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In His Eulogy for John Lewis, Barack Obama Just Changed the Landscape of a Joe Biden Presidency
By coming out unequivocally for destroying the filibuster—along with supporting D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood—the former president drew some new lines on the field.
July 30 - Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, delivered a eulogy at the funeral for John Lewis in Atlanta on Thursday that traced the long arc of history that ran through the great man's life. He spoke of Lewis's bravery at Selma—and in the Freedom Rides, and in the Nashville sit-ins—and how the Alabama state troopers, some of whom nearly beat Lewis to death at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, might have thought they'd won at the end of the first day. That they'd pushed back the tide of history and preserved for themselves the order of things. But then another day came. It seemed an allegory for our times, when, as ever, the relentless movement to make this country live up to its founding values is "hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed."
But Obama's grasp also tightened on what might be called more concrete concerns. He demanded that those many politicians calling John Lewis a hero could best honor him "by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for"—the Voting Rights Act, which Senate Republicans have refused to renew. The Supreme Court's gutting of the Act under John Roberts precipitated a wave of voter suppression, particularly in the very same former Jim Crow states that the Act had originally targeted for the most stringent oversight. Obama demanded the Act's revitalization, but he went further: he called for the destruction of the Senate filibuster if it's necessary to do so—that is, if Republicans lose control of the chamber and abuse the filibuster to block legislation. In the process, he classified the filibuster itself as a "Jim Crow relic."... more
By coming out unequivocally for destroying the filibuster—along with supporting D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood—the former president drew some new lines on the field.
July 30 - Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, delivered a eulogy at the funeral for John Lewis in Atlanta on Thursday that traced the long arc of history that ran through the great man's life. He spoke of Lewis's bravery at Selma—and in the Freedom Rides, and in the Nashville sit-ins—and how the Alabama state troopers, some of whom nearly beat Lewis to death at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, might have thought they'd won at the end of the first day. That they'd pushed back the tide of history and preserved for themselves the order of things. But then another day came. It seemed an allegory for our times, when, as ever, the relentless movement to make this country live up to its founding values is "hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed."
But Obama's grasp also tightened on what might be called more concrete concerns. He demanded that those many politicians calling John Lewis a hero could best honor him "by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for"—the Voting Rights Act, which Senate Republicans have refused to renew. The Supreme Court's gutting of the Act under John Roberts precipitated a wave of voter suppression, particularly in the very same former Jim Crow states that the Act had originally targeted for the most stringent oversight. Obama demanded the Act's revitalization, but he went further: he called for the destruction of the Senate filibuster if it's necessary to do so—that is, if Republicans lose control of the chamber and abuse the filibuster to block legislation. In the process, he classified the filibuster itself as a "Jim Crow relic."... more
Remembering John Lewis: In His Own Words | NBC Nightly News
Jul 31, 2020
Jul 31, 2020
