CHICAGO: President Barack Obama warned the United States faces a stern test of its democracy, in a speech to the nation that was both a fond goodbye and a call to arms.
Capping his eight years in office, Obama returned to his adoptive hometown of Chicago to recast his "yes we can" campaign credo as "yes we did."
He also called on supporters to pick up the torch and forge a new "social compact".
"Democracy does require a basic sense of solidarity," he said. "For all our outward differences, we are all in this together," he said. "We rise or fall as one."
Barack Obama closes the book on his presidency Tuesday, with a farewell speech in Chicago that will try to lift supporters shaken by Donald Trump's shock election.
"For Michelle and me, Chicago is where it all started. It's the city that showed us the power and fundamental goodness of the American people," Obama said in a Facebook post previewing his remarks.
Diehard fans -- many African Americans -- have braved Chicago's frigid winter to collect free tickets, which now sell for upwards of $1,000 a piece on Craigslist.
Aside from First Lady Michelle Obama, the Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden will also come along for the ride.
Obama's cross-country trek would be a sentimental trip down memory lane, were it not slap-bang in the middle of a tumultuous presidential handover.
Trump has smashed conventions, vowed to efface Obama's legacy and hurled personal insults left and right.
The 2016 election campaign has raised serious questions about the resilience of US democracy.
In a virtually unprecedented move, US intelligence has accused the Kremlin of seeking to tip the electoral scales in Trump's favour.
Democrats, cast into the political wilderness with the loss of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives plus a majority of statehouses, are struggling to regroup.
True to him
With an approval rating hovering around 55 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll, Obama will hope to steel them for new battles ahead.
Some 51 percent of Americans polled believe that Trump is doing a bad job as president-elect.
Obama's lead speechwriter Cody Keenan said the address will be about a vision for where the country should go.
"It's not going to be like an anti-Trump speech, it's not going to be a red meat, rabble-rousing thing, it will be statesman-like but it will also be true to him," Keenan told AFP. "It will tell a story."
As Obama put it: "Over the course of my life, I've been reminded time and again that change can happen -- that ordinary people can come together to achieve extraordinary things."
"And I've seen that truth up close over these last eight years."
Life after White House
Trump's unorthodox politics has thrown 55-year-old Obama's transition and post-presidency plans into flux.
Having vowed a smooth handover of power, Obama finds himself being increasingly critical of Trump as he prepares to leave office on January 20.
After that, there will still be a holiday and an autobiography, but Obama could find himself being dragged backed into the political fray if Trump were to enact a Muslim registry or deport adults brought to the United States years ago by their parents.
Having vowed to take a back seat in politics, Obama's second act could yet be as politically engaged as Jimmy Carter -- whose post-presidency has remade his image as an elder statesman.
Many Obama aides who had planned to take exotic holidays or launch coffer-replenishing forays into the private sector are also reassessing their future and mulling a return to the political trenches.
Obama's foundation is already gearing up for a quasi-political role -- funnelling idealistic youngsters into public life.
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