Obama will call for a ‘more perfect union’

President Obama on Tuesday night will call on Americans to “form a more perfect union” during his farewell address to the nation.

Obama plans to affirm his faith in the nation’s founding principles and encourage people of all political stripes, including those who oppose President-elect Donald Trump, to remain engaged civic life.

“It’s the insistence that these rights, while self-evident, have never been self-executing; that we, the people, through the instrument of our democracy, can form a more perfect union,” he will say, according to excerpts released by the White House.

{mosads}“This is the great gift our founders gave us,” he will continue. “The freedom to chase our individual dreams through our sweat, toil, and imagination – and the imperative to strive together as well, to achieve a greater good.”

The speech in Obama’s home city of Chicago is a chance for him to lift up supporters disappointed by Trump’s victory in the presidential election.

It’s a symbolic bookend to Obama’s eight years in office; he is returning to the city that launched his political career and the site of his rousing victory speech in 2008.

He plans to sprinkle a little nostalgia into his speech, harkening back to his coming of age as a community organizer working in some of the most economically depressed areas of the Windy City.

“It was on these streets where I witnessed the power of faith, and the quiet dignity of working people in the face of struggle and loss,” he will say. “This is where I learned that change only happens when ordinary people get involved, get engaged, and come together to demand it.”

But Obama will be forced to confront the shortcomings of his presidency, including the election of Trump, whose campaign stood in stark contrast to his message of hope.