Barack Obama is finally speaking out. And Biden’s campaign needs all the help it can get

Editorial: To win in 2020, the Democrats must overcome a well-funded Trump campaign, with its devoted ‘base’ and all the usual advantages that accrue to an incumbent with control of events and the news agenda

(Reuters)

With the possible exception of Harry S Truman and Richard Nixon, there has never in modern times been such public needling between a serving president and a predecessor as exists now between Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Men of such different backgrounds, styles and outlooks don’t have to agree, but neither do they have to go out of their way to exchange unpleasantries.

No moral equivalence is involved, however. The 44th president is right to speak out about the failures of the 45th president at such a time of national, and indeed global, crisis. The Trump presidency, apart from its many other flaws, has been woefully incompetent during the pandemic. The transactional “What’s in it for me?” approach has certainly hampered the responses at state and federal level. The zenith of idiocy came when the president publicly floated to his experts the idea of exposing the insides of coronavirus patients to bleach. Mr Trump retweets claims about corruption in the Obama White House, and he makes ominous hints about investigating “Obamagate”.

The only question over Obama’s remarks is whether they actually hasten the moment when America and the wider world will be free of this deeply damaging administration.

On balance, it is probably worth a shot.

The Biden campaign, although competitive, needs all the help it can assemble to overcome a well-funded Trump campaign, with its devoted “base” and all the usual advantages that accrue to an incumbent with control of events and the news agenda. As was evident in 2016, a lead in national opinion polls is not enough in America’s electoral college – and Mr Biden will need to carry swing counties in key states if he is to prevail. Obama’s intervention may help in some areas, especially among people of colour. Then again, so will Biden’s choice of running mate and policy platform. The dynamics of the coronavirus tragedy should make voters think twice about re-electing President Trump, but Biden will need to show how, specifically, he would have done things differently, and better.

For now, there is cabaret. It is sometimes said – and sometimes denied – that Trump finally decided to run for the presidency on the night in 2011 of (what used to be) the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Obama, the then president, decided to mock his eventual successor in the most excoriating way. The state of Hawaii had just published the president’s full birth certificate, thus disproving the conspiracy theory promoted by Trump that Obama was not an American. “I know that he’s taken some flak lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than The Donald,” said Obama. “And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter – like, did we fake the moon landings? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”

Since coming into office, of course, Trump has set about undoing much of Obama’s legacy, piece by piece, as if in a systematic act of spite: the Paris climate change accord, the Iran nuclear deal, Obamacare, all successively attacked. If Biden is elected president in November, presumably he will then attempt to reinstate those policies, and throw Trump’s into the trash can. It would be an odd way to run a country but welcome even so.