In State of the Union, Obama Confronts Americans’ Fears - nytimes

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Tuesday tried to reconcile an optimistic assessment of the nation’s progress with the anxieties he conceded have gripped Americans during his tenure, using his final State of the Union address to try to burnish his record and frame the campaign to succeed him.

In a prime-time televised speech that was more a broad statement of vision than a policy prescription, Mr. Obama sought to present an ambitious portrait of the nation after seven years of his leadership, with a resurgent economy and better standing in the world despite continuing challenges of inequality at home and terrorism abroad. 

But he acknowledged that many Americans feel frightened and shut out of a political and economic system they view as rigged against their interests, even as he offered an implicit rebuke of Republicans who are playing on those insecurities in the presidential race.

“As frustration grows, there will be voices urging us to fall back into tribes, to scapegoat fellow citizens who don’t look like us, or pray like us, or vote like we do, or share the same background,” Mr. Obama said. “We can’t afford to go down that path.”

He repeatedly sought to contrast Republicans’ bleak appraisals of the state of the nation with his own upbeat argument. In one of the most applauded lines of the evening, Mr. Obama declared: “I told you earlier all the talk of America’s economic decline is political hot air. Well, so is all the rhetoric you hear about our enemies getting stronger and America getting weaker. The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. It’s not even close. It’s not even close!”

Mr. Obama implicitly singled out Donald J. Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, for pointed criticism, saying that Americans must resist calls to stigmatize all Muslims at a time of threats from the Islamic State. - Read Mpre at the nytimes

A Call to ‘Fix Our Politics’ in Obama’s State of the Union

Transcript of Obama’s 2016 State of the Union Address