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Before Pete Buttigieg launched into his remarks in Osceola, Iowa, on Tuesday, he wanted to let the crowd of a hundred of so at the county fairgrounds event center know that hed been there before. Well, not there at the event center, specificallythough he also wanted them to know that his husband, Chasten, standing in the back of the room, was a trophy-winning 4-H participantbut the small town itself, in rural Clarke County, about halfway between Des Moines and the Missouri state line.

I spent New Years in 2008 right here in Osceola, and we were volunteering, knocking on doors, a couple of us, for a young man with a funny name, he said. We were here when Iowa got the worlds attention when Barack Obama won here and started on the pathway to win the nomination.

Hmmmaybe youve heard of him? At this point, voters already knew the story. A few minutes earlier, theyd heard it from the chair of the county party, who introduced the former mayor of South Bend. Maybe theyd also read his recent interview about it in the Washington Post. (Come for the rare photo of Buttigieg wearing something other than a white dress shirt and blue tie; stay for the anecdote about his car going into a ditch.) Or maybe theyd heard him tell it at the state Democratic Partys Liberty and Justice Coalition Dinner in November. In the run-up to the caucus, Buttigieg is going all in on the Obama comparison, asking voters to remember 2008, ruminating about the meaning of hope, and floating the chance to make history one more time.

Obama has hovered over the 2020 field like a thick fog, a nebulous presence that candidates (or their supporters) can lay claim to but never quite wield as their own. Kamala Harris was the female Obama and Cory Booker Obama 2.0, though in retrospect, no they were not. Joe Biden, of course, was literally next in the line of succession to Obama at one point, and refers back to his work with Barack so often its almost a gulp word in his remarks. But Obama has not endorsed Biden, and Biden, for his part, has said he does not want Obama to endorse him, and in any event, Biden spent the run-up to the history-making 2008 caucuses knocking on doors for Joe Biden.

At the same time, the primary has forced an extended conversation about the 44th presidents legacy. During an early debate, for instance, Biden framed arguments for Warrens and Sanders Medicare for All proposals as an attack on the previous administration. The senator says shes for Bernie, Biden said of Warren. Well, Im for Barack. Biden has relished the role of defender of Obamas policies, at one point telling a debate moderator that a comparison between Obamas deportation regime and Trumps was close to immoral.

The policies are only a part of it. One thing Buttigieg is currently lacking is Obamas coalition of supporters: A nationwide poll Tuesday found him with zero-percent backing among African American voters, and while his message of generational change is quite popular among white senior citizens, its had considerably less traction among people of his actual generation. But Obama 2008 was also about a feelingand that feeling, more than anything, is what Buttigieg is trying hard to remind voters of in the closing week. As he wrapped up his remarks in Osceola (and again, a few hours later, in Indianola), Buttigieg returned rhetorically, if not by name, to the campaign he had opened with, only this time, the skinny young man with a funny name was him:

Id like to close by pointing out the role of hope at a time like this. And I know hope is an odd word to use given that it fell out of fashion in our politics, because of how weak and divided our climate is in Washington, but I also think it takes a bit of hope to get involved at all. And I also think theres a reason why, on the news, they took the word hopeful, turned it into a noun, and used it as another word for candidate.

So Im urging you to bottle up whatever hope compelled you into this room and made you think it was worth spending part of your Tuesday to be here right now. And if everybody does that, everybody were talking tothis coming Monday we are gonna make history one more time in a state that has a history of changing expectationsthat did it that night a few days after I was experiencing Osceola New Years for the first time, and changed what America thought a nominee could be.

Its not exactly subtle. But hey, its worked before.

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Pete Buttigieg Is Really Leaning Into the Obama Thing - Mother Jones

Read: Wherever Obama turns, there Trump is

Obama has been careful in how hes publicly discussed his successor. Campaigning against Trump in 2016, Obama said several times that democracy is on the ballot, and he often portrayed the thenRepublican nominee as an easily triggered hate-monger who couldnt be trusted with the presidency. The night before the November election, at a closing rally in Philadelphia with Clinton, Obama said that the presidency reveals people for who they really are, and that Americans should be worried about what Trump had revealed about himself. Since then, Obama has largely stayed away from offering specific criticism of Trump. But he campaigned in 2017 and 2018 to defeat the presidents Republican allies, declaring, in a repeat of his 2016 message, that our democracys at stake.

Obama has never gone as far as using the word fascist in public, even though thats not an uncommon opinion, especially on the left. Journalists and academics who have lived in and studied fascist regimes regularly point to the traits Trump seems to share with those leaders, including demanding fealty, deliberately spreading misinformation, and adopting Joseph Stalins slur that the press is the enemy of the people. And thats not to mention Trumps apparent admiration for living authoritarians, such as Russias Putin, Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdoan, and North Koreas Kim Jong Un. He speaks, and his people sit up at attention, Trump gushed about Kim in a 2018 interview on Fox & Friends. I want my people to do the same.

In the footage from Hillary, Kaine seems to suggest that Obama wanted him to be more aggressive against Trump. He knows me and knows I tend to hold back, Kaine says. (This past November, Kaine referred to Trump as a tyrant in an interview on the Radio Atlantic podcast.)

In the Sundance interview, Clinton said that Obama had never used the word fascist in conversations with her about Trump. But, she said, what Obama observed was this populism untethered to facts, evidence, or truth; this total rejection of so much of the progress that America has made, in order to incite a cultural reaction that would play into the fear and the anxiety and the insecurity of peoplepredominantly in small-town and rural areaswho felt like they were losing something. And [Trump] gave them a voice for what they were losing and who was responsible.

In the documentary footage, Clinton also notes that she is scared and suspicious of what Trump is up to. His agenda is other peoples agenda, she says. Were scratching hard, trying to figure it out. He is the vehicle, the vessel for all these other people.

[Paul] Manafort, all these weird connections, Kaine replies, referring to Trumps former campaign chair, who is now in prison after being convicted of financial crimes related to his international business dealings.

[Michael] Flynn, who is a paid tool for Russian television, Clinton continues, referring to Trumps onetime national security adviser and former campaign surrogate. The way that Putin has taken over the political apparatus she starts to say. Then, a voice off camera interrupts her.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

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Obamas 2016 Warning: Trump Is a Fascist - The Atlantic

Dozens of recently published memoirs written by officials who worked for the Obama administration have helped us understand these officials backgrounds and views of actions taken and not taken. But like others in the memoir genre, the latest crop is generally self-justifying. Despite these glowing tomes, the Obama administration was far from the golden age for U.S. alliance, especially for U.S. allies in the Middle East.

I had a ringside seat for U.S.-Israel relations during President Barack Obamas first term as the political counselor at the U.S. Embassy to Israel. In the spirit of seeking to better understand these relations in those years, I offer one episode glossed over in the memoirs to date. That episode began with Obamas speech entitled Remarks by the President on the Middle East and North Africa and delivered at the State Department on May 19, 2011.

This was Obamas first major speech on the Middle East since the Arab Spring had broken out six months earlier. One of Americas most important Arab allies, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, had resigned in the face of angry crowds in Tahrir Square; dictators in Tunisia and Yemen had been toppled; America had intervened to prevent Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya from marching on Benghazi; Assad in Syria had started massacring his citizens; finally, Arab monarchs in the Gulf, Jordan and Morocco were shaken and one of them, in Bahrain, was facing mass protests

American diplomats in the region anticipated that the speech would lay out a new ground plan for addressing the unprecedented street protests then convulsing the entire Arab Middle East.

And Obama did exactly that in the first three quarters of the May 19, 2011, speech. But then he pivoted. At a time when the people of the Middle East and North Africa are casting off the burdens of the past, the drive for a lasting [Israeli-Palestinian] peace that ends the conflict and resolves all claims is more urgent than ever, he said. Warning that Israel must act boldly, Obama stated that the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1949 Armistice lines with mutually agreed swaps.

This portion of the May 19 speech flabbergasted me. The attempt to link ongoing Arab street protests with resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seemed mistaken. The protestors were not making this claim. Israeli-Palestinian talks were on hold for unrelated reasons. More importantly, the speech revoked a key written commitment that the United States made to Israel at the time of Israels unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2004. That couldnt help restart Israeli-Palestinian talks, which we were trying to do.

The Obama speech revoked a commitment made in an exchange of letters on April 14, 2004, between President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. At the time, Israels parliament, the Knesset, was debating Sharons plan to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza and four West Bank settlements. Sharon went to Washington to obtain U.S. commitments that would help him secure Knesset approval of the plan. He got an important promise that helped him win Knesset approval. The United States, in the Bush letter to Sharon, said it would support Israeli-Palestinian talks over borders that would start with Israel keeping settlement blocs inside the West Bank, provided there would be mutually agreed swaps in exchange for Israel keeping those blocs.

In his May 19, 2011, speech, Obama revoked the U.S. commitment and said the United States would support talks that start from the 1949 lines and proceed on the basis of swaps. Thus, if the Palestinians reject any swaps (which they have consistently done), there would notbe any realistic progress on borders. From Israels perspective, the 1949 Armistice lines leave them in an indefensible position, with most of its population on a coastal plain with eleven miles between the West Bank and the Mediterranean at its most narrow.

Following Israeli protests of the Obama revocation, the President publicly reversed himself three days later in a speech to AIPAC, insisting that there had been no change in the U.S. position on border negotiations. But a senior official involved in drafting the speech had told me earlier that the May 19 speech was intended to convey a change in policy on borders, as a get-tough signal to Israel.

There were two other problems with the Obama speech. First, its timing appeared to humiliate Israeli prime minister Netanyahu who only learned of the speechs Israeli-Palestinian points as he was stepping onto a plane to Washington for a previously scheduled meeting. At the May 20 press conference at the White House, Netanyahu brought up the apparent change in U.S. policy and appeared to lecture the President, causing public speculation about the U.S.-Israel relationship. Second, revoking the 2004 U.S. commitment on borders may also have contravened an earlier U.S. commitment to Israel, made in a memorandum of understanding attached to the 1975 Sinai Disengagement Agreement. In this MOU the United States promised Israel not to present any initiatives on Middle East peace without first discussing them with Israel.

The U.S.-Israel relationship has always been dynamic with many ups and downs in each administration. The Obama administration, fortunately, had a senior advisor with deep Israel experience, Dennis Ross, who worked to smooth over relations with an Israel that was navigating an especially turbulent time in the Middle East.

The Obama revocation doesnt figure in any of the largely self-congratulatory memoirs of the Obama years; it wasnt a high point for any of the key figures. I recall it as a moment of clarity regarding the Obamateam's disdain for Israel. It is also an example of the increasing partisan handling of our foreign policy, in which each president often seeks to undo policies and sometimes even commitments made by the immediate predecessor. Neither started with President Donald Trump. Finally, it is a reminder of the need for experienced advisors and diplomats who can help manage our foreign relations alongside our elected political leaders who set the policies.

Bob Silverman is a former senior Foreign Service Officer and President of the American Foreign Service Association. He has published opinion pieces in Foreign Policy, USA Today, the Foreign Service Journal and The Forward, and translated a book from Arabic, A Drive to Israel by Ali Salem.

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Obama Also Got It Wrong in the Middle East - The National Interest Online

Satisfaction with race relations in the United States has jumped under President Trump, the latest indication that the Republican is making significant inroads with blacks and other minorities in advance of the 2020 presidential election.

New details from a Gallup survey on satisfaction said race relations and the position of minorities under Trump are far higher than they were under President Barack Obama, the nations first black president.

Race relations scored the highest satisfaction advance, 14 points, from 22% at the end of the Obama administration to 36% this month, said Gallup.

And, The position of blacks and other racial minorities in the nation jumped 9 points, from 37% in January 2017 to 46% now.

Gallup

The poll bolsters several others that have shown Trump picking up support from blacks and Hispanics 10 months before Election Day.

Some notable polls have shown black support at up to 34%, though GOP pollsters suggest that once the Democrats pick a nominee support for Trump will drop back to 12%-14%. But that would be historic for a Republican presidential candidate and could turn the race for Trump, they added.

White House officials have credited the rise in support from African Americans and other minorities to the improved economy, historically low unemployment for blacks, Hispanics, and women, prison reform, and urban renewal programs.

Whats more, Gallup said that the nations average satisfaction rate is at a 15-year high.

Said the survey analysis:

Americans' average satisfaction rating for the 27 issues Gallup has tracked consistently since 2001 is now 47%. This is up three points from a year ago and is the highest since the January 2005 poll.

Today's average satisfaction is roughly on par with the level of the early 2000s. Only in 2002 was the average for this metric substantially higher than it is today. The average 53% recorded that year reflected heightened satisfaction as Americans were in full rally around the flag mode shortly after the 9/11 attacks.

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Race relations and 'position' of minorities better under Trump than Obama - Washington Examiner

The Barack Obama Foundation has received a major donation for the creation of a Chicago-based sports facility. According to Forbes, Nike gifted the organization $5 million for the development of an athletic hub that will be a part of the Obama Presidential Center.

The public facilitywhich will be constructed inside of the South Sides Jackson Parkwill offer free programming for Chicago natives and tourists alike. The purpose of the facility is to unite individuals in the local community through sports and fitness initiatives. Our belief in the power of sport to transform lives is why we work with organizations like the Obama Foundation because whether its on a global scale or at the grassroots level, weve seen whats possible when sport brings us together, wrote Nikes Chief Social & Community Impact Officer and Nike Foundation President Jorge Casimiro in a statement. Our approach to these community partnerships is grounded in the knowledge that kids who move will move the world. And for those facing the steepest barriers, the benefits of play and sport have an especially powerful ripple effect.

This marks the first time in history that a presidential center will encompass a sports facility. This isnt the first time that Nike has teamed up with the Obamas. Seven years ago, the company made a $50 million investment in former first lady Michelle Obamas Lets Move! Active Schools initiative which was designed to introduce youth to healthy lifestyles. The highly anticipated presidential center will be one-of-a-kind. Aside from the librarywhich is being created in collaboration with the Chicago Public Librarythe campus will reportedly feature a museum, a space designed for public meetings, a playground and green spaces.

According to Curbed Chicago, there is no word on when the $500 million project will begin construction.

SEE ALSO:

The Obama Portraits To Be Displayed At Museums Throughout The U.S.

The Obamas Sign Deal With Spotify To Produce Podcasts

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Nike Gifts The Barack Obama Foundation $5 Million For The Development Of A Sports Facility - News One