On Tuesday, former President Barack Obama officially released his memoir covering much of his time in the White House. The book — called A Promised Land — emerges some time after former First Lady Michelle Obama released her own wildly successful memoir, Becoming. In composing his own book, the former president says that his goal was “to give you some insight into the events and people that shaped” him during the initial stages of his presidency. (A second book is planned.) There’s a stark contrast between the careful self-reflection of Obama’s writing and the consistent, desperate, and nonsensical conspiracy theories from outgoing President Donald Trump.
On Twitter, alongside a video message in which he dives further into the themes, the former president said as follows:
‘My memoir, A Promised Land, is out today. I hope you’ll read it. My goal was to give you some insight into the events and people that shaped me during the early years of my presidency. Most of all, I hope it inspires you to see yourself playing a role in shaping a better world.’
See Obama’s comments below:
My memoir, A Promised Land, is out today. I hope you’ll read it. My goal was to give you some insight into the events and people that shaped me during the early years of my presidency. Most of all, I hope it inspires you to see yourself playing a role in shaping a better world. pic.twitter.com/hdZysCpCN9
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 17, 2020
The former president has recently vocally spotlighted the dangers of Trump’s behavior as his presidency draws to a close. Trump has refused to conclusively admit that he lost the recent election to Joe Biden, who leads nationally by millions of votes. This refusal to admit to basic reality throws a wrench in the democratic process, since Trump has been sowing baseless distrust in the electoral process among his followers. There is no meaningful evidence for the president’s claim that systematic fraud plagued the recent election. The Department of Homeland Security itself has characterized the recent election as the “most secure in American history.”
Obama recently observed as follows:
‘We have gone through a presidency that disregarded a whole host of basic institutional norms — expectations we had for a president that had been observed by Republicans and Democrats previously. And maybe most importantly, and most disconcertingly, what we’ve seen is what some people call ‘truth decay,’ something that’s been accelerated by outgoing President Trump, the sense that not only do we not have to tell the truth, but the truth doesn’t even matter.’
“What we've seen is what some people call truth decay. Something that's been accelerated by outgoing President Trump, the sense that not only do we not have to tell the truth, but the truth doesn't even matter,” says former President Obama. https://t.co/SemqJzMGMD pic.twitter.com/oaV7vGG3K2
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) November 16, 2020
Check out Twitter’s response to Obama’s message about his book below:
