Obama's red herring

I am not among those who think Barack Obama should take on Donald Trump. Some have urged all the former presidents, including George W Bush, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and Obama, to link arms and denounce Trump. What would happen then? My bet is that such a coming together would play straight into the hands of a president who claims he is the scourge of the establishment "uniparty". Having spent their capital to no effect, or worse, the ex-presidents might find their accounts are empty. The same would apply to Obama. Though he has higher approval ratings (60 per cent plus) than anyone else in US politics, retired or active, that would buy little in today's polarised arena. But he can have a real impact on the Democratic Party's direction.

He could, of course, make the wrong kind of effect. At a recent event in New Hampshire, Obama said that Democrats should focus less on the "mechanical and instrumental and materialist" questions (chiefly economic) to tell a larger narrative about what brings Americans together. "What people are starved for at the moment is an ability to tell a moral, an ethical, story about how we live together," Obama said. "All that stuff [the economy, inequality, power, AI] is important but there is an underlying moral foundation about how we see each other, that so often came out of a church, or a temple or a mosque . . . our leaders have to be able to speak that language in a serious way."

It is hard to think of worse advice. Politicians should not aspire to be religious or spiritual leaders, though it is easy to see why Obama might think so. He shot to national prominence in 2004 with his Democratic convention speech saying there was no red state America, or blue state America, but the United States of America. He presented himself as a healer who delivered hope. Some might say that strategy worked. Having travelled with his 2008 campaign, I think there were other factors involved in his historic victory. He beat Hillary Clinton to the nomination on the strength of his opposition to the Iraq war and his superior ground game in states that hold caucuses. He defeated John McCain in the general election partly on the back of the Lehman Brothers-induced financial meltdown. Through both, he was a brilliant campaigner who packaged his story and biracial background to fit the larger moment.

We are living in a very different moment today. Moreover, Obama's diagnosis does not really fit the facts. Far from focusing on the economy and other supposedly mechanical issues in the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris made her campaign about democracy. She made a larger bet on an ethical narrative that was repudiated. Her economic message was incrementalist and jumbled. Obama would have done it far better and might even have won. But when it boiled down to a choice, people voted for Trump because they thought he would put more money in their pockets. As Nancy Pelosi keeps reminding people, "democracy is saved at the kitchen table". Obama's second error is to presume he can be reproduced. He did tell a larger story about America. Reasonable people can disagree about how critical it was to his success. But both he and his moment were unique.

There is no doubt that Obama can move the needle. He helped persuade Joe Biden to drop his re-election campaign in 2024 after that disastrous debate. How people wish Obama had intervened sooner, though it might not have worked given Biden's stubbornness. Likewise, Obama was probably decisive in persuading California's voters last year to pass Proposition 50. That measure enabled Gavin Newsom, California's governor, to gerrymander five extra Democratic seats in the state in retaliation for Trump asking Texas to do the same. The fruits of that could be critical in next month's midterm elections. These are the kinds of practical interventions that can have a decisive effect. Talking about the arc of history bending towards justice once sounded good. Nowadays it sounds like pie in the sky.

I am turning this week to my colleague, Brooke Masters, the FT's US managing editor based in New York. Brooke, it is easy for Washingtonians such as me to miss what people are thinking outside the Beltway bubble. Am I underestimating Obama's national influence? He recently appeared with your mayor, Zohran Mamdani, a figure he clearly admires. Indeed, Mamdani's ability to speak to the young and across some fairly improbable divides reminds me of the younger Obama. But their politics, and economics, are very different. From what you have seen of Mamdani, could he be the one who changes Democratic politics?

My column this week argues that the upcoming likely Republican midterm defeat will generate ripples, not earthquakes. "Loss of control of Congress -- the switch to divided government -- used to mean that the president's room for manoeuvre would be roughly halved," I write. "For the most part, however, Congress has been largely irrelevant in the last 20 months."

I was both riveted and unnerved by this probing Ezra Klein interview with Bill Gates in the New York Times. Gates is a life-long techno-optimist. The vast risks of AI seem to have changed his mind.

Talking of AI, three cheers to Dan Drezner, dean of Tufts' Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and author of a great Substack, who comes out swinging in defence of writing as an activity essential to thinking. I'm also with Joan Didion, who said, "I write to find out what I'm thinking".

Brooke Masters replies

Hi Ed. I think you are being very clear-eyed about the limits of what Obama can accomplish in this election. His soaring oratory about unity resonated in 2008 in part because the economic situation seemed so dire. Today, voters feel financially squeezed and they are worried about the long-term problems posed by AI, but they aren't nearly as scared.

Where I do think he can make a difference is on turnout.

The latest FT election poll shows Trump's approval rating has fallen to the lowest level yet, but national disaffection does not guarantee a blue wave. I talked this week to canvassers in one bellwether congressional district, the 17th in the northern suburbs of New York City. It generally votes Democratic but elected a Republican to Congress in 2024. The door-knockers found potential voters are generally split and not particularly excited to turn out.

That tracks with history. Fewer than half of eligible voters usually vote in midterm elections, and the share has fallen as low as 36 per cent (in 2014). Given the efforts by the Trump administration and some states to make it harder to vote by mail, getting supporters to the polls is going to be absolutely critical in this election.

If Obama motivates Democratic voters who would not otherwise make the effort to take time out of work and stand in line, he can help change the outcome in closely fought states.

His enduring popularity with Black Americans means that he could play a particularly important role in states with close Senate races such as North Carolina, where 20 per cent of voters identify as Black, and Michigan (13 per cent) and Texas (13 per cent).

It is worth remembering that when midterm turnout set the modern record of 49 per cent during Trump's first term in 2018, Democrats gained 40 seats and flipped control of the House of Representatives, but they still lost seats in the Senate.