Since Ronald Reagan, almost all Presidents have said that they believe America’s best days lie ahead. Like Reagan, Obama has the capacity to make this sort of language sound like something more than a soundbite, and, although he hadn’t yet mentioned Trump’s name, it was immediately clear where, on this occasion, he was heading with it: to Cleveland, and Trump’s dismal, dystopian speech accepting the Republican Presidential nomination. After a fairly rote recitation of his Administration’s achievements in domestic and foreign policy, Obama said, “Fair to say, this is not your typical election. It’s not just a choice between parties or policies, the usual debates between left and right. This is a more fundamental choice—about who we are as a people, and whether we stay true to this great American experiment in self-government.”

What came out of Cleveland “wasn’t particularly Republican—and it sure wasn’t conservative,” Obama continued. Rather, it was “a deeply pessimistic vision of a country where we turn against each other, and turn away from the rest of the world. There were no serious solutions to pressing problems—just the fanning of resentment, and blame, and anger, and hate. And that is not the America I know."

NEW YORK — There were dire warnings for the Boy Scouts of America a year ago when the group's leaders, under intense pressure, voted to end a long-standing blanket ban on participation by openly gay adults. Several of the biggest sponsors of Scout units, including the Roman Catholic, Mormon and Southern Baptist churches, were openly dismayed, raising the prospect of mass defections.

Remarkably, nearly 12 months after the BSA National Executive Board's decision, the Boy Scouts seem more robust than they have in many years. Youth membership is on the verge of stabilizing after a prolonged decline, corporations which halted donations because of the ban have resumed their support, and the vast majority of units affiliated with conservative religious denominations have remained in the fold — still free to exclude gay adults if that's in accordance with their religious doctrine.

Catholic Bishop Robert Guglielmone of Charleston, South Carolina, whose duties include liaising with the National Catholic Committee on Scouting, says he knows of no instances where a Catholic unit — there are more than 7,500 — has taken on an openly gay adult leader since the policy change. Gay sex and same-sex marriage are considered violations of church teaching.

The Boy Scouts' national leadership "has been wonderfully supportive," Guglielmone said.

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention were unhappy with the BSA's easing of the ban on gay adults, but did not call on individual churches to disaffiliate with troops that they sponsored.

A year later, the number of Southern Baptist churches that did cut ties with Scouting is "in the double digits," far outnumbered by those who continued their sponsorships, according to Ted S. Spangenberg Jr., president of the executive board of the Association of Baptists for Scouting.

"We kind of like the way it looks," Spangenberg said. "if you're faith-based, it's within your right to select the adult leaders who are going to uphold the tenets of your faith."