If Obama is part of the new leadership of the Democratic National Committee, it means the old party apparatus has changed.
The Democrats have made outstanding achievements during the Biden presidency, but why isn’t the DNC talking about it?
The Dow reached a record high, millions of Social Security recipients are getting an increase in their monthly payments, and the Inflation Reduction Act is creating jobs. But as these achievements developed, President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ poll numbers continued to sink. This diversion should alarm the DNC, but the Democrats are strangely silent.
Are they asleep? Are they waiting for the best time to start their 2024 election campaign? Or, as many suspect, is it because no one is in charge of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) or whoever is running the presidential election campaign behind the curtains?
It’s clear to Washington pundits that something is amiss. Average Democratic voters outside of the inner political circles suspect the top Dems in charge of the 2024 election are collecting their paychecks and are asleep in their offices.
It’s time the DNC came clean about their inaction in the face of the Republican MAGA propaganda onslaught. Are they afraid, timid, and disorganized? Or, are the elected Washington Dems fearful of offending the president and his staff or whoever is running the show from another location?
Or is there a lot more to this story?
As president, Biden is the titular head of the DNC. But Biden is a busy man, facing global and domestic problems against a MAGA opposition intent on derailing him politically and dragging down his reputation.
On paper, the DNC is led by Jaime Harrison, who ran for the Senate from South Carolina and lost to Lindsay Graham in 2020. A committee elected Jaime, and their main job is fundraising and establishing a party brand. But if branding is a goal, they have failed miserably. They also have failed to respond to falling poll numbers from both of their top candidates.
So, given these critical flaws, it’s time to ask: Who is running the DNC, and what is their motive?
Is Obama Running the DNC?
One speculation is that the DNC is being run from behind the curtain by former president Barack Obama. According to a provocative interview with David Samuels in Tablet Magazine with author David Garrow, Samuels said: “I have heard from more than one source that
there are regular meetings at Obama’s house in Kalorama ( Washington DC neighborhood) involving top figures in the current White House, with Secret Service and cars outside.”
Samuels is the editor of County Highway, a new American magazine in the form of a 19th-century newspaper, and is Tablet’s literary editor. Samuels added, “Joe Biden is not running the (Iranian negotiation) part of his administration. Obama is. He doesn’t even have to pick up the phone because all his people are already inside the White House.”
“There are large parts of White House policymaking that belong to Barack Obama because they’re staffed by his people, who worked for him and no doubt report back to him. Personnel is policy, as they say in Washington.”
In the Tablet interview, Samuels speaks with David Garrow, the author of Dreams from MyFather, a biography of Barack Obama; The FBI, and Martin Luther King, Jr.; and Bearing the Cross, a bio of Dr. Martin Luther King, which won the Pulitzer Prize. For the Obama book, Garrow said he interviewed about 1,000 people.
Obama’s Party Leadership Failures
One of Garrow’s insights about the current state of the DNC is that Obama “has no interest in building the Democratic Party as an institution. I think that’s obvious.
“And I don’t think he had any intense, meaningful policy commitments other than the need to feel and be perceived as victorious and triumphant. I’ve sometimes said to people that I think Barack is actually just as insecure as Trump, but in ways that are not readily perceived by the vast majority of people. I think that’s probably my most basic takeaway.”
If Obama is leading part of the new leadership of the DNC, it means the old party apparatus has changed. Samuels asks if Obama “is the author of this new machine? Did he create it purposefully? Does it report back to him?
“Or is it a larger phenomenon that originated partly on his watch, due to whatever combination of personal negligence and disengagement, and his sense that it benefited the Democratic Party or personally benefited him?”
These are all valid questions, and they help explain the DNC’s odd inaction to confront the MAGA propaganda barrage, as well as Biden and Harris’ falling poll numbers.
And if Obama is the head of the DNC, what does it indicate about what the Democratic Party has become?
Samuels notes that “Obama is the first U.S. president from the periphery of the empire, and he’s also the first president from the billionaire-foundation-NGO complex, which makes him the perfect mediating figure between the progressive part of the party, the billionaires, and the security state.”
Throughout this incisive interview, Samuels and Garrow both note that Obama had a troubled childhood and had to overcome an identity crisis and loneliness to reinvent
himself. The reinvented Obama developed a sense of superiority and aloofness. He considered himself a writer and professor who did not get involved in the mundane political world of drafting legislation, buttonholing other elected officials to get their votes, or solving constituents’ problems.
The reason, Garrow said, is that Obama is “too lazy. This is in the book. It goes back to him being Hawaiian. At one point, he (Obama) says, ‘I’m fundamentally lazy and it’s because I’m from Hawaii.’ That’s close to the actual quote.” Obama also once told a fellow lawyer in the firm where he worked that he wanted to be rich, so he could have a private jet and a valet.
Obama’s other fundamental identity problem centers around his race and origins: Hawaiian-Kenyan-Indonesian.
Garrow said the reinvented “Barack has the ability to identify himself as Black, not just for the vast majority of American white folks, but for the vast majority of American Black folks who have roots like Dr. King’s or Michelle’s. But both groups know that this is not a representative American Black person. It’s something else.”
After Bill Clinton left office, he and Hillary quickly raised $3 billion for their private foundation and a private fortune of $300 or $400 million within three or four years after leaving the White House,” Samuels said.
Obtaining this fortune caught the notice of the Obamas.
Samuels asked: “What do the Obamas and their circle have in common with each other?
“They (the Obamas) are Ivy League people, who ran away from whatever they came from in order to become members of the credentialed elites, whose loyalty is to the system that gives them prestige—or rather, gives prestige to their degrees, of which they are the holders…
“So why should Obama, the ultimate winner, carry on the charade that he’s part of a community, whatever that means, with these people? He’s happy to go on NPR and talk about meaning or Marilynne Robinson novels or whatever, to make the wine moms identify with him, so he can put one over on them. Just don’t ask him to visit the hospital when you get cancer, because he’ll be hanging out on someone’s yacht, with the other winners.”
It’s Time Now To Make Tough Decisions
So, if Obama has any role in managing the DNC today, it is a bad omen for the future. Obama has a bad track record regarding grass-roots political organizing and management. He doesn’t like to get dirty with the details. With a polarized nation in 2024, the most visible Democrats need to get their hands dirty and make tough decisions about the most viable candidates to oppose the sociopath Trump. If that means replacing Biden-Harris, someone has to make the tough decisions now.
