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Obama exits the presidency voicing optimism for the future

Obama

WASHINGTON — Closing out a barrier-breaking chapter in history, former President Barack Obama left the White House on Friday much the way he entered it eight years ago: insisting Americans have reason for optimism despite the national sense of unease.

He was gracious to President Donald Trump to the end, warmly welcoming his successor to the home where he raised his daughters. Yet to those fearful about Trump’s presidency, Obama suggested it would be a mere blip.

“This is just a little pit stop,” Obama told supporters just before departing Washington. “This is not a period, this is a comma in the continuing story of building America.”

Obama leaves the national stage as a widely popular figure, with his poll numbers approaching 60 percent. He’s being replaced by the least popular president in four decades, polls show — a reality on display in Trump’s low-key inauguration.

On the National Mall, far fewer showed up than the throng that attended Obama’s 2009 inauguration, and some protesters downtown hurled bricks and broke windows in a show of defiance. Many others demonstrated peacefully.

Left unspoken in Obama’s final hours was the unpleasant reality that his successor has pledged to reverse much, if not most, of what he accomplished. That has raised the prospect that Obama’s major lasting legacy may be as a cultural icon: the first black president, who ushered the country into a new era in which gays can marry, marijuana is legal in more places than ever and white people will soon be a minority.

Yet inside the White House, the Obama imprint that once appeared indelible suddenly seemed more fleeting. Photos of him and his family were taken down from the walls, leaving big, white voids that seemed to beckon the new president to make “the people’s house” his own.

Obama’s staffers left one reminder on the wall near a West Wing entrance: a collection of newspaper front pages from Obama’s proudest moments, including the day he signed the Affordable Care Act and the day the Senate confirmed his nomination of the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.

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