| Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. If you didn't get a chance to see former President Barack Obama's eulogy for Representative John Lewis, it's worth watching. Obama remains someone who thinks seriously about America, and while the media devoted most of its attention to his criticisms of President Donald Trump, and to his declaration that the Senate should abandon the filibuster if necessary to pass voting-rights legislation, the speech was about more than those things: America was built by John Lewises. He as much as anyone in our history brought this country a little bit closer to our highest ideals. And someday, when we do finish that long journey toward freedom; when we do form a more perfect union — whether it's years from now, or decades, or even if it takes another two centuries — John Lewis will be a founding father of that fuller, fairer, better America. Isn't that gorgeous? Discussing a hero's future — Lewis "will be a founding father" — at his funeral. The theme here is one that Obama has invoked before, and that the civil-rights movement also used: that racial equality is both the fulfillment of the promise of the original founding, and also a kind of new founding. Later in the speech, Obama quotes Martin Luther King Jr. on that point, and both are working in the tradition of President Abraham Lincoln, who of course sought a "new birth of freedom" while looking back at the founding. So for Obama it is the "most American of ideas" that "any of us ordinary people without rank or wealth or title or fame can somehow point out the imperfections of this nation, and come together, and challenge the status quo, and decide that it is in our power to remake this country that we love until it more closely aligns with our highest ideals." And he quite correctly identifies Lewis as someone who advanced the extra-institutional politics of protests while knowing when "to translate our passion and our causes into laws and institutional practices." Where I think Obama was less successful was placing the importance of the vote within Lewis's politics. Obama wants to elevate the vote in part because of contemporary politics, in which the question of making access to the ballot easier or harder is a central question dividing the parties. Certainly fighting for the vote was one of the themes of Lewis's long career. But he also fought for other forms of political equality and full citizenship. His life itself was a tribute to the ways of using citizenship for change, ways that voting alone — despite its importance — cannot match. Obama calls on us more than anything to "come out and vote," identifying it as "the most important action we can take on behalf of democracy," but surely Lewis's example asks people to do more. Perhaps my reading is a bit unfair. Obama does ask us to follow Lewis into "good trouble," after all. But he also sets up an odd dichotomy of those who are protesting in the streets and the rest of us, who "cannot casually abandon them at the ballot box" — as if citizenship for most of us is just voting, and not getting involved in other ways. There's certainly nothing wrong with a get-out-the-vote rally. But to me, Lewis asks people for more, and I think Obama could've given more emphasis to the meaningfulness, the efficacy and even the joy of political action. Again, it's a good eulogy, both in the writing and the delivery. It just struck me as coming up short on that theme. After all, if we all can found and re-found the republic, then surely that takes far more than just voting. What was wonderful about Lewis was that he, like Washington and Adams, Jefferson and Hamilton, combined radical outsider politics with the politics of laws and institutions. And even more than those 18th-century founders, Lewis demonstrated that a political life is, as Obama points out, within everyone's grasp. I don't think we can fully celebrate that without challenging people to find their own kind of political action. 1. Must-read Molly Reynolds item on the impasse on the pandemic relief bill, and why the problem is differences within the Republican Party. 2. Dave Hopkins on the veepstakes. 3. Brian Arbour on ambition and the vice presidency. 4. Don Grasse, Mel Pavlik, Hilary Matfess and Travis Curtice at the Monkey Cage on the pandemic and autocratic governments. 5. Andrew Gelman on uncertainty and forecasting presidential elections. My main concern about forecasting in this cycle was the possibility that a pandemic-induced recession could have unpredictable effects. After all, the downturn this year was at least partly a deliberate policy choice designed to save lives, and it seemed possible that voters could reward the president despite the dismal economic picture. It hasn't worked out that way because most people think Trump has handled the pandemic poorly. I suppose I do still think that the situation creates larger-than-normal uncertainty, but most of this was probably resolved in the spring. 6. Jeffrey Young on Trump's promise two weeks ago to sign a new health-care plan in two weeks. 7. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Francis Wilkinson on Christianity and white supremacy. 8. And James Loeffler on the myth of a "Judeo-Christian" tradition. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close. | 
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