Former president Barrack Obama has formally endorsed his former vice president, Joe Biden, in his bid for the presidency. This marks the first time Obama has waded back into politics since his second term ended in 2017. The former president urged Democrats all across the political spectrum to unify behind Biden in order to take back the White House.
Biden became the apparent nominee in early April after opponent Bernie Sanders dropped out of the primary race. On Monday, Sanders, a staunch progressive, endorsed Biden, who is widely considered a centrist. This came as a surprise, as Sanders is more focused on lowering things like Humira medicare cost than consolidating power for the Democratic Party.
Obama reentering the political sphere to endorse his former VP could prove to be a critical move for the candidate. Following a tense and divisive primary race, Biden needs to consolidate a very diverse voting base. Young progressive voters and undecided independent voters could represent a massive swing of numbers for Biden going into the general election.
Biden has a very lengthy battle to November. He must disprove naysayers who wonder about his cognition and mental acuity. He’s got to win over younger voters, who are overwhelmingly far to his left. He needs to convince centrists that he’s capable of beating Trump in a general election. In short, Obama’s endorsement couldn’t have come at a better time.
The reemergence of a former president is a strange development in a modern election. Elections prior to 2016 tended to focus on driving ever forward. Obama’s own campaign messaging promised “change” and “hope” for the future, looking ahead to a brighter tomorrow. That all shifted in 2016, however, when Donald Trump turned politics upside down.
Trump’s campaign slogan, to “Make America Great Again,” was seen by many as an odd sentiment. Some read it as coded language, in that Trump was urging Americans to make the president a white man again. After eight years under Obama, it’s possible that Trump’s messaging was simply to pivot away from a black man in office.
Now, with Biden campaigning on a “return to normalcy,” it seems he might be running the same type of campaign. However, instead of urging Americans to reject the status quo based on race, he’s urging Americans to embrace the status quo of four years ago. When Biden and Obama were in the White House.
This marks a major shift from political campaigns of the past, and threatens that future elections may be based entirely around undoing the “damage” dealt by the opposition party. Instead of focusing on the future, elections may now be centered around past defeats.
