The myth of Obama’s ‘disappearance’
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
June 30, 2018
If you believe recent media accounts, the former Democratic president has suddenly transcended the political fray. It’s as if a newly “Zen-like” Barack Obama is content to just write his memoir and let Donald Trump and Republicans write the next chapter of history.
In a cover story asking “Where is Barack Obama?” for example, New York magazine concluded that the 44th president has “virtually disappeared” from the political scene and is sitting idly by as his legacy is dismantled piece by piece. From an exclusive interview, the periodical concluded Obama was “modeling his political engagement out of office after George W. Bush’s” — that is, staying out of the rough-and-tumble of politics, maintaining distance from his former office and resigning himself to be an elder statesman fading into the sunset.
Don’t buy it.
Obama is doing far more to shape the political landscape than is visible. In fact, for an ex-prez, he’s taking an unusually active role in politics, including helping radical protest groups fight Trump and his policies and devising a scheme to flip the GOP majority in the House and permanently turn red seats blue.
From his sprawling DC office not far from the White House, where he oversees a full-time staff of 20, Obama has held regular meetings with Democratic lawmakers, as well as DNC chief Tom Perez, whom he personally helped install to run the Democratic Party. Obama has also met with his attorney general, Eric Holder, to craft a strategy to redraw congressional district maps in Democrats’ favor, according to Politico. Holder now runs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which Obama helped his old friend launch.
Obama, who maintains a home in Chicago, originally said he only planned to stay in Washington temporarily, until his youngest daughter, Sasha, now 17, finished high school there. But the family is clearly putting down deeper roots. They recently bought their DC rental home and erected a massive security wall around the property, which includes offices, and are installing a swimming pool.
While it may be true Obama does not want to engage directly in Washington politics, including personally protesting Trump’s policies, he is using a political-organizing group he founded to do that for him.
That nonprofit — Organizing for Action — is not exactly a household name. But it is no less than the organizing and training hub of the anti-Trump resistance.
Most recently, OFA helped stage rallies across the country against the administration’s border policies, which it has decried as “cruel and inhumane.” OFA describes itself as a “nonpartisan grass-roots-driven organization,” but it clearly has a pro-Obama agenda. In fact, it’s run almost entirely by alums from Obama’s campaign and White House, including Jon Carson and Jim Messina, who co-chair the group, and Katie Hogan, who serves as its executive director, according to recent tax filings by the nonprofit.
Though Obama has no official or legal role in OFA, he features the group along with his foundation on his post-presidency Web site and rallies its foot soldiers, who wear blue T-shirts with big white “OFA” letters, in conference calls. After Trump won, for example, he phoned to “fire up” Carson and his team and told them not to worry, that they would “cook up all kinds” of strategies to reclaim the agenda, according to a Nov. 14, 2016, White House transcript of his OFA conference call. More recently, Obama sent an e-mail to “OFA supporters” urging them to “keep going in 2018,” because “there’s simply too much at stake this year.” Obama has tweeted from OFA’s account before and after leaving the White House, and while he was in the White House, he let OFA control his Twitter account, according to The Atlantic.
Earlier this year, moreover, he met with Hogan to discuss how the group can flex its muscles during the midterm campaign to help Democrats recapture the House, according to The New York Times. To that end, OFA plans to train and deploy organizers in 27 Republican-held congressional districts, many with heavy Latino populations, that could be key to a Democratic takeover of the House. With offices in DC and Chicago, OFA has already trained more than 40,000 leftist agitators in person or by webinar, according to tax records.
“We’ve seen grassroots organizing make a big difference this past year, it will again in November,” Hogan recently tweeted.
Meanwhile, OFA has formally partnered with one of the angriest resistance groups, Indivisible Project, which has been criticized for using overly aggressive protest tactics against Republicans at town-hall meetings. Indivisible plans to deploy OFA-trained agitators to storm Republican districts during the Fourth of July recess, starting this weekend, to shout down “Trump’s racist policies,” according to its Web site.
OFA brings in between $6 million and $14 million in donations a year, and is funded in part by Democracy Alliance, which is connected to the radical group that dispatched agitators to march outside Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s Virginia town house, blaring an audiotape of crying immigrant children and chanting “No justice, no sleep!” The group, CREDO Action, also held signs calling Nielsen a “child snatcher” and shouted, “You’re a modern-day Nazi!’
With the help of 40 full-time staffers, OFA trains volunteers in the hard-core tactics popularized by the late Chicago radical Saul Alinsky, including smearing and intimidating opponents and mobilizing angry mobs to convey the appearance of a mass movement that enjoys a good deal of public support.
Alinsky trainers schooled Obama in these same tactics when he was an organizer in South Side Chicago.
Meanwhile, Hogan and OFA have partnered with Obama and Holder’s gerrymandering project to manufacture future Democrat victories.
Republicans are so alarmed by Obama’s permanent presence and political interference they are raising money from donors based on these fears, warning in a recent fund-raising newsletter about “his scheme to interfere in the 2018 midterms,” according to a June 22 e-mail from House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.
In public, Obama has skillfully kept his distance from recent anti-Trump protests and politicking. But behind the scenes, he really may be coordinating the resistance — and acting as its organizer in chief.
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The community organizer is back. I hope this gives some of our more afflicted members a sense of security. I know it has been difficult for some of them readjusting after the indoctrination subsided.
GMTA, sixpick -- I didn't see your seed and seeded the same article an hour ago. I'll delete mine. No need for duplicates!
No problem Jasper. I saw your article and was going to let you have the burden and fun of taking care of it, but I was too late getting on here
The right continues to speak only of the left.
One might almost imagine that there's nothing to say about the right...
I'm surprised we don't see articles about FDR...
FDR died in office - 'member?
So? Every day we get seeds about Obama, or a Clinton. Why not FDR?
Have you not noticed all of the anti-Trump seeds that are posted every day? There are far more of them than Obama or Clinton seeds.
Ummm..... Jasper??
Trump is the President. It's kinda sorta logical that there are a lot of articles about him.
Whereas Obama is gone and Clinton never arrived.
Do you see a difference?
Please read comment 2 and learn who started this. Peace ... out.
Just as the article points out (as well as fellow posters at times) Obama and Clinton are 'supposed' to be thought of as dead as well, their input is to be ignored … The Wizard would be so proud of those that keep the curtain closed while their followers remain mystified by their greatness...
Even when he was alive, Obama was considered an oracle - now that he has passed away beneath the fray .. his beacon shines across the land of Oz...!
: )
Exactly how I felt just now reading your comments .. glad you has an emoji for that!
We like to rub in Trump's wins, Hillary's loss, and the failures of Bubba and Barry. We know you'd rather not be reminded of how awful they were.
How does that work with someone like myself who was never a fan of any of them?
Gloating is okay, I guess. But in your (collective right wing) case, you seem to have nothing else. That's kinda sad...
Yes. But Obama is the community organizer and will never go away.
Seriously, Six?
, yes he wants to replicate himself I think he wants to have a million more Obama's I think that's one thing you said
His clones will be hatched at secret FIMA camps... They're genetically modified to be perfectly loyal to the Deep State.
And we like to rub in Trump's constant lying, and his never ending failures.
No, not FEMA camps, but Obama camps. He was the one who said it. He said he basically is trying to get all these young people and create a million young Obamas. He's a community organizer and he's staying busy promoting his Marxism. I would have thought you would have been aware of him saying that during a sit down speech. He's a revolutionist, except he's not going to get his hands dirty. Heck, I bet he hasn't done a hard days work in his entire life.
Funny that you mentioned FDR in the way you did, Bob. I seeded an article about him last week. You even commented on it.
It wasn't exactly a political article...
I did not say that my seed was political, Bob, so your comment is irrelevant.
Whatever. Russians in Trump Tower. Russians in The White House. And at this moment Putin awaits for The Trump visit.
What Russians?
And how many of them have been charged with colluding with the Russians? As far as I know, zero.
That comment seems to indicate a lack of knowledge so here's some pre- and post- Cold War history: FDR, DDE, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama all met with Russian leaders. For our current POTUS to do the same is not unusual.
Ever notice no matter what Trump tries to do, they continually argue he doesn't have the same rights as other Presidents had?
TDS to the moon and back -- pure and simple.
Everything that is happening in the USA since the 2016 election was meddled in by RUSSIA has been to the delight of Putin .. the US media and those that are consumed by ALL things Russia - the Mueller investigation .. ALL of it delights Putin... he has been freely given extreme power over the thoughts of so many Americans … Trump is Putin's puppet after all - does not even have to be true, but ya know Putin delights in it ALL...
Just my thoughts razing : )
Peace...
Enjoy your day as well : )
P.s... I prefer my eggs scrambled : )
Meeting with foreign leaders and colluding with them are two different things. Trump is dirty. Dirty money.
Meeting with foreign leaders is not a crime. Please provide documented evidence of Trump "colluding with them". Please be aware that even Mueller and others in his merry investigatory band can't find anything close to "collusion".
The only person we have any evidence of colluding with the Russians concerning the 2016 election was Hillary Clinton’s campaign and we have tons of evidence to support it.
So to you, the Clinton campaign paying for the opposition research that was started by the GOP but continued under Clinton, is the "evidence of collusion"? Or are you saying it's the Uranium One supposed scandal that presents "evidence" of collusion? Which is it this week? Sure, we have a dozen Trump campaign team members lying about their meetings with Russian operatives, most having to admit they did speak with Russian operatives about getting dirt on Hillary, that they did talk about quid quo pro of dropping sanctions and repealing the Magnitsky act if the Russians provided help in winning the white house. And we have the fact that the Russians did dump a bunch of dirt on Hillary and the DNC the same day Trump was faced with his own reprehensible words admitting he doesn't "even wait" for consent, he just assaults attractive women by grabbing them by the genitals. We also know the Russians paid for advertisements that sowed distrust and disorder in our election process, most intended to either hurt Hillary or help Trump, spammed across numerous social media platforms. But to the Trumpians, that was all the sneaky Hillary and the "deep states" plan, to undermine her own chances while keeping the fact that Trump was under investigation during the campaign a secret. The conspiracy theorists still pointing fingers at Hillary aren't playing 3 dimensional chess, they're playing solitaire go-fish. "Do you have a Hillary collusion 7?" "Of course I do!" "How about an Obama birther 9?" "Here ya go!"...
DP, I don't know who you're getting your information from, but I'd suggest you look for another source.
I read most sources of news though I have a very sensitive BS meter so I don't often read articles from the real shit throwers like Fox, Breitbart, Stormfront, Alex Jones or the American Stinker. I prefer the AP, Reuters, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC.
And while trying to deflect you failed to respond to even a single point I made. Am I to assume you can't defend the illogic of trying to pin some spurious claim of collusion on Hillary?
"Be aware?" I am.
Remember the old 'Patriot Act' arguments? You know, 'Got nothing to hide--got nothing to fear?" That is a walk Trump does not do, because he can't.
To tell you the truth DP, I've been down this road way too many times and it's a waste of time. I've grown tired of wasting time.
I strongly suggest 'you bring what you got' to Nunes and that twerp, Jordan. I'm positive they will be very receptive concerning your 'evidence' of Clinton/Russia collusion.
So? He's keeping active. What's wrong with that?
He's continuing his community organizer job with the Left Wing radical like he learned in Hawaii and Chicago from his Communist mentors.
Like I said...So?
Only now, he has the ex-POTUS political clout and mega-millions/billions he didn't have when he was a "nobody" in Chicago's slums.
Yep, he's keeping "active" ....
Would you rather a community DISorganizer like trump?
I thought he was from Kenya?
How do you like my new meme, my friend, Mr Frost? LOL
Gotta admit, it's a good one.
Deplorables would rather he would do what Nixon did when he left office. He moved to San Clemente after his resignation and spent his days on the beach with a metal detector, a shell of his former self.
Some people are just mockers....they can't help themselves
"Don’t buy it. Obama is doing far more to shape the political landscape than is visible."
Can they be any more obvious in their attempts to stoke racial fear in the half wit racist Trumper base? The straw man Obama was their favorite fund raising tool for the prior 8 years, now they need to keep that fear alive if they want to turn out the bigots in big numbers. There's nothing better than a "secret gay Muslim illegitimate Manchurian candidate President born in Kenya" working behind the scenes of the supposed "deep state" to scare conservative snowflakes into thinking they're losing their white male grip on American power.
I sure hope so. Trump is a wart on the cock of American politics.