rjzimmerman:

He’s back, and his timing couldn’t be better. What better place than back home in Illinois! President Obama spoke at the main campus of the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, as he accepted the Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government from the University’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs.

How did trump react to the speech? “I’m sorry I watched it, but I fell asleep,” Trump said, during his own speech in North Dakota. My question back to trump: Falling asleep presumes that at some point you’ve been awake. Prove that.

I’ve posted a link to the entire speech, from his “Illini” greeting to the students in the auditorium to the end. As we’ve come to expect from this man, his speech was powerful, incisive and relevant. I listened to the speech live, and heard so many passages that are worthy of repeating. But if I started there, this post would be way, way too long. So I’ll just extract one piece of it, from the end of his speech:

We have been through much darker times than these. And somehow each generation of Americans carried us through to the other side. Not by sitting around and waiting for something to happen, not by leaving it to others to do something, but by leading that movement for change themselves. And if you do that, if you get involved and you get engaged and you knock on some doors and you talk with your friends and you argue with your family members and you change some minds and you vote, something powerful happens. Change happens. Hope happens. Not perfection, not every bit of cruelty and sadness and poverty and disease suddenly stricken from the Earth. There will still be problems, but with each new candidate that surprises you with a victory that you supported, a spark of hope happens.

With each new law that helps a kid read or helps a homeless family find shelter or helps a veteran get the support he or she has earned, each time that happens hope happens. With each new step we take in the direction of fairness and justice and equality and opportunity, hope spreads. And that can be the legacy of your generation.

You can be the generation that at a critical moment stood up and reminded us just how precious this experiment in democracy really is, just how powerful it can be when we fight for it, when we believe in it. I believe in you. I believe you will help lead us in the right direction, and I will be right there with you every step of the way. Thank you, Illinois. God bless you. God bless this country we love.

Thank you.