The other day, a Facebook ‘memory’flashed up on my phone. It was 2008 and I was in LA hugging a life-size cardboard cut-out of Barack Obama. Four months later he would go on to win the American Presidential election. The few weeks I was in California that summer, the excitement around Obama felt palpable: the streets were lined with posters of him and the people I met talked enthusiastically about change being in the air (although this won’t have been the case in the less liberal states).
Seeing that picture the other day made my heart sink and my body ache with nostalgia. When he won the Democratic ticket in November 2008, beating Republican candidate John McCain, many of us felt hopeful at the new era this would bring. He represented tolerance, equality and justice.
Thinking about what was around the corner at that point – he was the first ever African American President for starters, the epitome of hope and change - puts into sharper focus the depressing state of American politics today, and makes it feel all the more unbelievable.
Although his reign feels like another lifetime now, it’s a lifetime many of us would like to remember.
Although his reign feels like another lifetime now, it’s a lifetime many of us would like to remember. Which is why seeing the cover of A PROMISED LAND, the first volume of Barack Obama’s Presidential Memoirs will no doubt be cheering people all over the world today (before landing us in a pit of despair when we come back down to earth).
It also gave us serious Fleabag vibes (if you know, you know). That laugh! That open shirt without a tie! Everything he stands for! The image of him on the cover depicts him smiling and relaxed; it seems to embody the gentle but serious man who was leader of the free world, before fake news, sexual assault allegations, bullying and climate change denial became an acceptable trait for the job.
In his own words, Obama uses the memoir to tell the story of his ‘improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity’ to American president. He describes, in personal detail, both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency— ‘a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.’
The description of the book explains it provides a ‘stirring, deeply personal account of history in the making, Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office.’
Forget Selling Sunset, it’s Obama’s memoirs we’ll be tucking into at bedtime as a form of escapism from the horror show that is 2020.
A PROMISED LAND, is scheduled for global release on Tuesday, November 17, 2020
READ MORE: All The Women Who Have Accused Donald Trump Of Sexual Assault
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