If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost.
Barack ObamaGet involved in an issue that you're passionate about. It almost doesn't matter what it is ... We give too much of our power away, to the professional politicians, to the lobbyists, to cynicism. And our democracy suffers as a result.
Barack ObamaHealth care has become a proxy for a broader set of issues about how much government should be involved in our economy, particularly coming off a huge economic crisis.
Barack ObamaWe have to deal with the 11 million individuals who are here illegally. The bill that Senator [Marco] Rubio put forward, I think is a great place to start.
Barack ObamaI don't regret the fervor, because I do believe, in the African American community but also for other communities, and I know from talking to people, for communities around the world, the election of an African American to the most powerful office on Earth meant things had changed, and not just in superficial ways. That in some irreversible way the world was different.
Barack ObamaI actually believe that some residue of discrimination would lessen, because it's my view that there is a certain percentage of the white population that stereotypes and makes assumptions about African Americans because they don't inject the history of slavery and Jim Crow into current incarceration rates, or crime rates, or poverty rates, or what have you.
Barack Obama