The Perils of the Springsteen-Obama Echo Chamber

After hours of searching conversation about America and the human soul, the former president of the United States reiterated his brand identity. “Here’s what makes me optimistic … because, you know, I’m the hope guy,” Barack Obama told Bruce Springsteen in a chat recorded last year for their podcast, Renegades: Born in the USA. Transcripts of that conversation have now been adapted into a book with the same title that also features reproductions of Obama’s speeches, snatches of Springsteen’s lyrics, and hundreds of photographs.

In 2008, Obama became the “hope guy” by promising national unity after the turbulent George W. Bush years. Marketed by street-art posters and celebrity sing-alongs, deploying a dynamic oratorical style and an inspiring personal story, the would-be first Black president pitched himself as a transformational figure—and pitched America on the story of progress it could tell itself if it elected him.

[From the January/February 2017 issue: My president was Black]

Today, American optimism is tougher to rouse. Obama’s presidency was followed by the election of an open racist—and an open cynic—whose supportersconversation, Obama acknowledges that the country has entered a perilous state since Donald Trump took office. But what gives him hope now are today’s young people. Americans under 35 “overwhelmingly … do not believe in discriminating” or a “grossly unequal” economic system, he says. As he tells Springsteen, “Your songs and my speeches or books, or this conversation … I think their purpose is to let that next generation know, ‘You’re on the right track.’”