Obama Iconic 'Hope' Poster Creator Says President Has Not Lived Up to Hope
The designer of the iconic "Hope" poster used during President Barack Obama's 2008 election campaign has said that Obama has failed to live up to the promise, adding that America's entire political system needs an overhaul.
Shepard Fairey, a street artist who's also famous for designing items for clothing line OBEY, said in an interview with Esquire magazine that Obama has "not even [come] close" to living up to the promise behind the "Hope" poster.
"Obama has had a really tough time, but there have been a lot of things that he's compromised on that I never would have expected. I mean, drones and domestic spying are the last things I would have thought [he'd support]," Fairey said in the interview published on Thursday.
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"I've met Obama a few times, and I think Obama's a quality human being, but I think that he finds himself in a position where your actions are largely dictated by things out of your control. I'm not giving him a pass for not being more courageous, but I do think the entire system needs an overhaul and taking money out of politics would be a really good first step."
The designer said that he feels the American public often shows signs of being "uneducated and complacent."
"I hate to say Americans are ignorant and lazy, but a lot of them are ignorant and lazy," he said.
"When you live in a place that has a lot of good things that make life easier, it's easier to take them for granted. But what frustrates me to no end are people who want to blame Obama or blame anything that is something that if they were actually doing anything as simple as voting, it might not be as bad as it is. There's a lot of finger pointing and very little action and very little research into the dynamics that created the situation that they're unhappy about."
Obama's job approval rating has gone up and down in the eyes of the American public, but has never reached again the heights of 2009, when 69 percent of those who responded to a Gallup poll said that they have a favorable opinion of the job the president has been doing.
The latest Gallup update from May said that Obama's favorable rate stands at 53 percent, which is an improvement on the below 50 percent approval ratings he received for the majority of the past year.
