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.