COLUMN

Where the Hell Is Barack Obama?

I’m sick of Obama staying above the fray while that fray is swallowing us whole

Drew Magary
GEN
Published in
6 min readApr 14, 2020

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Photo: Barcroft Media/Getty Images

MyMy patience with Barack Obama’s patience is at an end. Since leaving office at the beginning of 2017, the former president made it his priority to lay low. Under normal circumstances, no one could begrudge him that choice. He had just been president for eight years. He was tired. His family was tired. He had more than earned the right to fuck off and enjoy himself, especially given the endless stream of bullshit he had to endure as our first black president.

These are far beyond normal circumstances and he no longer has that right. Over 20,000 Americans are dead. In a blink, national unemployment levels are about to blow the Great Depression’s metrics out of the water. States that are on life support have been forced to compete for vital goods because the federal government has abandoned them. Congress is on fucking VACATION. We’re living through a national death spiral. Right now.

So where are you, Barack Obama? I’m not asking that wistfully. This is not a folk song. I wanna know: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU? Oh, Obama is still tweeting good tweets. That’s very nice of him. Know who else is tweeting? All of us. Know what it’s gotten us? NOTHING.

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Published in GEN

A former publication from Medium about politics, power, and culture. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Drew Magary
Drew Magary

Written by Drew Magary

Columnist at GEN. Co-founder, Defector. Author of Point B.

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