Mr. President, it is time. You must speak. Your country needs you.

Eleven summers ago, as you accepted the Democratic nomination for president, you announced: “Tonight, I say to the people of America, to Democrats and Republicans and independents across this great land: Enough. This moment — this election — is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive.”

Of course, we knew then that our nation had deep political differences, and would continue to. Only the most naive among us would have expected the election of the first African American president to come about with no backlash.

But would anyone have anticipated that within a dozen years, we would hear another president tell four nonwhite congresswomen — three of whom were born in this country — to “go back” to where they came from?