After four years of relative silence, Barack Obama’s major appearance had been his recent endorsement, at John Lewis’s funeral, of abusing power by abolishing the legislative filibuster. But now, Obama, the prodigal politician, the president who was promised, and the undeniable superstar of an orator, returned to do his unifying thing on the third night of the Democratic National Convention.
His coif is far more salt than pepper now, and his pedantic professorial shtick is less credible given revelations that he may have been aware of an intentional politicization of the intelligence community against his successor. But rather than balking to the cries of the base, Obama went for the guttural against President Trump, not talking about himself or even waxing poetic about Joe Biden, but rather defining Trump as significantly unqualified for the presidency.
“For close to four years now, he’s shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves,” Obama said. “Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone.”
After a primary characterized by a race to the left on policy, Obama gave a speech that everyone half a foot to the left of Susan Collins will consider party-defining. Rather than letting the 2019 debates pigeonhole the Democratic Party as that of socialism, grievances, and critical theory, Obama gave permission to every Democrat in the nation to back Biden solely as a rebuke of Trump.
“But here’s the thing: no single American can fix this country alone,” Obama said, both echoing his own much-lambasted assertion that “you didn’t build that” and refuting Trump’s notion that “I alone can fix this.”
“Democracy was never meant to be transactional,” said Obama. “So I am also asking you to believe in your own ability, to embrace your own responsibility as citizens, to make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure. Because that’s what’s at stake right now. Our democracy.”
Practiced? Sure. Totally contradictory to the past two years of obstructionist Democrats stonewalling the legalization of their supposed priorities, especially the DREAM Act, and constant partisanship? Of course. But it was a hell of a speech, delivered expertly by the nation’s best snake-oil salesman.
