“On behalf of the great state of Illinois, crossroads of a nation, land of Lincoln, let me express my deep gratitude for the privilege of addressing this convention,” Barack Obama said in the opening of the 2004 Democratic Convention speech that would introduce him to the world.
As Obama elaborated, his father Barack Obama Sr. had grown up in Kenya “herding goats.” His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, he traced to Kansas, as he always did.
From the beginning of his political career, he grounded himself in what he imagined were heartland values. “My parents shared not only an improbable love,” Obama continued, “they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation.”
Following the convention, Obama and his media acolytes invested enormous political capital in what biographer David Remnick called Obama’s “signature appeal: the use of the details of his own life as a reflection of a kind of multicultural ideal.”
In the years that followed the media told the story of Obama’s birth more often than that of anyone’s since Jesus.
Unfortunately for America, the story they were telling was demonstrably false.
Ann Dunham spent her formative years in Seattle. The Dunham family hastily relocated to Hawaii after Ann’s senior year in high school, most likely to protect the reputation of their pregnant daughter.
There they recruited the Kenyan Barack Obama to give the baby a name. What is undeniable is that Ann and baby Obama were back in Seattle a month after Obama was reportedly born. There was no improbable love, no abiding faith in the possibilities of the nation.
In 2008, however, no one questioned Obama’s origins story. Americans voted resoundingly to make Obama their president, some thinking him to be a moderate son of the heartland, others thinking him a progressive man of the world, all of them ultimately deceived.
In fact, some unspoken entity, some unknown “they,” had given Obama a big hat and a baton, pointed him in their chosen direction, and tasked him with leading their parade.
Caught up in the magic of the moment, Obama saw himself “fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” forgetting that he was little more than a drum major in a parade he could never control.
Serious leftists saw through Obama. Although immersed in leftism since childhood, Obama never left the shallow end of the pool, and they knew it. He proved so adept at breaking promises because he didn’t care deeply enough to ensure they were realized. What mattered more was that he be seen striking the right pose, finding the right groove, spinning the right narrative.
He is not a serious man. Never was.
Conservatives were the ones who fell for the con. Like any gifted baton twirler, Obama had gotten his audience to focus on the shiny object in front of them. The pundits debated his ideology – Marxist, socialist, progressive, pragmatist – and even his religion – Christian, Muslim, atheist – but, unlike leftists, they rarely questioned Obama’s commitment or his depth.
After Obama left the White House, pundits on the right convinced themselves Obama was still leading the parade. One after another, high profile conservative media outlets, here and abroad – the Spectator, the Wall Street Journal, the Jerusalem Post, Sky News Australia – referred to the Biden presidency as “Barack Obama’s third term.”
The fact that Obama maintained a residence in Washington post-presidency and that many of his staffers continued on under President Joe Biden deceived conservative pundits. Biden knew better. From the beginning, he and his key people saw Obama for the prop he was. Said Biden in summing up Obama’s candidacy in 2007, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
As Biden knew, that’s all it was, a storybook – a storybook scripted by others, often with little regard for the truth.
In May 2009, Biden made his contempt clear when the wind blew over a teleprompter he was using during a speech at the Air Force Academy. “What am I gonna tell the president when I tell him his Teleprompter is broken?” Biden joked. “What will he do then?”
The other person who knew the Joe Biden presidency was something other than “Obama’s third term” was Barack Obama himself. If Obama had any illusions about his control over events, he was rudely disabused of them on July 21, 2024. This was the Sunday on which Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Kamala Harris.
The announcements caught Obama flatfooted. Biden had consulted with his former boss neither on his decision to drop out nor on his decision to endorse Harris.
At 12:46 p.m. EDT, Biden posted on X his intention to withdraw. The endorsement of Harris, also on X, came at 1:13 p.m. The media have expressed no curiosity about the 27-minute gap. But if pressure had been brought on Biden to endorse Harris, the Obamas weren’t the ones bringing it.
The Clintons are another story.
At 2:10 p.m. Bill and Hillary posted a joint statement on X, declaring, “We are honored to join the President in endorsing Vice President Harris and will do whatever we can to support her.”
At 2:34 p.m. Alex Soros, scion of the Soros evil empire and fiancé of Hillary intimate Huma Abedin, posted on X, “It’s time for us all to unite around Kamala Harris and beat Donald Trump.”
By day’s end just about every prominent Democrat had hopped on the bandwagon.
Every prominent Democrat except the Obamas. People noticed.
At 9:10 p.m. on July 21 the New York Times ran a story headlined, “Why Obama hasn’t endorsed Harris.” As the days counted down without an Obama endorsement, some Democrats in Congress openly criticized the former president.
As to the media, they chose not to inquire too deeply about the hesitation. At this point, they were all in for Kamala. Internecine friction did Harris no good.
The New York Post played by its own rules. One source within the Biden family told the Post, “Obama’s very upset because he knows she can’t win.”
The anonymous source made the credible claim that Obama, working through proxy George Clooney, had helped launch the coup against Biden but was “shocked” when Biden endorsed Harris. Said another source, “Obama always thinks he is the smartest and coolest guy in the room. He’s friends with George Clooney, after all.”
Finally, on July 26, Barack and Michelle announced, “We couldn’t be more excited for her – or more thrilled to endorse Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.” By this time, no one believed them.
Less than a month before the election, the Obamas hit the campaign trail on Harris’s behalf. To remain relevant in Democratic circles, they could not do otherwise. Barack’s days of filling arenas were long behind him.
Knowing this, the Harris camp gave him a mop-up assignment: hectoring black men into voting for Harris.
Obama’s blackness has always played better in white circles. In Pittsburgh on Oct. 10, Obama said, “We have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running.” This apathy, he added, “seems to be more pronounced with the brothers.”
Accusing black men of misogyny did not fly with “the brothers” who saw through the black façade of both Harris and Obama.
When that tactic backfired, Obama ended the campaign – and the Obama era – the way he began his career: peddling racial hoaxes.
In Milwaukee, on the final Sunday before the election, a weary Obama gave a speech that was less about praising Harris than it was about slandering Trump.
After assuring the audience that “real strength is about telling the truth even when it’s inconvenient,” Obama recycled a series of lies that had been slam-debunked, even by fact checkers on his own side. Reading from the teleprompter, and slipping in and out of a faux black preacher accent, Obama mustered his energy at speech’s end to do some cringe-worthy race baiting.
It didn’t work.
In the closing weeks of the campaign, young black men openly scorned Obama’s efforts to woo them through an appeal to their shared blackness. An estimated 40% of black men under 40 voted for Trump. More than half of Hispanic men did the same.
“I voted for Obama because he was a black man,” one African American customer at a Pennsylvania barbershop told a CBS reporter. “That was a mistake.”
The drum major had lost his mojo.
It remains to be seen where the parade will head next, and we may never know who leads it, but now, at least, we know who doesn’t.
Jack Cashill has written several books on Barack Obama. His most recent book, Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6, is available in all formats.
