Obama Reacts to Trump's Shellacking of Kamala Harris

If there is one true thing, we had a preview of the 2024 results when Barack Obama and Joe Biden were caught having a frank discussion about the state of the election at Ethel Kennedy’s funeral in late October. By then, it was too late to turn anything around for Kamala Harris, though the same could be said for any struggling campaign. The two men were obviously talking about the vice president, with Obama stating that she wasn’t as strong as him. 

It took hours, but Obama finally delivered a statement congratulating Donald J. Trump on his election win. He gave his usual lecture about listening to one another, accepting defeat in elections since it’s part of living in a democracy, and expressing his pride in Kamala Harris and weirdo Tim Walz. 

Yet, the paragraph about the headwinds was interesting, a clever whitewashing that glosses over what created those political obstacles to Democratic Party policies. It’s a loaded paragraph: 

As I said on the campaign trail, America has been through a lot over the last few years—from a historic pandemic and price hikes resulting from the pandemic, to rapid change and the feeling a lot of folks have that, no matter how hard they work, treading water is the best they can do. Those conditions have created headwinds for democratic incumbents around the world, and last night showed that America is not immune.