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One of the things

that is a strength of mine

-I think

sometimes maybe people

consider it a weakness

because

it frustrates them to see me

not get more frustrated- is

I tend to take

the long view on things.

And I try to remind myself that history does not just go forward. It goes sideways. It goes backwards sometimes. The path of progress is bumpy. And there are going to be setbacks. And, look; you know, the Civil War and the 13th and 14th and 15th Amendments were followed by Jim Crow and the Klan and lynching. And that was horrific and heartbreaking.

That didn’t negate the importance of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. It just meant that some bad stuff happens, but you keep on trying. And I think that’s how I ended up feeling about what I got done during the presidency. I felt that we had advanced the causes that I care deeply about and that mattered to the American people. Not all of them were going to stick exactly the way I wanted. That didn’t negate the importance of pushing to try to get that stuff done even in those areas where Donald Trump completely reversed course.

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Excerpt from interview with Barack Obama
on «Fresh Air» (NPR) November 19, 2020.

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