “Neither party has been exclusively responsible for us going backwards instead of forwards.” With that said, Obama adds that in the last few decades the politics of division, resentment, and paranoia have been pushed by the Republican party. He gives many examples of how the Republican party has gone against their original conservative values and have become radical. One example of this is how the Republicans wouldn’t allow policies that benefit working class families or medical care for seniors to be passed due to the deficit crisis, but now give 1.5 trillion dollar tax breaks to the wealthy, who don’t need it, while the deficit is higher than it was when Obama was in office. Republicans also made it so that America is the only country in the world to pull out of the Paris Agreement. Neither North Korea nor even Syria is out of the Paris Agreement. Obama asks, “What happened to the Republican party?”
Republicans are acting in government with no checks or balances, but in two months the American people can change this. Obama makes it clear that we can’t stay divided, “We can’t just put walls up all around America.” He argues that in order to solve problems and make lives better we need a well functioning government, we need our civic institutions to work, and we need to cooperate despite our political persuasions. People need to come together instead of tearing each other apart. The real enemy of democracy in our political climate is our division. In order to restore democracy we need to build bridges between political differences, not walls.
This speech is well delivered and anyone interested should give it watch. His rhetoric isn’t for everyone as it is clearly anti-Trump. Even the most ardent Trump supporters can see what Obama has to say about the radical shift in the Republican party holds true. Why do we have to enforce a dichotomy of political beliefs in place of political conversation? It’s easy to be biased, but it is more fulfilling and logical to be more open minded toward policies that counter your political beliefs.
The speech was over, so I exit through the door I came in from. The reporter sitting next to me is looking in a pile of umbrellas for hers but can’t find it. She walks away drenched in the rain. I was lucky enough to still have mine and I need it for the walk home. Outside the air is humid with the heat of a warming climate. Behind the auditorium hundreds of students crowd around in the pouring rain hoping to get a picture of the former President.
