Obama's former speechwriter Ben Rhodes examines America through its 15 most defining speeches

Jeremiah Wright’s statements about America being founded on racism and about 9/11 as blowback are described as views that have become common. Ben Rhodes links Wright’s prominence to the controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s rise during the 2008 Democratic primary. Footage of Wright included harsh language about America treating citizens as less than human and remarks portraying Obama as a Black man in a culture controlled by rich white people. The controversy raised questions about whether Obama hated America. Obama answered with the Philadelphia speech “A More Perfect Union,” largely written by himself, presenting his personal story as a Black son of a white mother in a divided country. Rhodes notes the speech succeeded but differed from what he initially planned to cover.

"Donald Trump has proven Jeremiah Wright correct about a lot of things, said Ben Rhodes, a former speechwriter and deputy national security adviser to Barack Obama and still a close aide to the ex-president. If you look at the things that Jeremiah Wright was kind of canceled for, it was saying America was a nation founded on racism. Well, it's a fairly common view these days. 9/11 was the chickens coming home to roost? I make versions of that argument every time I write for the New York Times: that American foreign policy has blowback."

"During the 2008 Democratic primary, footage emerged of Wright featuring lines like God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human and calling Obama, to whom he ministered, a Black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. To Rhodes, progressives like Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar would say those things today, and in the post-George Floyd moment, everybody was talking like Jeremiah Wright."

"In the 2008 moment, though, the media and Obama's opponents demanded to know: did he hate America as Wright supposedly did? On 18 March, in Philadelphia, Obama responded with a speech, A More Perfect Union, that he mostly wrote himself. Rhodes recalls watching from the candidate's headquarters in Chicago as Obama gave what the campaign called the race speech, setting out to tell Americans his story as the Black son of a white mother in a country sharply divided."

"It worked, but it was not the Obama speech Rhodes originally chose for All We Say. He wrote an entire chapter about the speech Obama gave in Selma in 2015 [on the"

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