Obama and Trump wage one last battle for even more urgent stakes

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Two decades ago, Barack Obama stormed battleground states rebuking a Republican president over a deeply unpopular war and an economy that was crushing working Americans.

He’s at it again. But his updated critique is more searing, contemptuous and urgent than during the George W. Bush era as he tries to push Democratic midterms candidates over the line to finally thwart the political momentum of his nemesis Donald Trump.

The ex-president’s swing Saturday through Ohio and Michigan — states both men won twice en route to the White House — coincided with Trump’s latest midterm stop in Georgia, where Obama is expected next week.

It was a rare chance to see the leaders whose political movements have defined the last 20 years in US politics and who remain their party’s most visible figureheads brandishing their presidency-winning skills at the same time.

Once again, Obama is manifesting as a messenger of hope, beseeching voters to understand they have the power to create change “in unsettling times,” though that signature brand’s assumptions have been sullied by two Trump terms.

“After 10 years of chaos, and cruelty, and corruption, and incompetence, tomfoolery, nonsense, the likes of which this country has not seen in modern times at least, you get to say ‘enough is enough,’” Obama said in Detroit.

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Trump, saddled with low approval ratings and public anger over the Iran war and the cost-of-living crisis, conjured an alternative vision of a nation that’s never been more prosperous. “We’re in the golden age of America,” he said Saturday.

But his fixation on the Democratic former president is undimmed. Early Sunday, when he was scheduled to head to his own rally in Michigan, Trump wrote on Truth social: “Obama was a grossly incompetent President!”

Saturday’s dueling appearances underscored how Trump and Obama — polar opposites who regard one another with deep contempt — are politically entwined at a turbulent moment of American history.

Obama built his movement on the argument that red states and blue states shared unifying aspirations of embracing a more racially diverse, optimistic and inclusive nation. This vision resonated among his coalition of college-educated, minority, urban and suburban liberal voters.

But Trump built his own coalition among others who fear the country’s traditional culture is threatened by social change and increasing diversity. He enlisted rural, non-college voters and working-class Americans disaffected by the economic globalism they believe Obama represents.

Each springs from true American roots. The 44th president epitomizes the Enlightenment idea that society advances through reason, science, political institutions and pluralism. The 45th and 47th president advocates nationalism and skepticism of elite scientific communities; he prioritizes his own power over institutions set up to provide political constraints.

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The Obama versus Trump clash cuts deeper than hope over fear and change versus retrenchment. It dramatizes competing strains of authentic Americanism, neither of which emerged ascendent in the early 21st century.

Obama’s fierce denunciations of Trump win headlines but didn’t stop his successor winning two White House terms.

Democrats must ask themselves why an ex-president who left office nearly a decade ago, handing the White House to a man who repudiated everything he stood for, remains his party’s sharpest and most popular spokesman. When Obama said it was time for change after “10 years,” it was almost as if the presidency of his own vice president Joe Biden had never happened.

The midterms have, at least, put a spotlight on some younger Democratic ‘leaders with voice and conviction who might modernize their party’s appeal, like Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff and Texas Senate candidate James Talarico.

Republicans also need renewal, with Trump both deeply unpopular and term-limited. But Democrats have shown how hard it can be to replace a talismanic leader with a movement who sometimes struggled to transfer his quintessential aura to lesser political talents. Two open presidential tickets in 2028 may open a new era that takes the country onward from the perpetual battle between Obamaism and Trumpism.

Obama seemed to hint as much himself: “I’ve been doing this a long time,” he said in Michigan. “Some people might say I’ve been doing this too long,” adding that his wife Michelle was telling him, “Old man, sit down!”

But the former president was in vintage form, rolling out his greatest hits like, “don’t boo, vote” and “I love you back” that recalled how his events once distilled a sense of shared purpose among supporters, just as Trump’s MAGA rallies have throughout his political career.

In Michigan, Obama connected Trump’s smears of Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed with the president’s racist campaign that called his US citizenship into doubt.

Republicans accuse El-Sayed of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group founded in Egypt, which he denies . The irony that Obama as president once traveled to Egypt to give a speech meant to foster American reconciliation with the Muslim world went unspoken.

Obama on Saturday showed that his campaign trail superpower of creating simple stakes is undimmed. While lampooning the president — quipping that Trump’s renovations have “the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory” — he argued voters can enact the change America needs.

“The current president chose to make a series of bad decisions,” Obama said, highlighting the prices of gas and diesel and the spike in mortgage rates . “He decided to start an unnecessary war nobody has asked for and nobody voted for.”

“If you thought everything cost too much before, guess what? Everything is more expensive now,” Obama said.

This twinning of war and economy messages recalls the former president’s 2008 argument, when he railed against “dumb” wars like the one in Iraq and an economy that had left Americans with “cars you can’t afford to drive, credit card bills you can’t afford to pay, and tuition that’s beyond your reach.”

Back then, he blamed “a broken politics in Washington” and the “failed policies” of a Republican president (Bush). To match an even more extreme time, his message has grown starker still.

But there’s also something deeper happening. Trump’s critics see his presidency as a cultural backlash to the first Black presidency. And many of Trump’s policies on Iran, healthcare and in other areas seem to percolate from his contempt for his first presidential predecessor.

So when Obama told his crowd that “everywhere you go, it feels like change is in the air” he was not simply referring to the midterm elections; he was restating the faith on which his political identity and legacy depend — that regular Americans, coming together, can combine to forge political change from the bottom up against entrenched power.

Obama, as he often seems to be, was on Trump’s mind throughout his rally in Georgia for embattled GOP Senate candidate Mike Collins .

Trump judged their relative political magnetism through his own judgment of their crowd sizes. “I saw Barack Hussein Obama was in Michigan. And the place was empty,” he said, in a subjective assessment of the former president’s turnout.

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And the two rivals sparred at a distance over Iran, with Obama saying his deal with the Islamic Republic to freeze its nuclear program meant he didn’t need to fight a war, and Trump claiming it was a path to the country gaining a nuclear weapon.

The president, his voice hoarse from constant campaigning, announced a new plan by the German auto manufacturer Audi to build a new plant to build SUVs in Macon, Georgia, that he said would produce 200,000 vehicles a year and create 30,000 jobs, drawing chants of “Trump, Trump, Trump” from a rowdy crowd.

Despite polls showing majorities of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy , he argued he’d made the country more prosperous, lowered poverty, boosted manufacturing and unleashed trillions of dollars in inward investment. “Remember when Barack Hussein Obama used to say that there’d be no manufacturing?” Trump asked his crowd, apparently referring to the then-president’s 2016 remark that he’d need a “magic wand” to bring jobs back.

Trump was prodding at a weak spot in Obama’s legacy — one that catalyzed his own political rise — the belief in 2016 among many traditionally Democratic blue-collar Rust Belt voters that they were no longer valued or respected.

Two decades after Obama burst onto the political scene, and a decade after Trump threatened everything Obama stood for with his own unlikely election triumph, these fierce political adversaries remain their party’s dominant political figures.

But the midterm elections — which may turn out to be one of their last battles — may begin to answer a question for a new political age: Can either party produce a successor who can so effectively capture the political zeitgeist in the second quarter of the 21st century?

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二十年前，巴拉克·奥巴马奔走于几个关键摇摆州，公开谴责一位共和党总统发动了一场极不受欢迎的战争，并指责他让美国工薪阶层的经济雪上加霜。

他又来了。但与乔治·W·布什时代相比，他这次的批评更加尖锐、轻蔑和紧迫，他试图推动民主党中期选举候选人获胜，最终挫败其宿敌唐纳德·特朗普的政治势头。

这位前总统周六访问了俄亥俄州和密歇根州——这两个州两人在入主白宫的路上都曾两次赢得——与此同时，特朗普正在佐治亚州进行中期选举的最新一站，预计奥巴马下周也将到访佐治亚州。

这是一个难得的机会，可以亲眼目睹那些政治运动定义了过去 20 年美国政治格局，并且仍然是各自政党中最引人注目的领军人物的领导人，同时还能看到他们展示赢得总统大选的才能。

奥巴马再次以希望使者的形象出现，恳请选民们明白，在“动荡的时代”，他们有能力创造变革，尽管特朗普的两届任期已经玷污了这一标志性形象。

“经过 10 年的混乱、残酷、腐败、无能、愚蠢和荒谬，至少在这个国家现代史上从未见过这样的情况，你们可以说‘够了’，”奥巴马在底特律说道。

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特朗普的支持率低迷，民众对伊朗战争和生活成本危机怨声载道，于是他描绘了一个截然不同的美国繁荣景象。“我们正处于美国的黄金时代，”他周六说道。

但他对这位民主党前总统的执念丝毫未减。周日清晨，在他原定前往密歇根州参加自己竞选集会时，特朗普在Truth社交媒体上写道：“奥巴马是一位极其无能的总统！”

周六的针锋相对的亮相凸显了特朗普和奥巴马——这两个截然相反、彼此深感蔑视的人——在美国历史的动荡时刻是如何在政治上纠缠在一起的。

奥巴马的竞选活动建立在这样的论点之上：无论是红州还是蓝州，都拥有共同的愿望，那就是建立一个种族更加多元化、更加乐观包容的国家。这一愿景在他的支持者群体中引起了共鸣，这些支持者包括受过大学教育的少数族裔、居住在城市和郊区的自由派选民。

但特朗普也建立了自己的联盟​​，其成员包括那些担心社会变革和日益增长的多元化威胁到美国传统文化的人。他争取到了农村地区、未受过大学教育的选民以及对奥巴马所代表的经济全球化感到不满的美国工薪阶层的支持。

他们都根植于真正的美国传统。第44任总统体现了启蒙思想，即社会进步依赖于理性、科学、政治制度和多元化。第45任和第47任总统则倡导民族主义，并对精英科学界持怀疑态度；他们将自身权力置于旨在提供政治约束的制度之上。

J.斯科特·阿普尔怀特/Pool/路透社

奥巴马与特朗普之间的冲突远不止于希望与恐惧、变革与保守之争。它凸显了美国精神中两种相互竞争的倾向，而这两种倾向在21世纪初都未能占据主导地位。

奥巴马对特朗普的猛烈抨击虽然占据了各大媒体的头条，但并没有阻止他的继任者赢得两届白宫任期。

民主党人必须扪心自问，为什么一位近十年前卸任、将白宫交给一位彻底背弃了他所有原则的人的前总统，至今仍是该党最犀利、最受欢迎的发言人？当奥巴马说“十年”之后是时候做出改变了时，仿佛他自己的副总统乔·拜登的总统任期从未存在过。

中期选举至少让一些年轻的民主党“领导人”脱颖而出，他们有自己的声音和信念，可能会使民主党的吸引力现代化，例如佐治亚州参议员乔恩·奥索夫和德克萨斯州参议员候选人詹姆斯·塔拉里科。

共和党也需要革新，因为特朗普不仅民望低迷，而且任期已满。但民主党已经证明，要用一个有时难以将他标志性魅力传递给能力稍逊的政治人物的运动来取代一位具有领袖气质的领导人是多么困难。2028年两场总统选举的空缺或许会开启一个新时代，带领美国摆脱奥巴马主义和特朗普主义之间永无休止的斗争。

奥巴马似乎也暗示了这一点：“我做这件事已经很久了，”他在密歇根州说。“有些人可能会说我做得太久了，”他还补充说，他的妻子米歇尔对他说：“老头，坐下吧！”

但这位前总统状态极佳，再次拿出他的经典口号，比如“不要嘘，去投票”和“我也爱你”，让人想起他曾经的竞选活动是如何在支持者中凝聚起共同目标感的，就像特朗普的“让美国再次伟大”集会在他的整个政治生涯中所做的那样。

在密歇根州，奥巴马将特朗普对民主党候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德的抹黑与总统质疑其美国公民身份的种族主义竞选活动联系起来。

共和党人指责埃尔-赛义德支持穆斯林兄弟会——一个在埃及成立的伊斯兰组织，但他否认了这一指控。讽刺的是，奥巴马总统曾访问埃及，发表旨在促进美国与穆斯林世界和解的演讲，而这一点却无人提及。

奥巴马周六展现了他竞选时擅长将竞选议题简单明了地呈现出来的能力依然不减。他一边嘲讽特朗普总统——打趣说特朗普的翻修工程让“白宫看起来像萨达姆·侯赛因开了家芝士蛋糕工厂”——一边强调选民能够促成美国所需的变革。

奥巴马说：“现任总统做出了一系列糟糕的决定。”他特别提到了汽油和柴油价格上涨以及抵押贷款利率飙升。“他决定发动一场毫无必要的战争，这场战争既没有人要求，也没有人投票支持。”

奥巴马说：“如果你以前觉得什么东西都太贵，猜猜怎么着？现在什么东西都更贵了。”

这种将战争和经济信息结合起来的做法，让人想起这位前总统在 2008 年的言论，当时他抨击了像伊拉克战争这样的“愚蠢”战争，以及让美国人“买不起车、付不起信用卡账单、上不起学费”的经济状况。

当时，他指责“华盛顿的政治腐败”和共和党总统（布什）的“失败政策”。为了适应更加极端的时代，他的言论也变得更加尖锐。

但背后还有更深层次的原因。特朗普的批评者认为，他的总统任期是对首位黑人总统任期的一种文化反弹。而特朗普在伊朗、医疗保健和其他领域的许多政策，似乎都源于他对首位前任总统的蔑视。

因此，当奥巴马告诉他的支持者们“无论走到哪里，都能感受到变革的气息”时，他指的不仅仅是中期选举；他是在重申他政治身份和遗产所依赖的信念——普通的美国人团结起来，可以自下而上地对抗根深蒂固的权力，从而实现政治变革。

奥巴马似乎总是萦绕在特朗普的心头，在他为陷入困境的共和党参议员候选人迈克·柯林斯在佐治亚州举行的竞选集会上，特朗普的脑海中一直萦绕着奥巴马的身影。

特朗普根据自己对集会人数的判断来评判他们的政治影响力。“我看到巴拉克·侯赛因·奥巴马在密歇根州，结果现场空空荡荡，”他主观地评价这位前总统的集会人数时说道。

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两位竞争对手就伊朗问题展开了隔空交锋。奥巴马表示，他与伊朗达成的冻结其核计划的协议意味着他无需发动战争；而特朗普则声称，这反而是伊朗获得核武器的途径。

总统嗓子因持续竞选而沙哑，他宣布了德国汽车制造商奥迪的一项新计划，将在佐治亚州梅肯市建造一座新的SUV工厂。他说，该工厂每年将生产20万辆汽车，并创造3万个就业岗位。此言一出，现场喧闹的人群高呼“特朗普，特朗普，特朗普”。

尽管民调显示大多数美国民众不认可特朗普的经济政策，但他辩称自己让国家更加繁荣，降低了贫困率，促进了制造业发展，并释放了数万亿美元的外商投资。“还记得巴拉克·侯赛因·奥巴马曾经说过不会有制造业吗？”特朗普问他的支持者，显然指的是奥巴马在2016年发表的言论，即他需要一根“魔法棒”才能让就业机会重回美国。

特朗普触及了奥巴马政治遗产中的一个弱点——而正是这个弱点促成了他自己的政治崛起——那就是在2016年，许多传统上支持民主党的蓝领铁锈地带选民认为他们不再被重视或尊重。

奥巴马横空出世进入政坛二十年后，特朗普凭借出人意料的选举胜利威胁到奥巴马所代表的一切十年后，这些激烈的政治对手仍然是各自政党的主导政治人物。

但中期选举——这可能是他们最后的几场战斗之一——或许能够开始回答一个关乎新政治时代的问题：这两个政党能否产生一位能够有效把握 21 世纪第二个 25 年政治时代精神的继任者？