Obama, back in the public eye, plays it cool
He encourages engagement but stays out of fray
Three months after leaving the White House, former president Barack Obama stepped back into the spotlight Monday to encourage young people to become civically engaged while lamenting the increasing polarization of American politics.
And he did it without uttering the words “President Trump.”
In his first public appearance after his presidency, Obama — while expressing concern that today’s political environment is turning off Americans — steered clear of critiquing Trump and stuck to the tradition of former presidents giving their predecessors space early on.
“What’s been going on while I’ve been gone?” Obama joked as he took the stage for a forum with Chicago students and young professionals to discuss ways to improve civic engagement.
New presidents — including Obama — have grumbled over problems they’ve inherited but have aimed to avoid personalizing the criticism. Trump has sailed into uncharted waters with his rhetoric about the Obama administration, analysts say.
Obama has managed to avoid the spotlight and has mostly avoided weighing in on Trump, who has sought to undo Obama’s signature health care law, tighten immigration rules and roll back environmental regulations. In one notable exception, Obama offered a statement of support in late January for protesters who staged demonstrations at the nation’s airports in response to Trump’s travel order.
Obama told the panelists Monday that he planned to dedicate much of his energy to working with young people “to take up the baton and take their crack at changing the world.”
Though some of Obama’s supporters have been eager for him to weigh in on Trump’s presidency, his silence might be the most effective campaign tool for Democrats hoping to win Republicanheld House seats in Georgia and Montana in upcoming special elections and as the party looks toward the 2018 midterm elections, said Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida.
“The way Obama managed his presidency compared to the cur- rent presidency is making some people who didn’t support him reconsider his presidency in a positive way,” MacManus said.
Obama also waited several weeks longer than his two most recent predecessors to deliver his first post-presidency remarks.
Bill Clinton spoke at a private conference sponsored by Wall Street investment company Mor- gan Stanley less than a month after leaving office. George W. Bush waited about two months to make his first post-presidential appearance in Calgary and notably declined to critique the early days of the Obama administration.
Edward Frantz, a political historian at the University of Indianapolis, said the criticism Trump has launched at Obama marks a unique moment in modern U.S. history.
“The closest you may have is Franklin Roosevelt with Herbert Hoover, but those were never personal attacks,” he said. “Those were attacks against the Republican policies and maybe the Hoover administration’s economic policies, but those were quite different than attacking someone’s character and honesty.”
Frantz said Obama, 55, is well aware he probably has decades ahead to build his legacy and is thinking beyond today’s polarization in politics:
“If Barack Obama, as former president, is able to maintain this serenity, his discipline of ‘no drama’ ... he has a real self-serving interest in making sure he’s deliberate in what he says now.”