Move over Attenborough (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Barack Obama has always been good at bringing Americans together, making us feel like we’re on the right track. So his involvement in a new Netflix nature documentary series feels decidedly on-brand: not only does the series celebrate something we can all agree on (the splendour of the natural world), but casts the former president in the familiar role of Reassurer-in-Chief.
The magic of Our Great National Parks isn’t in Obama’s voiceover — he’s still a better orator than a narrator, as it turns out — but in his mere presence onscreen. “Join me in this celebration of our planet’s greatest national parks and wilderness,” he drones pleasantly in the trailer, over magnificent footage of scurrying ants, cascading sea ice, a monkey leaping through an otherworldly landscape of jagged rocks. An extended riff on the micro-ecosystem that lives inside the fur of a sloth ends with the money line: “This sleepy sloth might just save us all.”
The vibe, to use a very Obama-era buzzword, is decidedly hopeful.
But it’s also a little bit odd. How did the 44th President go from leading the free world to hosting nature programs?
The path from the White House to the screen is not completely unprecedented; former Vice President Al Gore, who lost his bid at the presidency in 2000, went on to win an Oscar for his climate documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. But where Gore’s foray into filmmaking was blatantly scaremongering, designed to terrify a complacent public into taking action on climate change, Obama greets us like he’s taking us on a date: standing barefoot on the shores of a Hawaiian beach, welcoming viewers to a visual pleasure cruise through the world’s most gorgeous places. It’s just delightful — and, it must be said, a good look for him.
But by Obama’s own admission, this isn’t what he wanted. His departure from office in 2017 was also supposed to mark a big step back from public life, as he cited the “wise American tradition of ex-presidents gracefully exiting the political stage and making room for new voices.” That idea is an American original, first expressed by George Washington in his farewell address. Then, the slow fade of the elder statesman was an almost parental fantasy: of leaving the nation you raised from infancy to its own devices. By the time Obama left office, it was a more standard expression of confidence: this was simply how it worked, and the wheels of democracy would keep on turning without him.
The trouble is, they didn’t — and certainly not in the direction liberals wanted them to. For those on the Left, the president’s vow to step back from public life at this moment was practically a form of criminal negligence, leaving the country in the highly incapable hands of a heinous orange madman. And while nobody said so at the time, the impending Trump administration was sort of Barack Obama’s fault. The outgoing POTUS had been instrumental in pressuring Biden, his own Vice President, not to run in 2016, even though he would have been traditionally next in line for the nomination.
And while we can never know if Biden would have performed better against Trump than Hillary Clinton did, in hindsight, it’s hard to imagine him doing worse — or that his chances weren’t badly undersold. Joe Biden was a lifelong public servant, a supporting actor in the nation’s most historic presidency. Discouraging him so that the woman Obama had once grudgingly called “likeable enough” could have her chance at the big game might have seemed expedient — in the sense that following up the first black president with an old white man just felt like a step in the wrong direction. But when it came to winning the election, it was almost certainly a strategic error.
There were signs early on that Obama knew this, and felt bad about it. The former president began surfacing periodically during the Trump presidency, mostly with gentle attempts to keep the more strident elements within the Democratic party from driving the whole enterprise fully off the rails. Then, his goal was clear: to prevent his party from pushing radical policies that would alienate even more voters and result in a two-term Trump presidency. But now that the 2020 election is won and done, he’s become more visible, not less. Podcasts, panels, daytime TV appearances: suddenly, the man seems to be everywhere.
How great is all this for democracy? Certainly, it can’t be great for Biden — whose approval ratings have plummeted amid national frustrations over inflation and never-ending pandemic restrictions — to have his young, fun, wildly popular former boss still here and hamming it up for the adoring public. Barely into his mid-fifties at the close of his time in the White House, Obama admittedly makes for an unusual elder statesman: younger than either of the presidents who succeeded him, naturally at ease with the permanent fame that is an artefact of having been the first POTUS in the social media era, and perhaps most importantly, still beloved as a representative of the recent past in which even the most jaded liberal could feel proud to be American.
When we look at Barack Obama, we see one of the best things America has ever done. When we look at Joe Biden, we see the guy we voted for out of sheer desperation not to weather a second term of Trump.
The Netflix documentary is the least of it: much has been made this week of a video in which Biden appears to linger forgotten in the background at a White House event while Obama works the crowd. And while the full context thankfully paints a different, less humiliating picture, there’s still a reason why it got so much attention in the first place. It feels like a microcosm for their whole relationship, where Biden is forever the sidekick to a charismatic, beloved American hero. That running joke about how people would have voted for Obama three times if they were allowed to was never really a joke.
Hence the craving for Obama’s reassuring presence in our living rooms, if not from behind the Oval Office desk, then as a documentary tour guide. Just seeing the former president in a public-facing role again is like liberal comfort food, a throwback to a familiar and more optimistic time. Before Trump. Before Covid. Before the devastating decline of public trust that left our social fabric in tatters. If we can’t have him back in the White House, then this is the next best thing: a wholesome tour through the planet’s wonderful wild places, replete with hopeful messaging about “our shared birthright”.
And as long as we studiously avoid thinking about the less-savoury aspects of Obama’s legacy (just try not to picture the sleepy sloth being murdered in a drone strike), and focus on how great he makes us feel, this arrangement could last for decades.
It’s not that Obama and Our Great National Parks will actually solve the nation’s problems. But it’s surely a perfect piece of escapism at a moment when real life is getting increasingly bleak: a message of common humanity at a time when we’re tragically polarised.
And frankly, maybe we need this. Let the former president’s familiar voice transport you far away from the endless churn of the news cycle, from the horrifying reports of foreign wars, to a peaceful, hopeful place. Let yourself forget about the red wave of Republican victories that’s been prophesied for November, about President Biden’s latest bumbling performance, about the fact that the woman in line to be our next Democratic nominee might as well have been designed in a lab to alienate as many voters as possible. Behold the natural world whose inhabitants live free of political conflict (even if they do occasionally, out of necessity, eat each other.) Imagine yourself, just for a moment, as a citizen of the Earth instead of one single state, country, or tribe. Who knows: maybe the sleepy sloth will save us all.
Kat Rosenfield is an UnHerd columnist and co-host of the Feminine Chaos podcast. Her latest novel is You Must Remember This.
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Subscribe“Barack Obama has always been good at bringing Americans together”
A new record for me. I’m out after one sentence.
You refused to read it because it doesn’t fit with your predetermined narrative? Do you want to read different views on an array of subjects, or do you simply want an echo chamber full of articles you already agree with?
I didn’t read it because it doesn’t align with reality. Now go grab yourself a cup of coffee Billy Bob, enjoy the birdsong outside
Why doesn’t it align with reality? When he was first elected he was very popular with a majority of the population. That popularity declined obviously as time went on as it does with every political leader but for all his faults I don’t believe he was anywhere near as divisive as the two that have followed him
That one sentence is an outright, provable lie, not a different view. Falsus in uno, and all that.
I agree. It demonstrates that the author can’t distinguish between what she desires to be true and what is demonstrably so. I actually like a lot of what Kat writes. But on the subject of Barack Obama not being a slimy Democrat politician, she suffers some blind spots.
I didn’t vote for him but I was very hopeful that he and his wife, by virtue of their very unique position, would ask Americans of all races to embrace what we have in common as citizens of this great country. That message should and could have been the main thrust of Obama’s platform, and all would have benefited. He would have gone down in history as a truly great man. But they didn’t do that. They embraced “ism think”, fomenting division for eight years, and continue to this day. Any policy disagreement with BHO was smeared as “racist” and (pick a)phobic.
I never bought that he was a brilliant scholar and it was obvious that his much-touted erudition was merely skilled teleprompter reading, but I didn’t care about that. He and Michelle could have used their powers for Good. It’s a tragedy that they didn’t.
Allison, I don’t have enough thumbs for your comment. I had high hopes as well. My biggest fear was that Obama wasn’t actually as brilliant as the PR department was telling us but instead a man of modest talents who could never live up to the hype. The Henry Louis Gates incident (so early in his presidency too) in which our president, the former head of The Harvard Law Review, threw a white cop under the bus before the facts were known was a troubling omen. When faced with the choice between using his unprecedented position of power and influence to further heal the racial divide in America or scoring cheap political points, he reflexively chose the latter. I really resent him for that.
There was no need to continue because the statement is manifestly contradicted by reality. If Obama had successfully brought us together Trump would still be a second-tier property developer.
Thank you for that most interesting essay. That phrase “the sleepy sloth being murdered in a drone strike” was perfect.
However you also say:-“When we look at Barack Obama, we see one of the best things America has ever done”. Are you serious? Obama and George Floyd Esq have done more to retard Black ‘progress’ than virtually anyone else I can think of. The fawning and grovelling that this subject seems to engender is simply revolting, not to say embarrassing.
“When we look at Barack Obama, we see one of the best things America has ever done. When we look at Joe Biden, we see the guy we voted for out of sheer desperation not to weather a second term of Trump.”
The above is a perfectly reasonable opinion from the author who presumable believes these two assertions to be self evident. The problem is that personal opinion pieces are all too often written as if they were true about “our” feelings rather than being peculiar to the writer with a blithe disregard for the fact that enormous sections of the population would likely take a dramatically different view. It is true that in my comments I frequently fail to emphasise that something I claim is just my opinion based on the facts I know but I do think in an article the authors should try to avoid trying to give the impression that everyone thinks like her when it is simply not the case.
Seconded.
I appreciate your point, brother.
I also appreciate most o KR’s essays, but, indeed, beware essays composed in the first person, “I,” “We,” “Ego.”
“Barack Obama has always been good at bringing Americans together, making us feel like we’re on the right track.”
You could have fooled me! Obama is genetically 50%-white and 50%-black; yet he relentlessly pushed a ‘Black’ agenda and identified himself as ‘black’. He thereby missed a unique opportunity to appeal to both sides of the USA racial divide and unite that nation.
And what about his globalist agenda that poured gigantic amounts of capital out of American industry into foreign producers (e.g. China) employing cheap labour at the expense of working-class communities, especially in the ‘Rust Belt’? I bet they didn’t feel their President was bringing them together.
I didn’t get a “black agenda” from him whatsoever. In fact, he was taken to task by black groups because every time he met with them he would tell them to pull their pants up, stop making babies out of wedlock and take personal responsibility. He seemed to go out of his way to be trans-racial. (Yes, of course he presents himself and identifies as “black.” When you’re that identifiably so, you are “black” whether you want to be or not.)
Reading this article is like a quick visit into a completely different dimension, where the rules of physics, truth, accuracy and objectivity have been suspended somehow.
I didn’t hate Barack Obama at the time, and still don’t. But none of the above article chimes with what I remember about the Obama presidency, where the Dems kept on forcing through extreme legislation by the tiniest of margins, and lying desperately to the public to try to make that legislation fly. Also, didn’t Obama cosy up to Putin in a big way, and promise him flexibility? Are we just going to pretend that never happened?
After the Democrats failed to beat Trump in 2016 I saw pictures of Obama on holiday at Necker island, standing with Richard Branson.
I don’t think my opinion of either was improved.
This article essentially says if we take the Obama pill, everything will be just wonderful. What an absolutely worthless article.
“When we look at Barack Obama, we see one of the best things America has ever done”.
Are you for real..? What on earth can make someone write such a phrase..!
Barack Obama is by far the most likeable demagogue of my lifetime. I think he’s trying to follow in the footsteps of Jimmy Carter and become an even worse ex-president than he was a president.
Say what you want about Trump, but the real divisions in America originated during the Obama administration.
It was during his presidency that the stark contrasts of flyover countries vs urban elites became front and center.
Instead of Republicans and Democrats duking it out over economic policy, Obama rewired the conversation into a much more poisonous one. Social issues including transgenderism, race, and even cancel culture originated in the second half of the Obama administration. He weaponized them and turned them into wedge issues for democrats which worked well at first, but at what cost?
Americans from flyover country to urban elite could at least band together as much as they disagreed on economic policy, but we have now a war of cultures between the two American identities. Many think Trump created the issue, but in reality he was only a microcosm of the issue created by Obama himself.
In the end Obama was never good at bringing Americans together, he was determined to pull them apart.
I was among the countless of Americans who was so taken, and remain charmed by, President Obama. On a personal level he remains among my favorites. But while he has proven to be a great celebrity and icon of what America could/has become, as a president he was a profoundly mediocre figure.
When he was first running for president I thought he would be something like a Democratic Reagan, who could “go above the head of Congress and speak directly to the American people,” who, by dint of personality could get significant legislation through.
I quickly discovered there was very little there at all. He was not only completely devoid of the inside-baseball political skills required to wrangle, cajole, bully, bribe and butter up senators and congressmen, but was allergic to these things. Early in his first term my old dad put it perfectly: “He needs less JFK and more LBJ.” He was, of course, the polar opposite of Johnson in every way.
And most disappointingly, he had such small gauge ideas for a man who was devoted to Hope. He is a good man, a decent man, but just another fixture of the left-liberal establishment.
As an Independent, I don’t understand the hero cult-like worship from the Left of their presidents.
Bill Clinton and his sexy saxophone on Arsenio Hall, his ability to destroy his sexual assault victims with the explicit approval of the feminists of the day and his stated affinity for Hollywood (and vice versa), Al Gore with his “Inconvenient Truth” Hollywood save-the-world cultish following, Obama and his oozing books, Netflix deals, etc, as well as freezing Biden out at his own White House party the other week with all of Obama’s slavish fans…
…it’s almost like some on the Left find a religious figure with these folks.
At least with Trump almost everyone laughs at him. “Orange Man Bad” memes are just as funny on the Right as on the Left, even if Trump doesn’t like them.
Why so serious about former progressive Presidents?
I assume this article is restricted to those over 18 due to the level of Obama fellating.
“Barack Obama has always been good at bringing Americans together”
On reading the first line I though this article was going to be satire, highlighting how Obama, who promised on the campaign trail he would be a unifier and peacemaker, actually turned out to be a divisive and warmongering president whose presidency only benefitted the billionaire psychopaths America seems to produce in such abundance.
My hopes were dashed by the end of the first paragraph.
Let’s see how long it takes for Megan and Harry to take the spotlight off the Queen …