A Brilliant Soul on fire: In the name of decency Barack Obama delivers a scathing review of Trump’s presidency

Barack Obama's speech at Philadelphia

As I watched Barack last night, I could hear Archie Shepp’s spoken introduction to

 Malcolm, Malcolm -Semper Malcolm:

“A song is not what it seems

A tomb perhaps

Burned

Whistled

While even America listened.

We play, but we aren’t always dumb.

We are murdered, in amphitheatres, on the podia

Of the autobahn.

Philadelphia - 1945!

Malcolm!  – My people - Dear God!

 Malcolm!”

Joe Biden is not Barack Obama. Joe Biden is not even a pale lustreless shadow of Barack Obama and that’s why it’s a pity that it’s Sleepy Joe Biden and not Brother Barack Obama that’s meeting Trump for the showdown this evening, the final microphone duel, like the movie Gunfight at the OK Corral, the lithe and agile Barack (“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”)  versus an elderly Donald the obese and not so agile, carrying all that weight around and still unsteady on his feet, mentally probably not fully recovered from what could have been a fatal attack by the invisible enemy from China.

Such a showdown at this time would have been a disaster for Trump. It should be difficult even for him to imagine how he would fare in a debate or discussion on national TV, an Obama-Trump debate on Trump’s “mishandling” of the pandemic from day one, with 228,149 innocent American souls now in the grave or still in the morgue and awaiting burial,  and how would Trump have fared against the more eloquent Obama, discussing issues such as Leadership, Racism and Race in America, Police Brutality, George Floyd, John Lewis, Black Lives Matter, Affordable Health Care for all, Climate Change, National Security, the Economy that Trump inherited?

 Everybody knows that at such a debate Trump would have been a disaster because  Brother Obama has a cool and a language style and a charming demeanour that would have wiped out Trump this evening. First of all, he would have easily riled Trump (got him to lose his cool – got Trump all jazzed up and you know that Trump is never and has never been cool, he is incapable of being cool, he is the uncoolest president yet, including Nixon, so Brother Obama would have got him all jazzed up with e.g. just this simple question about Obama's Birth Certificate: 

“Trump, you had the gall to say that I should be disqualified from contesting for the  presidency , that I am not a great American, but I’m a two-term president, and that’s what you are fighting for just now and you refuse to face the fact that you are not fit for the job, you are incompetent and you have not been taking the job seriously, you are a loser and you know it!”

Trump would have never recovered from that. He has recovered from the COVID -19 attack and when Sleepy Joe Biden told him “Shut up man   - you are the worst president America has ever had!”  he recovered from that too, was, in fact, unflustered, but he would never have ever  recovered from Barack calling  him, “Cracker” or ebonically speaking  if Biden or Obama had told him “Motherfucker, I’m talking to you: shut the fuck up!”. I repeat: Trump would have blushed a crimson red or turned the colour purple and never recovered. Barack of course could never sink so low...

If Trump messes up big time this evening, he can kiss the White House goodbye.  Ditto Sleepy Joe if he messes up big time, this evening 

 Just this last little thing: Biden looks bad standing beside Obama. There’s such a tremendous difference in stature. Obama dwarfs Biden. Biden certainly does not have this kind of appeal, even in Germany. Nor could Trump generate that kind of enthusiasm and needless to say the Germans in those enthusiastic crowds are not white supremacists  

Sure, today, the dynamics are different and this is not even an interesting question; If Barack Obama was running for president today ( for a third term)  would he have chosen Joe Biden as his running mate? That’s doubtful.

Would Obama have chosen Kamala Harris as his running mate? Of course not. Personally, I prefer Michelle.

This too has not changed: I am a cowboy in the boat of Ra 

Last word, and for the record, to Joe Biden's eternal credit 

1986: Biden debates sanctions against South Africa  (Goodness knows what Trump was thinking just around then )