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Barack Obama in Florida: As if he had never been away
Photo: EVE EDELHEIT / REUTERS
Barack Obama jogs easily on stage, hops up the stairs, waves, takes off the mask that says "VOTE" in white letters, and smiles.
Obama, who actually wanted to retire after the 2016 election to write books and shoot Netflix documentaries, is campaigning again.
The performance takes place at a "drive-in" rally in Orlando, Florida.
It is an event to which the supporters travel by car to keep the minimum distance during the pandemic.
It is broadcast live on the Internet.
One more week and then the "most important choice in our lives," says Obama.
The Democrat, Joe Biden, competes against the incumbent Republican, Donald Trump.
Obama urges viewers to vote.
"What we do in a week will remain important for decades," he says.
Fear for American democracy
It was not clear for a long time that he would play such a big role during the final stages of the election campaign.
Obama remains one of the most popular presidents the US has ever had.
124.3 million people follow him on Twitter.
The twitter-mad Trump has only 87.3 million followers on the platform.
Obama knows how powerful his voice is.
He only uses them very carefully.
In the past three and a half years, he has seldom spoken out about his successor and even less often attacked him personally.
It did not fit his ideal of presidential etiquette.
Obviously Obama has changed his mind.
His Twitter timeline is lined up with videos of appearances in various formats, small campaign spots, and tweets in which he shares inspiring stories from Biden supporters.
A few days ago he made his first election campaign appearance at a rally in Philadelphia, then followed an appearance in Miami, now he's in Orlando.
Obama visits the important swing states.
There is a reason for his change of heart: He is worried about democracy in the United States of America.
In Orlando, Obama speaks about the Trump administration's failures during the corona pandemic.
Trump complains that there is too much Covid going on after over 220,000 Americans have died and thousands of small businesses have had to close.
"He's jealous of the press that Covid gets," says Obama mockingly.
Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows said in an interview a few days ago, "we will not be able to control the pandemic".
Obama quotes him saying that they realized that the White House wasn't going to control the pandemic.
"Winter is coming and they are waving the white flag of surrender," says Obama.
The unreasonable concern of the Obama team
Obama speaks pointed, charismatic, insistent.
He's a very good speaker.
He talks about Biden's plans to fight corona, about the fact that Trump hardly paid any income taxes (according to the "New York Times" it was just $ 750 in 2017), about Obamacare health insurance and that Trump is the most important president for black people in America "since Abraham Lincoln" referred to them.
At some point the crowd starts to yell: "Si podemos", "Yes we can" in Spanish.
For a brief moment, it seems as if Obama is campaigning for himself.
When he talks about his successes as president that day, he mentions Biden in the same breath.
Obama worked with Biden to ensure that people with pre-existing conditions are allowed to take out insurance.
He and Biden would have created more jobs than Trump.
According to an article in the New York Times in June of this year, the Obama team was concerned about whether Obama could overshadow Biden if he performed too much.
That is one reason why he had not interfered much in the election campaign up to that point.
One of the Biden team is said to have replied "overshadowed us."
"That's what's at stake. Our democracy."
Barack Obama
That Obama would play a bigger role could be guessed by whoever was watching his speech at the Democratic Party Conference at the end of August.
When he nominated Joe Biden as his vice president twelve years ago, he could not have known that he would find "a brother" in him.
He spoke about the importance of press freedom and that political opponents are not enemies.
"I ask you to believe in your own responsibility as citizens to ensure that the fundamental pillars of our democracy are preserved. That is what is at stake. Our democracy," he said at the time.
"We have to choose like we have never chosen before"
Obama sounds liberated these days, he seems to have a certain pleasure in finally being able to publicly reproach his successor for everything that, according to various media reports, he has been thinking since the 2016 election.
That Trump does not take the office seriously, that he spreads conspiracy theories and lies several times a day.
"We wouldn't accept if a football coach did that, why should we accept it if the President of the United States did it?" He asks.
Obama is sharp in his attacks on Trump, sharper than Biden, who is careful to present himself as a man of cohesion.
That Obama is serious about the concern for American democracy is also evident at the appearance in Orlando.
In the past four years, the worst impulses from the Americans had come to light.
But also the best, for example when millions of Americans took to the streets together for Black Lives Matter.
"America is a good and decent place," he says, asking people to remember what America is about - namely, that anyone can do it, regardless of where they are from.
"We have to choose like we have never voted before," he calls out to his cheering supporters.
When he's finished, he stays on stage for a moment.
He waves a few times, smiles.
His appearances are like brief moments of memory - of 2008 and 2012. When Obama's name was on the ballot paper.
"Like a breath in the fresh air," wrote someone on Twitter afterwards.
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