Before a packed House gallery and millions of his fellow countrymen, President Barack Obama delivered his final State of the Union Address Tuesday night, offering a rosy portrait of his accomplishments in office and declaring that America can only have the future it wants if we “fix our politics.”

He set the stage for his political sermon by noting that “we live in a time of extraordinary change.” He continued:

It’s change that promises amazing medical breakthroughs, but also economic disruptions that strain working families. It promises education for girls in the most remote villages, but also connects terrorists plotting an ocean away. It’s change that can broaden opportunity, or widen inequality. And whether we like it or not, the pace of this change will only accelerate.

Still, “America has been through big changes before,” he said, and every time, “there have been those who told us to fear the future; who claimed we could slam the brakes on change, promising to restore past glory if we just got some group or idea that was threatening America under control. And each time, we overcame those fears.”

It would not be his last dig at critics, even as he would preach about the need for civility in politics.

The Four Big Questions

As billed, the speech was non-traditional. There weren’t any shout-outs to special guests in attendance, not even his wife. There was no great laundry list of policy proposals. Even Obama’s recent push for gun control got scarce mention. Instead, he addressed what he called the “Four Big Questions” we have as a country to answer, regardless of who controls the next Congress:

1. First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy?
2. Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us  —  especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change?
3. Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?
4. And finally, how can we make our politics reflect what’s best in us, and not what’s worst?

On the economy, he rolled off a slew of favorable stats, and then said anyone who says America’s economy is in decline is “peddling fiction.” He then spoke of the dangers and demands of what he called the “new economy,” joking that “it’s not much of a stretch to say that some of the only people in America who are going to work the same job, in the same place, with a health and retirement package, for 30 years, are sitting in this chamber.

On innovation, he declared that the “spirit of discovery is in our DNA,” and announced a new effort to cure cancer headed by Vice President Joe Biden.

He then blasted skeptics of man-man climate change:

Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it. You’ll be pretty lonely, because you’ll be debating our military, most of America’s business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it’s a problem and intend to solve it.

There is evidence that no such consensus exists among climate scientists, and that a majority of them may even doubt the alarmist scenario, but President Obama gave no indication of that in his passing shot at skeptics of global warming alarmism.

On national security, he was equally dismissive, describing as hot air “all the rhetoric you hear about our enemies getting stronger and America getting weaker. The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. It’s not even close.” The faces of the assorted military brass assembled in the front rows were stone cold.

He called destroying ISIS priority one, but quickly downplayed the threat to the United States and dismissed any connection to Islamic ideology:

We don’t need to build them up to show that we’re serious, nor do we need to push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is representative of one of the world’s largest religions. We just need to call them what they are  —  killers and fanatics who have to be rooted out, hunted down and destroyed.

Obama touted the Iranian deal, declaring, “As we speak, Iran has rolled back its nuclear program, shipped out its uranium stockpile and the world has avoided another war.”

And as he spoke, Iran was holding 10 U.S. navy sailors. The president did not say anything about their capture.

In speaking of America’s continued leadership, Obama insisted the world looks to us to help solve its problems, and characterized anti-Muslim rhetoric as one of the great hindrances to our carrying out that leadership role. “When politicians insult Muslims, when a mosque is vandalized, or a kid bullied, that doesn’t make us safer,” he said. “That’s not telling it like it is. It’s just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals. And it betrays who we are as a country.”

In a direct swipe at Sen. Ted Cruz, he said, “Our answer needs to be more than tough talk or calls to carpet bomb civilians. That may work as a TV sound bite, but it doesn’t pass muster on the world stage.”

NBC’s Lester Holt later asked Cruz about the jab, and the senator declined to parse the president’s characterization of his views, opting instead to go on the offensive: “Well listen, I will apologize to nobody for my commitment to kill the terrorists,” Cruz said. “And in this speech President Obama once again refused to even say the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ — much less demonstrate any clarity, any vision, any plan to destroy them.”

“Fix Our Politics”

From here, President Obama launched into a discourse on our political process.

He spoke of our need to “fix our politics,” and have “rational, constructive debates,” adding that “a better politics doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything.”

The man who habitually assails the motives of his political enemies added that democracy “doesn’t work if we think the people who disagree with us are all motivated by malice, or that our political opponents are unpatriotic.” But the president did offer one moment of humility. “It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency  —  that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better,” he said. “There’s no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I’ll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.”

I Believe in You

In closing, the president showed flashes of the hopeful unifier who first captured the nation’s attention at the 2004 Democratic Convention and captured the presidency in 2008:

I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen — inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far. Voices that help us see ourselves not first and foremost as black or white or Asian or Latino, not as gay or straight, immigrant or native born; not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans first, bound by a common creed. Voices Dr. King believed would have the final word — voices of unarmed truth and unconditional love.

That’s the America I know. That’s the country we love. Clear-eyed. Big-hearted. Optimistic that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. That’s what makes me so hopeful about our future. Because of you. I believe in change because I believe in you. That’s why I stand here confident as I have ever been that the State of our Union is strong.

Here is the full text of tonight’s speech as prepared: President Obama’s 2016 State of the Union.