Barack Obama is a very impressive human being.

In the long run, however much damage we come through, Obama's vision is the one that's going to be left standing. It's a question of how much pain and suffering America has to endure in the meantime.

In some ways, Trump is just going to continue the trend: by continuing the norm-smashing behaviour that Republicans used in opposition.

Republicans fighting back against changes Obama made means those changes are important, as with most of the major progress in American history.

Liberals tend to romanticize the past, past leaders' failures.

The story of the Republican Party is of a far-right that has moved from the fringes of the party to a complete domination of the party. The moderate, mainstream and pragmatic leaders of the party have been pushed out or died off.

In public, Barack Obama's giving the simple version of his beliefs for the mass public. In private, he can discuss it at a really high level.