Hope (Original Mix)

I've never been more hopeful about our future.

I have never been more hopeful about America.

And I ask you to sustain that hope.

I'm not talking about blind optimism,

the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead

or the roadblocks that stand in our path.

I'm not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us

to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight.

I have always believed

that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists,

despite all the evidence to the contrary,

that something better awaits us

so long as we have the courage to keep reaching,

to keep working, to keep fighting.

I believe we can keep the promise of our founders,

the idea that if you're willing to work hard,

it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from

or what you look like or where you love.

It doesn't matter whether you're black or white

or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old

or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight,

you can make it here in America.

I believe we can seize this future together

because we are not as divided as our politics suggests.

We're not as cynical as the pundits believe.

We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions,

and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states.

We are and forever will be the United States of America.

And together with your help and God's grace

we will continue our journey forward

and remind the world just why it is

that we live in the greatest nation on Earth.

Thank you, America.