Obama's mother and father would have been taking a serious risk of violence by appearing together as a couple in many parts of the US

(In many states where they would have risked arrest or mob violence, their son won the majority of the votes.) At the same time, most of the country was not safe for an openly gay couple to show affection in public. Now, several states recognize gay marriages, it's a divisive issue in many more, and openly gay public figures are commonplace. This was moonbat stuff even 20 years ago, now it's in the center of the debate.

At the same time, GM is in bankruptcy, AT&T and IBM are shadows of their former selves, and companies that didn't exist or were obscure small companies of no great importance 30 years ago, like Microsoft and Cisco and Google and Intel, are world-defining powerhouses. The exponential curve of social and political and economic and techological change continues upward, and the horizon of possible predictions grows shorter each year.