I sat in my basement with a nice glass of rum and watched President Obama's farewell speech to the nation tonight. I tried to keep emotion at bay for as long as possible so I could intelligently analyze the speech and objectively evaluate it, free from the rose-colored glasses that finality forces humans to wear. It worked for about 5/6's of the speech, but then I was overcome.

I diligently took notes as President Obama talked through, what are, in his mind, the three greatest threats to American democracy. Economic inequality, he said, is "corrosive to our democratic ideal" and is not isolated to the inner city, but also bleeds America's rural communities dry. I paid attention to the President's thoughtful, yet forceful musings on race-- how the notion of a post-racial America has plagued the country since his election in 2008, how whites, blacks, and all demographic groups need to put themselves in one another's skin in an Atticus Finch throwback (holla at TKMB).

I pumped my fist when he seemed to hit his stride, and a personal sore spot perhaps, railing against isolated sound bubbles where people of all ideologies filter potential facts through a sieve of pre-conceived notions that, ironically, is immune from intellectual assessment. He took the fight against relativism to a new level and labeled it the enemy of the Enlightenment, the European originated movement, and then he linked it to the power of America. I stayed with him as he preached the value of an international order oriented toward the promotion of liberal-democratic ideals, despite the associated political and monetary cost.

As he turned to address his wife, daughter, Joe Biden, staff and volunteers, I grasped for reinforcements and willed my fingers to greater speeds to capture his beautiful rhetoric. When he address me and every other young American watching, I gave up on recording every moment and simply sat still, listening to my President.

This President is a man of unrelenting hope. I've grown cynical simply sitting in Grand Rapids and arbitrarily adding to the cacophony of voices internet publishing gives legs to everyday. Somehow, President Obama, despite being surrounded by the harshest of voices and seeing the worst of humanity, believes America has a chance. My eyes got a little hot but still, I hung in there.

Then he said exactly what I have doubted on and off since the election: young people know the true America. I have never known backwards social progress, the one step back. All I have known is the one step forward. Yes, my youth blinds me to the historical relevance of my experiences, but I still have power and intellect and truth.

Young people often doubt the power of the American Constitution; the ideas that inspired it seem so far removed that they must have lost all relevance. President Obama asked the young people of America tonight to believe in the ideals hidden in the lines of our founding documents and to keep hoping.

I'm sure as hell gonna try Mr. President. Thank you for being my President.