Letters from an American - The Power of the People

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

June 18. 2026Ukraine launched its biggest attack on Moscow since Russia's invasion, Russia struck one of Ukraine’s most important landmarks, Kyiv-Oechersk Lavra, a UNESCO World Heritage Area, Trump and J.D. Vance are trying hard to sell the MOU with Iran as a victory, but their claims are hollow and brittle, The parade for the New York Knicks, this year’s NBA Champions, was, by contrast, a powerful message that the momentum is with the people, Mayor Zohran Mamdani gave a triumphant speech, which combined the Knicks' victory with the political power of the people of New York, In Chicago a similar message was celebrated at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center, The mood was jubilant as former presidents (but not the current one) filled the stage and performers sang, danced, and spoke, In her speech, Michelle Obama recognized the challenges of the moment but urged people to remember the power of choice, and "the steady work of change,”  She championed the power of the people, and urged people to come together, and to reignite optimism, and empathy, and ambition that is part of democracy and has powered the country’s greatest change. She said, "when we truly see each other, when we strive to bring out the best in ourselves and one another, oh, there is no limit to how high we can go."Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

June 18, 26. Over night, Ukraine launched its biggest attack on Moscow, the capital of Russia, since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine's waves of drone strikes on a major Moscow oil refinery have shrouded the city in flames and black smoke. Last week, Russia struck one of Ukraine's most important religious and cultural landmarks, the thousand-year-old Kiev Pacharsk Lavra. The ancient monastery with its churches and bell towers is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, described by the United Nations Agency as a masterpiece of Ukrainian art. Russia denied responsibility for the strike.

After the Moscow strikes, Ukrainian President Volodemir Zelenskyy released a video saying, If Ukraine burns, your Moscow will burn too. In the U.S., President Donald J. Trump and the U.S., President Donald J. Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, are trying hard to sell the administration's Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, with Iran, which Trump signed yesterday at the Palace of Versailles in a scene that recalled Germany's surrender after World War I. Trump is posting in all caps on social media that the deal is a triumph and that those who disagree with it are either jealous, bad people, or stupid. Vance is in front of cameras saying that Iran's

nuclear program has been destroyed, which is false, and that Iran gets nothing outlined in the MOU unless Iranian leaders change their behavior. The published agreement makes no such stipulation, and benefits, like the ability to sell oil on international markets and the lifting of sanctions, begin to flow to Iran immediately. The leaders trying to dictate a new global order seem brittle and breaking. While in the United States, the crowds jamming the streets in New York City in a ticker tape parade for the NBA championship winners, the New York Knicks, suggested the momentum has shifted back to the American people. Celebrities like Mariska Hargote, Timothy Shalame, Mary J. Blige, Fat Joe, Spike Lee, and Ben Stiller joined the parade to celebrate the Knicks win. At City Hall, Mayor Zoron

Mamdani blended the victory of the Nix with the rising political power of the people. Over these past weeks, as the NICs kept winning, our city has come together as won, Mamdani told the crowd. Neighbors invited neighbors over. Strangers high-fived one another in the street. Subway conductors sang their announcements and bus drivers danced behind the wheel. So often when the city comes together, it is because we are four. to by a moment of tragedy or adversity. What a gift it is to be brought together by pure, unfiltered joy. For as long as we live, we will remember this feeling of a city together, a city alive, a city overcome by happiness. But, he said, let's not pretend that this was inevitable.

If you will allow me, I want to travel back in time eight days. Game four, nine, minutes and 33 seconds left in the fourth quarter. The Knicks are down 20. The analytics guys, the sports betting companies, the pundits who watch from far away, they do what they do. They run the numbers. They calculate the odds. They write the Knicks off. They give the Spurs a 99.6% chance of winning the game. A 99.6% chance of tying up the series 2-2, of reclaiming the momentum with the next game in San Antonio, a 99.6% chance of silencing the garden of another year of watching and waiting. But there is one thing that the pundits just don't get about this team, that they just don't get about this city. It is in that 0.4% that we go to work. It is in that 0.4% the Jalen Brunson,

the same guy that so many said was too small, proves that not only is he good enough, he is the new standard for greatness. It is in that 0.4% that O.G. Ananoi watches the ball float from the top of the arc and start running toward the basket, fingers reaching toward the heavens. It is in that 0.4% that Carl Anthony Towns finds the strength to mourn his mother and still pull in rebound after rebound, make block after block. It is in that 0.4% that Jose Alvarado shows every kid growing up. up in public housing, that a son of Brooklyn and Queens can win for every one of the five boroughs.

It is in that point four percent that Mitch breaks his finger before game one and says, Go get the tape. It's in that point four percent that Josh Hart gets rebounds that break teams, that McHale Bridges proves he was worth every single draft pick that Landry Schamaup pulls up from downtown, that every one of these 18 players transforms the franchise, that Mike Brown keeps this team believing. Most of all, it's in that 0.4% that the Knicks do what New Yorkers have always done when we are told something is impossible.

We find a way. We win. Standing here before what feels like the entire city, there is a Jalen Brunson quote, I can't stop thinking about. You are allowed to think about the worst possible scenario, but you got to go out there, and do something about it. Time after time we thought about the worst possible scenario,

and time after time, the Knicks went out there and did something about it. The Knicks did not just win for New York City. They won like New York City. What is New York, if not your back up against the wall? A dream that feels just out of reach. A rent payment you don't know how you'll ever make. What is New York, if not 99.6% of the world stacked against you? And who are New Yorkers, if not people who hear those odds and smile?

Who look at a 0.4% chance of success and ask, why are you giving me a head start? This is our city. This is our team. For 53 years we watched. For 53 years we waited. Now we've won. The theme farther west in Chicago's Jackson Park was the same, community, hope, and the power of individuals to create change.

For the opening of the Obama Presidential Center, former First Lady Michelle Obama and former President Barack Obama welcomed living presidents and first ladies except the Trumps, who were not invited. President Bill Clinton and Secretary Hillary Clinton, President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush and President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden. The crowd at the center was packed to hear speeches by the Obamas and longtime friends and aides and to hear performances by Christina Aguilera, Mark Antony, Common, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, Marseille Martin, The Roots, Bruce Springsteen, Thames, U-2's Bono and the Edge, Eddie Vedder, and Stevie Wonder.

tens of thousands of people also packed nearby Midway Pleasant's Park to watch the event on Jumbotrons. In both places, the mood was jubilant and warm. Comedian Stephen Colbert and David Letterman and Obama Foundation board chair Martin Nesbitt all showed up in tan suits, a reference to the tan suit Obama wore in the Oval Office in August 2014. Although past presidents, including Ronald Reagan, had also worn tan suits. suits in the White House, as Jacob Gallagher of the New York Times noted today, Obama's suit led to a right-wing meltdown about how the suit was too informal for the West Wing. Then Representative Peter King, a Republican of New York, called it a metaphor for his lack of seriousness.

The story of the South Side of Chicago, from which the Obama's hail, is a story of possibility, a video introducing the center said. We can come together and create the change we seek. We. It's the single most powerful word in a democracy. We the people. We shall overcome. All things are possible.

Yes, we can. We includes everyone. The emphasis of the event was on new leaders shaping the future. The future is now, and it starts with us. Mrs. Obama urged Americans to make a choice to change the future. The Obama Presidential Center is a living testament to the power of choice, she said, the historic example that millions of you gave the world about what this imperfect democracy has strived for and achieved. And, she said, it is an urgent call to go out there and do it again.

She said she hoped the center would remind people of the power of choice and the steady work of change, the arduous, unglomerous march up that mountain, one foot after another, day after day, generation after generation. But I also hope you fully absorb the elation of achieving something together. You know, that feeling when you clear the tree line and see a vista that takes your breath away, way, a feeling that can never be erased. I know that can be hard to grasp right now, she said, when everything feels so upside down, when fact and fiction run together, when folks seek to stifle speech, limit access to education, devalue diversity, erase the inconvenient parts of our history, when our phones constantly buzzed with the latest outrage.

She hoped the center can reignite the optimism and empathy and ambition that has always powered this country's greatest change. We want you to come here and put your phones away and talk and laugh and cry and make new friends, she said. Get your hands dirty in my garden. Push your baby on a swing in the playground. have a romantic picnic on the Great Lawn, because that's the work of democracy too, being neighborly, taking care of public spaces, having some fun enjoying each other, shaking out of the isolation and division that have crept too deeply into our lives.

She championed the power of the people as she urged the Center's south side neighbors to make this campus a part of your lives, be inspired by the world-class art, check out the books from our beautiful public library and bring them back on time drop some beats in the recording studio hit some corner threes at home court hold birthday parties jumpstart clothing drives host citywide cleanup dates here use this campus to show off this place we call home this joyful place where marian and fraser robinson taught their two kids to dream big this hopeful place where an unknown guy with an unknown name took flight, this stubbornly optimistic place where family after family scrapes and claws and laughs and dances

their way to a better tomorrow. That's what this place has always been about. She told Chicagoans they have shown the world what we are capable of. You've proven that a lasting legacy isn't an award, or a name on a building or a number of zeros in a bank account, but the difference we make in one another's lives. It's about seeing each other and showing up for each other and carrying each other when we're weary or faltering or losing faith. That's how you build something that endures.

And that's what you have all done at every twist and turn of this extraordinary journey, she said. you have protected and proclaimed the hope that beats within the heart of this campus. You've rekindled and renewed this untameable, unpredictable, and unbreakable democracy. And I know that you're all going to astonish us even more in the months and years ahead. Because you all have proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that when we truly see, each other. When we strive to bring out the best in ourselves and one another, oh, there is no limit to how high we can go. Thank you all. I love you all. God bless you, and God bless this country we love. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson.

It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead of Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.