Former President Barack Obama said Monday on “CBS Mornings” that while change can’t come soon enough for some Americans tired of deferring their dreams, for others, it is coming “too rapidly.”
Obama and singer Bruce Springsteen were promoting their book and Spotify podcast, both titled, “Renegades: Born in the U.S.A.”
Co-host Anthony Mason said, “Over a few days last year at Springsteen’s New Jersey farm, they talked about their different experiences.”
On growing up in Hawaii, Obama said, “I’m experiencing my share of day-to-day ignorance and sleights. You get in an elevator and folks are looking nervous, or you walk by a car and locks go down.”
Springsteen said, “That’s the American story, you know? When I was young, I felt voiceless. I felt invisible, and I think we’re in trouble and that a lot of people do feel very voiceless.”
He added, “And Donald Trump was, you know, he had the cynicism and the carny ability to play on that part of our weakness. I think we’re going to be in a lot of trouble if you can’t find a way to engage a lot of people who feel disaffected whether it’s by technological change, whether it’s by the post-industrialization.”
Obama said, “Bruce is right. You end up having, on the one hand, change happening very rapidly, too rapidly for a big portion of the population. For another portion of the population, it’s like, ‘You know, how long are we going to keep having to defer this dream?”
He added, “I think that part of what we tried to do in the podcast was get everybody to feel a little more willing to recognize, you know, our own faults.”
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