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

I'm convinced in 100 years Obama will have an important place in the civic pantheon of American life.

Barack Obama is extremely smart.

One of the things we've learned during the Obama era is how important norms are, because we've seen how the Republican Party behaved against Obama. So much of what they did was to smash pre-existing norms, which were nothing more than assumptions of how people would behave, which didn't have any real basis in rules or limits.

It's pretty clear that Hillary Clinton was a deeply, deeply flawed alternative. She had the wrong combination of the internal political chops to muscle out all the mainstream nominations from the field, leaving only Bernie Sanders, who was unacceptable to the Democrats' party establishment. But she also had a real lack of political skill that would enable her to win the general election.

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

Barack Obama is an intellectual.