The former president’s DNC speech was more coherent than any Democratic message so far—and darker.
Following a failed presidential campaign defined by its standard-bearer’s angry incoherence—and amid a current presidential campaign defined by its candidate’s vague vibes and feigned joyfulness—Democrats must have greeted the former President Barack Obama’s firm coherence last night with welcome relief.
Obama served as the keynote speaker Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where, in a surprise to no one at all, he spoke more eloquently than President Joe Biden and with far more precision than Vice President Kamala Harris. Of course, it is no great feat that Obama sounded good when compared to a president as ineffectual as Biden and a nominee as ill-defined as Harris.
Even Obama himself must have recognized that his appearance at the convention was akin to a movie star agreeing to appear in a community theater production, but that did not stop him from soaking in the adulation. He accused the Republicans of forming a cult of personality around Trump, but what was this if not that?
Obama was particularly tactless in discussing Biden’s involuntary exit from the race. “Looking back, I can say without question that my first big decision as your nominee turned out to be one of my best, and that was asking Joe Biden to serve by my side as vice president,” Obama said, but the use of the phrase “one of” seemed needlessly pedantic. At the moment of Biden’s ignominious relinquishing of power, why not just say that picking him was flat-out your best decision—period?
Later on, Obama said that Biden would be remembered as “an outstanding president,” a turn of phrase with a decidedly lukewarm flavor, given the former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s assertion that the president deserves a spot on Mount Rushmore. (Will Biden’s likeness on the monument include his signature sunglasses?)
Of course, Obama maybe had a point. His enumerations of Biden’s alleged achievements were spurious at best and laughable at worst. In the latter category was Obama’s incredible statement that, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Biden possessed the character “to put politics aside and do what was right”—a claim unlikely to ring true for any worker who faced a vaccine mandate.
Then Obama adopted the current Democratic formulation of praising Biden for his purported decision to quit the race—for, as Obama put it, “putting his own ambition aside for the sake of the country.” The crowd cheered this talking point without seeming to grasp its almost comically illogical implications: Biden is to be commended for being a great president, so great that he was sure to lose in November, and commended again for recognizing and acting upon his loser status by withdrawing. Or something like that.
That settled, Obama then articulated the Democrats’ actual vision for the country, which, if you squint, might conjure memories of an Obama-era meme, the notorious “Pajama Boy.” You remember him: He was the plaid pajama-clad millennial featured in a pro-Obamacare Tweet in December 2013. The tweet read as follows: “Wear pajamas. Drink hot chocolate. Talk about getting health insurance.”
Many of us found Pajama Boy too much to bear because of this avatar’s willingness—his plain eagerness—to depend upon a clunky, inefficient government program, and the implication that no one in their right mind could possibly be opposed to said program.
All these years later, the same attitude behind Pajama Boy was baked into Obama’s incredulity when he said, on Tuesday night, that “a lot of Americans don’t believe that government can help.” As expressed in his remarks at the DNC, Obama regards it as within the government’s power and purview to get involved in housing, or, as he put it, to “build more units.” Obama said that Harris would work to “limit out-of-pocket costs” in health insurance. Most ominously, Obama said that Harris “won’t be focused on her problems, she’ll be focused on yours”—a scary prospect and perhaps the best-ever argument on behalf of libertarianism.
What of those who want no part in Harris’s interest in their lives? Obama spent a good chunk of the speech arguing for mutual understanding among Americans, but he framed this apparent plea for empathy as condescendingly as he talked about his former vice president. “If a parent or grandparent occasionally says something that makes us cringe, we don’t automatically assume they’re bad people,” Obama said. “We recognize that the world is moving fast, that they need time and maybe a little encouragement to catch up.” (Cue the crickets in the convention hall.)
One can make certain inferences here: If you dissent from the Democratic agenda—including its endorsement of the trans agenda, climate change hysteria, and near-religious fervor for unrestricted abortion (which the former president, adopting the lexicon of the current left, euphemistically described as a “healthcare decision”)—Obama is not saying that he actually will tolerate your viewpoint. He is simply saying he will be patient with you until you come around to his. And if you don’t, you may learn the lesson of Joe Biden: Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
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