Thanks, Obama Read online

  “Any system that allows us to turn a blind eye to hopelessness and despair, that’s not a justice system, it is an injustice system.”

  It was the kind of line I never would have written a year earlier. It was too aggressive, too sweeping, too at risk of being labeled a sound bite. But now, in my own fourth quarter, I didn’t care. Bucket. Why not?

  President Obama finished the speech with an RP story. Born in Philadelphia, Jeff Copeland was arrested six times before age thirty-eight. To pass the time, Jeff used to spend hours jogging in place in his cell. Fellow inmates dubbed him “The Running Man.”

  Then one day, for reasons even he couldn’t explain, Jeff decided to turn his life around. He got sober. He graduated summa cum laude from community college, with a 3.95 GPA. He found a job.

  “Just two years ago,” President Obama told the crowd, “the Running Man ran his first marathon—because he’s going somewhere now.”

  There was a giant round of applause. Then POTUS continued:

  “We are not perfect, but we have the capacity to be more perfect. Mile after mile; step after step. And they pile up, one after the other, and pretty soon that finish line starts getting into sight, and we are not where we were. We’re in a better place.”

  “We are not where we were.” My life was about as different from Jeff Copeland’s as it is possible to imagine. And yet what applied to him also applied, in its own way, to me. I thought about the January night I first found my candidate, or the days I spent at the Crisis Hut, playing Minesweeper like it was my job. I was so far from the place where I had started. Now, my finish line was in sight.

  I DIDN’T GO IMMEDIATELY. I WAS IN THE ROOSEVELT ROOM AT 9 A.M. on November 5, 2015, exactly one year after our post-midterm pep talk, when the door swung open and POTUS appeared. Plenty of folks had counted us out, he reminded us. But look at how far we had come. A nuclear deal with Iran. Millions of new jobs. Higher wages. More clean energy. Countless new protections for consumer rights, and civil rights, and women’s rights, and workers’ rights. I clapped as enthusiastically as anyone, knowing it was the last time I’d be in this kind of room with the president of the United States.

  Cody and I decided on a date for my departure: Friday, January 22, 2016. As it drew nearer, everything about the building began to seem more specific, more place-y. The EEOB basement was at its murderiest. The grease smell outside Ike’s smelled greasier than ever before.

  No less acutely, I began to realize all the things I would miss. The perfume of flowers in the Rose Garden. The floor-tile fossils. The impressive-yet-humble men’s room. The weighty significance of the door to the senior staff gym. It was a cliché, but a true one, that I would miss my coworkers more than any job perk. There are simply not many places where 95 percent of the people—even the ones who drive you crazy—are really, really good at their jobs.

  What I would miss most of all, however, was power. I know I’m not supposed to say that. It makes me sound like a Bond villain. But I don’t care. For a person who hopes to make things better, wanting power is no different than a singer craving a microphone, or an actor yearning for a stage. For five years, whatever gifts I possessed were amplified a millionfold by the eighteen acres where I worked. If I had a stroke of insight, or a dalliance with a muse, my entire country was in some small way better for it. Who wouldn’t want a taste of power like that?

  AS MY FINAL WEEK OF WORK BEGAN, A PART OF ME HOPED FOR A last-minute summons to the Oval.

  “Litt! You can’t leave. The country will fall apart without you.”

  No such summons ever came, of course. Instead of postponing my departure to take on an alien invasion or zombie apocalypse, I spent my last week in the White House filling out a dazzling array of forms. It was a scavenger hunt in reverse. Had I dropped off my gym key at the athletic office? Had my computer and BlackBerry been handed over to operations? Had I returned the library’s FDR biography, the one I renewed no fewer than nineteen times? These questions took up most of Monday and Tuesday.

  Wednesday, January 20, belonged to my final POTUS speech. This was for the trip to Detroit, the one that began with a two-thousand-calorie lunch, was punctuated by a snowstorm, and ended with the motorcade snarled in traffic. On Thursday, still shaken after the previous night’s slip-slide through the District of Columbia, I began to pack.

  It is fair to say I was not known for office tidiness. It is fairer to say that my work space was a dreadful, undeniable mess. Cleaning out my desk was akin to an archeological dig. Also, there was less time for tidying up than I had anticipated. After the relatively light dusting on Wednesday evening, one of the biggest blizzards in D.C. history was forecast to arrive on Friday afternoon. I crammed years’ worth of detritus into boxes as quickly as I could.

  Without meaning to, I was creating an extremely mundane time capsule. Several pounds of gym clothes, along with one open tin of shoe polish and seven mismatched socks. My Nerf gun, a secret-Santa gift from Cody, which I shot into the air like a warlord during fits of writer’s block. Add to this the impressive collection of plastic utensils I’d pilfered from the cafeteria, and three dozen thick history books I meant to read but never did. I dragged the heavy cardboard boxes to the car, more grateful than ever for my parking pass. Even so, I was at it well into the night.

  On Friday, my last day at the White House, the federal government was closed in anticipation of the coming blizzard. Employees were instructed to telecommute. But cleaning an office can’t be done remotely. My only option was to return. This time I left the car at home but brought a suitcase, a wheeled one, big enough to carry several years’ worth of junk. Office supplies. Mini bottles of rum and whisky. A single, lonely shoe. Mindful of the storm fast approaching, I stuffed everything in without regard to sentiment or preservation. Half a two-pack of ibuprofen. Boxes upon boxes of presidential M&M’s.

  It was only when I reached a worn, tarnished picture frame that I paused.

  Inside was a note addressed to my great-grandfather. In 1934, he wrote a letter to the White House, wishing FDR a happy birthday. He never received a presidential reply. But he did get a thank-you from Louis Howe, one of Roosevelt’s top aides, along with an assurance that his message had reached the president’s desk. I never met my great-grandfather. Other than his name, Maurice, I know almost nothing about him. But I know how much that note on White House stationery meant to him: he framed it and kept it until he died.

  What would he make of all this? I wondered. Imagine if he could see me, just three generations later, sitting a few hundred yards from the Oval, my own stack of White House stationery in my desk. In human history, what a vanishingly rare story. In America, how typical.

  My next thought was less poetic. Holy shit. It’s fucking snowing.

  As forecast, a full-blown blizzard had arrived. The flakes were coming down thick. An uncomfortable thought struck me: if the snow accumulated more than a few inches, the wheels on my suitcase would be useless. I would be stranded on the sidewalk. I had to leave. Now.

  Thus began my final, not-so-dignified stroll through the corridors of power. I grabbed the last few items from my office and laced my snow boots in a panic. Already sweating in my down jacket, I sprinted through the wide, empty hall.

  The moment I stepped outside, however, I stopped to look around. I couldn’t help it. In the falling snow, the White House campus and the outside world had reversed roles. Out there life was messy and chaotic. In here, everything was untouched, pristine, calm. I walked until I reached the north end of West Executive Avenue. I passed a security checkpoint and heard the familiar click of the lock sliding open in the gate.

  One year later, when many of my colleagues left the White House for the last time, they wouldn’t have the luxury of feeling wistful. So much of what defined Obama—so much of what defined America—would be under assault like never before. But I was lucky. Standing along the fence between the building and Pennsylvania Avenue, I could think back to what POTUS had said abo
ut Jeff Copeland near the conclusion of his speech.

  “We are not perfect, but we have the capacity to be more perfect. Mile after mile; step after step.”

  As a small avalanche fell from my hat onto my jacket, I thought of all the miles that had piled up over the past eight years. I had knocked on doors and driven naked. I had organized a county and scrubbed Janice Maier’s table till it gleamed. I sang the Golden Girls theme song in the Oval. I watched a tiny man surf Jesse Jackson’s coat. In a convention hall in Charlotte, I met a mom from Arizona who would never stop fighting for her little girl. I was disillusioned more times than I thought possible. I was reinspired more times than I could count. I navigated Healthcare.gov for a woman, the highest test of love. I helped break the Internet. I wrote one perfect speech. I found a salmon in the toilet and was caught half naked on Air Force One and told the president he looked like Hitler to his face.

  I was, I felt, more perfect than when I started. As one chapter ends and another begins, what more can you ask for than that?

  With my right hand I clutched my suitcase. With my left I gripped the iron bar. Blinking snow from my eyelashes, I took one last look at the building before pushing into the storm. And then, smiling despite everything, I walked out the gate, to America.

  Epilogue

  SQUISHING THE SCORPION

  “So,” she asks, “how’s that whole hopey, changey thing workin’ out for ya?”

  It’s January 28, 2017, and imaginary Sarah Palin is whispering in my ear. She’s been doing this nonstop since Donald Trump became president eight days ago. I’ll be going for a run, cooking tilapia with Jacqui, picking up a six-pack of paper towels from CVS. No matter what I’m doing, her folksy insult lingers, a kind of malevolent background hum.

  Right now what I’m doing—what I’ve flown halfway across the country to do—is watch a six-year-old practice karate. She’s tiny, even for a first grader. Along with her white uniform, she wears bright purple glasses. A bright purple hair tie holds her ponytail in place. We’re in the kind of pint-size martial arts studio that caters to children: a few punching bags, some motivational posters, a long table piled high with Capri Sun. At the center of the mat stands the instructor, a young blond woman who goes by Miss B.

  “Pretend I’m coming toward you,” Miss B says. She leans down, protecting herself with a thick black practice pad. “Ready?”

  The student’s size masks surprising fury. “HICE!” she yells. (I guess this is how kids these days say “Hai-ya!”) A golf-ball-size knee launches upward, hitting Miss B’s practice pad with a satisfying thwack.

  “HICE!” Thwack.

  “HICE!” Thwack.

  From our bench along one wall of the studio, the little girl’s dad leans toward me. “She tried that on me once,” he sighs. “I was standing in the bathroom and she ran up and got my leg.” I laugh and try to imagine the scene.

  But Donald Trump is president, and my imagination is permanently elsewhere these days. From the small Arizona karate studio, my mind wanders to a beautiful D.C. day in the fall of 2015. I’m returning from the West Wing to my office. As I walk up the EEOB steps, David Simas walks down. Beneath his cliffs of hair sits a bewildered, can-you-believe-it smile.

  “Donald Trump!” grins the president’s political director.

  “Donald Trump!” I grin back.

  Don’t get me wrong—we’re not happy to see him run. His campaign, only a few months old, is already a national disgrace. What Bush hinted at, and Palin masked with a smile, Trump bellows at the top of his lungs. Dog whistles have become primal screams: Mexicans are murderers and rapists. Illegals are stealing our jobs. Obama founded ISIS. Vladimir Putin is a role model. Journalists are the enemy. White supremacists are just fine.

  Yet as campaign people, it’s impossible not to revel in the chaos. Watching Trump tear through the GOP primaries is like watching a sworn enemy suddenly realize the full implications of owning a pet chimpanzee. Republicans had plenty of chances to cut him loose. They chose not to. Now it seems obvious that Trump is poised to tear apart the conservative movement. A majority of voters will reject him. There’s no way he will win.

  We are two-thirds right, which is a little like describing the Hindenburg’s final voyage as “mostly without incident.” Still, it’s worth noting: the party of Ronald Reagan died with Donald Trump. For years, Republicans like Paul Ryan pretended their voters cared about conservative ideology: tax cuts for rich people; widespread deregulation; manly chins. Trump exposed all that as nonsense. More than anything, he realized, the Republican base was motivated by a kind of equal-opportunity resentment. To the question, “Who’s screwing you over?” Trump’s answer was simple. Everyone. He attacked undocumented immigrants one minute, Wall Street bankers the next. He was buoyed by fears of global elites and racial minorities alike.

  And he guessed, correctly, that many Americans felt democracy was a luxury we could no longer afford. “I alone can fix it!” he announced in his convention speech. In the hall, the audience cheered. On our gray Martha Stewart Living couch, Jacqui and I stared at our TV in shock.

  “There’s no way voters will actually go for that, right?” I asked.

  “No,” Jacqui said. “No way.” But her voice lacked confidence.

  Technically, of course, Jacqui was right: Hillary Clinton won the most votes on Election Day. But those votes came from the wrong places. Trump surged in the swing states—in my former turf of Wayne County, Ohio, he beat Mitt Romney’s margin by a whopping thirteen points. By the end of the night, thanks to the Electoral College, he was president-elect.

  That was three months ago. Now it’s Saturday, January 28. In Washington, our new commander in chief is calling Putin from the Oval. In Arizona, Miss B goes over footwork before next week’s yellow-belt exam.

  “Imagine there’s a bug on the floor,” she tells her eager student. “What’s the grossest bug you can think of?”

  “A scorpion!”

  “All right, a scorpion. After you kick, I want you to put your foot down and squish the scorpion, okay?”

  The bright purple hair tie bobs enthusiastically. The first grader resumes practice. And as she does, I remember the first time I saw her: in a campaign video, just a few days old, tubes running in and out of her chest. The second time I saw her she was in her father’s arms in Charlotte, watching her mother address a rapt convention hall. One year after that, thanks to the law that lifted the lifetime cap on her insurance, she had her third and final open-heart surgery. It went better than even Stacey had hoped.

  “HICE!” Thwack.

  “HICE!” Thwack.

  Zoe Lihn brings her tiny foot down, hard, onto the mat. That scorpion never stood a chance.

  THIS IS WHY I’VE COME TO ARIZONA. IN WASHINGTON, THEY’RE already talking about undoing everything Obama fought for. Which executive orders will be rescinded? Which laws will be repealed? And it’s true: part of Barack Obama’s legacy lives on paper. But another part goes to elementary school in Phoenix, loves Mexican food and stuffed animals, and is hoping to ace her yellow-belt test next week.

  Some accomplishments, in other words, are impossible to undo. Millions of people found jobs thanks to Obama’s decisions. Soldiers who spent Christmas 2008 in Iraq and Afghanistan spent Christmas 2016 at home. Bin Laden was on the loose eight years ago. Now he isn’t. Even Trump can’t change that.

  Also, while POTUS didn’t upend our politics like I had hoped he would, he completely transformed our culture. Barack Obama grew up in a kind of gray area, torn between races and worlds. During his presidency, a new generation of outsiders—gays and lesbians, African Americans, immigrants, science nerds, kids with funny names, and so many others—grew up feeling part of America in a way they hadn’t before. And a new generation of insiders—kids like me but younger—grew up learning there’s nothing shameful or scary about people who are different. That kind of sea change can be postponed for a while. But it’s nearly impossible to reverse.

>   Nor is repealing laws as simple as it sounds. I don’t mean to be naive. As Zoe practices a series of decisive blocking motions, the Trump presidency is just eight days old, and already it’s clear that plenty of progress will be rolled back.

  But it turns out even voters who didn’t like Obama shared many of his priorities. Americans want clean air and water. They care more about middle-class wages than upper-income tax cuts. People insured thanks to the Affordable Care Act have no interest in seeing their health care disappear. In a representative democracy like ours, popular opinion isn’t everything. It is, however, something. And right now, it’s largely on the former POTUS’s side.

  So, at the end of the day, was Barack Obama a good president? It’s a question I thought had been settled the night of the Charleston speech. Now here I am, in the shadow of Trump, asking it again. And yet, while the future has become frighteningly uncertain, it’s impossible to watch Zoe Lihn lose herself in a flurry of kicks and punches without being confident about the past. Of course he was a good president. Look at her go.

  BUT ENOUGH ABOUT OBAMA’S LEGACY. WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF US?

  I mean that sincerely. For some people in Obamaworld, POTUS included, the White House was the climax of a life story. But for many more it wasn’t. Like thousands of my fellow staffers, working for the president was my first real job out of college. Our names don’t belong in the history books. No professors will devote their lives to examining choices we made. Still, there are questions that need answers. Was going into government the right way to spend our twenties? What should the next generation do differently? Where do we go from here?

  Whenever I ask myself these questions, I remember my college commencement speaker, former British prime minister Tony Blair. I don’t recall a word he said, but I do recall thinking his speech should have been titled, “Amusing Things That Happened to Me, Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.” He riffled through anecdotes, made fun of the French, and told us to follow our hearts. Not exactly profound.