Obama’s presidency marked the last peak of collective liberal optimism.

Evidence

Today his prize at least serves as a historical marker—a symbol of the last collective moment of liberal optimism, when Obama’s presidency seemed like the dawn of a new political era. He was young, charismatic, and progressive, promising to rebuild the economy and wind down the War on Terror. Yet his presidency unfolded alongside a full-blown crisis of capitalism. The global financial crash wiped out $19 trillion in household wealth, leaving millions without jobs or homes. Before he could tackle systemic change, he had to first keep the country from unraveling. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 206

Categorization

• XREF: Reads against the reader’s backdrop of ‘era whose signature is blankness’ — the 2009-2016 period as the last gasp of a coherent cultural mood.