Obama returning to public sphere
Barack Obama’s extended post-presidential vacation is about to end. After spending weeks in French Polynesia including time on the yacht of movie mogul David Geffen along with Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey Obama will return to Chicago on Monday for his first public event as a former president.
His self-imposed silence since Inauguration Day will end with a series of events over the next four weeks. A Monday town hall-style meeting with students at the University of Chicago will be followed by an awards ceremony in Boston; a series of public remarks as well as private paid speeches in the United States and Europe; and an appearance at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
And yet, Obama’s supporters, who have been waiting eagerly for the former president to respond to his successor’s accusations and policy reversals, are likely to be disappointed.
Even as he witnesses President Donald Trump’s relentless assault on his legacy, Obama remains stubbornly committed to the idea that there is only one president at a time. Those closest to him say the former president does not intend to confront Trump directly on immigration, health care, foreign policy or the environment during any of his events.
“Why are we not hearing from him? We’ve got to hear from him,” said Sarah Kovner, a New York City Democratic activist who raised more than $1 million for Obama’s campaigns. “Democrats are desperate.”
But Obama and a small cadre of former White House aides in his Washington office know that anything he says in public, no matter how veiled, will be interpreted as criticism of Trump.
Obama’s aides say he will also not criticize Trump in his private paid speeches. They have rejected the idea that Obama should actively wage a public feud against Trump, with whom he has not spoken since the inauguration. They believe that such a fight would give the current president the high-profile political foil he wants to further energize his conservative supporters.
Obama has also concluded that his voice is not essential in the daily back-and-forth. His aides note that a new level of civic activism among Democrats eager to challenge Trump has emerged without much encouragement from the former leader of the Democratic Party.
Instead, Obama is preparing remarks that focus on broader themes he hopes will keep him above the cable-TV combat and the Capitol Hill debates: civic engagement, the health of the planet, the need for diplomacy, civil rights and the development of a new generation of young American leaders.