{"id":256631,"date":"2025-11-02T02:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T02:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/256631\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T02:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T02:05:08","slug":"as-barack-obama-stumps-for-other-democrats-the-party-gets-to-see-what-it-lost-barack-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/256631\/","title":{"rendered":"As Barack Obama stumps for other Democrats, the party gets to see what it lost | Barack Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s not as if we didn\u2019t see some of this coming,\u201d said Barack Obama<\/a>, a note of bleak humour in his voice. \u201cI will admit it\u2019s worse than even I expected, but I did warn y\u2019all!\u201d<\/p>\n

The crowd at a sports arena in Norfolk, Virginia, half-laughed and half-groaned. \u201cI did,\u201d Obama added. \u201cYou can run the tape.\u201d<\/p>\n

He did. The former US president spent 2024 sounding the alarm about the horror show that awaited if Donald Trump<\/a> ever got back to the Oval Office. Trump won the election anyway a year ago on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Among the many unintended consequences is the return of Obama to the political stage. Former presidents used to slink away to running foundations or writing memoirs and avoid criticising their successors but that is one more norm that has bitten the dust.<\/p>\n

Obama has had 25 public engagements or remarks in the past six months, according to a list released by his office. He has tackled everything from USAID to redistricting to Tylenol. He is filling the vacuum left by Trump\u2019s most immediate predecessor, Joe Biden<\/a>, who turns 83 this month.<\/p>\n

Now Obama is back on the campaign trail, for Democrats<\/a> running for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. It gives him a platform to deliver an alternative State of the Union address. And the gloves are off.<\/p>\n

To hear the expectant buzz of the 7,000-plus crowd in Norfolk as candidate Abigail Spanberger promised that Obama\u2019s entrance was just moments away was to be reminded that Democrats did once have a president who could match Trump\u2019s superstar charisma.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love you!\u201d someone shouted from the stands, just as they do at Trump rallies. \u201cWe miss you!\u201d<\/p>\n

The backdrop was a giant stars and stripes and supporters waving mini-flags and signs. But whereas Trump is all big orange hair, dark blue suit, white shirt and red tie, Obama\u2019s hair was short and grey and he wore a blue shirt open at the collar with sleeves rolled up. Trump often gets compared to a stand-up comedian but Obama has the sharper act.<\/p>\n

The rally in Norfolk, Virginia, on Saturday. Photograph: Steve Helber\/AP<\/p>\n

Liberated from the burden of seeking elected office for himself again, he clearly revelled in skewering the president with scathing and scorching lines, as if auditioning for late-night TV.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to know where to start, because every day this White House offers up a fresh batch of lawlessness and recklessness and mean-spiritedness and just plain craziness,\u201d Obama said, with the crowd cheering each word, wondering perhaps why Chuck Schumer and the rest of them can\u2019t do plain talk like this.<\/p>\n

The former president ran through an exhausting but not exhaustive list of Trump\u2019s offences: turning the justice department against his political opponents; replacing career prosecutors with loyalists; firing decorated officers because they might be more loyal to the constitution than to him; deploying the national guard to US cities to stop crime waves that don\u2019t exist; ICE agents pulling up in unmarked vans and grabbing people, including US citizens; a health secretary who rejects proven science and promotes quack medicine; a top White House aide who calls Democrats domestic extremists; and a poor labour economist who got fired for reporting bad jobs numbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it\u2019s like every day is Halloween,\u201d Obama said, \u201cexcept it\u2019s all tricks and no treats.\u201d<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that plenty of people voted for Trump because they were \u201cunderstandably frustrated\u201d with inflation and gas prices and the difficulty of affording a home and worried about their children\u2019s children, saying: \u201cSo they were willing to take a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

It certainly worked out well for Trump and his family, with crypto ventures with hundreds of millions of dollars and for wealthy allies and corporations whose tax bills went down. But for ordinary people, Obama continued, life is harder than ever, with healthcare premiums set to double or triple and the government shut down.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs for the president,\u201d Obama said, \u201che has been focused on critical issues like paving over the Rose Garden so folks don\u2019t get mud on their shoes, and gold-plating the Oval Office, and building a $300m ballroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cVirginia, here\u2019s the good news. If you can\u2019t visit a doctor, don\u2019t worry, he will save you a dance. And if you don\u2019t get an invitation to the next White House shindig, you can always watch the festivities and all the beautiful people on Truth Social.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crowd lapped it up. Obama was on a roll. He lambasted Republicans for putting on \u201ca big show of deporting people and targeting transgender folks. They never miss a chance to scapegoat minorities and DEI for every problem under the sun.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got a flat tire? DEI.<\/p>\n

\u201cWife mad at you?\u201d<\/p>\n

The audience rejoined: \u201cDEI!\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a reminder that humour is a potent political weapon. That is why Trump\u2019s allies tried to oust TV host Jimmy Kimmel and why California governor Gavin Newsom gets under their skin.<\/p>\n

Obama turned to the artificial intelligence videos that Trump posts on his Truth Social account, including one showing himself wearing a crown, flying a fighter jet and dumping brown liquid on No Kings protesters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the nonsense we see on the news every day, the over-the-top rhetoric, the fabricated conspiracies, the weird videos of a US president with a crown on his head flying a fighter jet and dumping poop on protesting citizens, all of that is designed to distract you from the fact that your situation has not gotten better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

There it was: the man who had inspired with his words \u2013 yes, we can; hope and change; there is not a liberal America and a conservative America, there is the United States of America \u2013 had been reduced to uttering the word \u201cpoop\u201d from the stage. When they go low …<\/p>\n

Obama dutifully heaped praise on Spanberger and urged Virginians to vote for her. It was a performance of wit and wisdom that reminded America what it has lost \u2013 and Democrats what they have never been able to recreate. The party needs someone who will take the fight to Trump. But its best candidate for 2028 is the one who cannot run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s not as if we didn\u2019t see some of this coming,\u201d said Barack Obama, a note of bleak…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-256631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}