Obamamania amid Donald Trump dread
Longing for reminders of our better angels
Like George W. Bush before him, Barack Obama all but disappeared from public view when he left the White House. That is until Friday, when he delivered a rousing, straightforward appeal to Americans to get off our collective rear ends to vote.
Along the way, he noted that American history has always had a dark underside, that those who hold power and privilege “want to keep us divided and keep us angry and keep us cynical,” and that “appealing to fear, pitting one group against another, telling people that order and security will be restored if it weren’t for those who don’t look like us or don’t sound like us or don’t pray like we do,” is vile. (My word, not his.)
But most of all, after precisely 594 days of near total silence in the face of rising insanity emanating from Washington, he went to town on President Donald Trump. His speech was measured, thoughtful, jargon-free and, as others have noted, delivered in complete sentences. The internet exploded.
To point out the obvious, this was not the first time since Trump’s election the internet has gone berserk. Pick a day, any day, and chances are you’ll find at least one inane twitty fit, braggadocio, shoutout for violence, dictator embrace or unconstitutional directive coming from our commander in chief — and along with it, an erupting media.
But the love affair rekindled by Obama’s very public call to democracy represents something else. Compare it to the famous 1981 Simon and Garfunkel reunion concert in Central Park before a rapturous audience of more than half a million. Or perhaps the return of a beloved husband and father from the front, say Mr. March’s Christmas Day reunion with his “Little Women” when he got home from the Civil War.
For me, the return of Obama (at the University of Illinois on Friday, in California last weekend and coming Thursday in swing state Ohio) feels more like Beatlemania, a burst of youth-driven exuberance and optimism in the face of ontological dread. When the Beatles exploded onto the scene, I was a child and our suburban neighbors, fearing the next mushroom cloud, were building bomb shelters. World War III anyone? Under Trump, all bets are off.
My personal antidote is internet comic Randy Rainbow. I can’t get enough of this singing, camping, winking, sashaying, smirking gay man wearing pink glasses and lipstick as he conducts spoof interviews with Trump’s inner circle. But for those who like their internet addiction more measured, there are many other options.
For freaked out liberals in need of balm, nothing quite compares with the endless stream of video tributes to the Obamas that inundate the pixel-verse. Featuring glimpses of the former president, with and without his wife, scored by upbeat instrumentals, this outpouring of montages drips with sentimental longing for a return of the good old days of decency and dignity. A president who can dance! A president who can sing! A president who plays basketball! A president who loves his wife!
In addition to this Facebook fare, there are Hollywood movies such as “Southside With You,” about the former first couple’s first date; “Barry,” about the former president’s life as an undergraduate at Columbia University; and the Davis Guggenheim documentary “The Road We’ve Traveled.”
It’s true that America tends to either lionize or demonize its leaders, both in print and film. But when was the last time we saw anything like this? Never, that’s when, and it’s not just because technology has allowed anyone with a device to become an auteur.
I share a love of (almost) all things Obama, but this great outpouring of Oworship and nostalgia is ... what? A reaction to the current administration, for sure. But it’s more. It’s that in the face of political chaos backed by an entire phalanx of enablers, collaborators and propagandists, people long for reminders of our better angels.
Beyond that, these love letters point to our inevitable and, God willing, more just future. A future when all Americans — and especially those who were born on the wrong side of the tracks — can enjoy the vast promise of America’s democratic principles.
Jennifer Anne Moses is the author of four books, including “Bagels and Grits: A Jew on the Bayou” and “Visiting Hours.”