Obama Notes the ‘Fragility’ of Progress in First Speech After Vote to Repeal ACA
Former president Barack Obama spoke at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston on Sunday night, where he called for courage following Congress’ efforts to repeal the signature legislation of his political legacy.
Obama was receiving the library’s Profile in Courage award tonight in Boston, and it was his first major speech since the House of Representatives narrowly voted to replace the Affordable Care Act with the American Health Care Act. While Obama did not directly address the development, his speech was themed around courage, and he expressed hope that people on both sides of the political aisle will continue to show it in the future.
“It is my fervent hope, and the fervent hope of millions, that regardless of party, such courage is still possible,” Obama said. “That today’s members of Congress, regardless of party, are willing to look at the facts and speak the truth, even when it contradicts party positions.”
Obama talked about how the congressmen who helped pass the Affordable Care Act showed their own “profile in courage,” even if their support wasn’t politically advantageous. The former president went on to say that such courage will continue to be necessary in order to defend and maintain America’s progress as a nation.
“We are constantly having to make a choice, because progress is fragile, and it is precisely that fragility, that impermanence that is a precondition of the quality of character that we celebrate tonight. If the vitality of our democracy, if the gains of the long journey to freedom were assured, none of us would ever have to be courageous, and none of us would have to risk anything to protect them, but it is in the very precariousness that courage becomes possible and absolutely necessary.”
Watch above, via MSNBC.
[Image via screengrab]
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