#55: The Obamas

Good, likeable human beings

Depending on your political leanings, I’m about to say something heretical or harmless: I like the Obamas. I like them a lot.

After listening to Michelle’s Becoming and Barack’s A Promised Land, they won me over. I think it helped that I listened to the audiobooks and I could hear their tone and feel their sincerity.

I haven’t always liked the Obamas. In 2008 I identified as Republican, watched and trusted mostly conservative media outlets, and spent Sunday dinners with my solid-right extended family who warned me about the socialist Democratic candidate. I didn’t really care enough about politics at the time to make the effort to vet what I was hearing. It was easy, comfortable, and familiar to go along with the status quo in my family and the state I was living in: Utah. I didn’t even bother to vote in ‘08, but if I had it would have been for McCain (although, when Obama won, I distinctly recall getting caught up in the proud, self-congratulatory rapture of America electing our first Black president).

I provide that history so you know my frame of mind in those years. I was Bertier’s mother from Remember the Titans when she said “I don’t want to get to know him.” 13 years and a political reckoning later, while reading these well written, engaging (Michelle’s more so than Barack’s), detailed (Barack’s more so than Michelle’s), and personal accounts, it was like they were coming over to my house and lifting me off my feet in a bear hug.

I recommend both these books. You don’t have to agree with their politics to acknowledge that they did their best and embraced American values.

Have you read these books? How do you feel about the Obamas? Let’s talk about it.

Kyle