I could be completely wrong, and Election Day may go a long way to proving that to be the case, but there are signs, glorious signs, that the once-golden Obamas may be wearing very thin on the nerves of Americans.
Don't expect to see this story reported anywhere in traditional media sources. After all, that group jettisoned their credibility and willfully lost the trust of the American people just moments into the fledgling Obama candidacy in 2007.
Old, lily-white liberals who occupy those spaces made Herculean efforts to cozy up to the man they believed could exorcise the demons of their guilty consciences. Thus, a man without any accomplishment or any executive experience was the beneficiary of the most stunning propaganda crusade in the history of American media, as "hopey/changey" platitudes became the platform of the 44th president.
Since his retirement, Barack Obama has made a bold but unsurprising move to ignore the precedent of his predecessors who largely retired from public life and the public eye. Jimmy Carter built homes, George W. Bush paints pictures of soldiers, and Obama goes around telling everyone how great he was and how lucky we all were to have him:
Obama has stayed intricately involved with the current political moment, with many insiders claiming that he remains the decision maker in a sort of president-by-proxy arrangement with the handlers of a mentally incapacitated Joe Biden.
But there's a cost to never going away. And that cost is that you begin to annoy people who may be too polite to tell you. The first sign that could be happening came when the former president took it upon himself to leave one of his palatial estates and lecture "the brothas" that they weren't being sufficiently black and supporting Kamala Harris.
In that speech, Obama's words were striking:
'And you're coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses. I've got a problem with that,' he said. 'Because part of it makes me think - and I'm speaking to men directly - part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you're coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.'
That's the kind of moral arrogance and smug condescension that drove Republicans mad for 8 years, and now it's being extended to those who are choosing to think for themselves. With all due respect, who does he think he is? You've "got a problem with that," Mr. Obama? Who cares? Why should these men, these black men, care that you've got a problem with what they do? You aren't the keeper of their conscience. You aren't their parent.
It was heartening to see the reaction from many black men to Obama's schoolmarm routine.
Who knew that calling black guys secret bigots for being rational actors making a choice about which candidate's policies they prefer wouldn't go over well?
Apparently not Obama, which could be because he got away doing it to "typical white people" for 8 years.
What's astounding is that despite her husband's failure at shaming people for not living up to his expectations, Michelle Obama decided just days ago to give it a whirl herself.
Yes, it's bad news for all of us - we Americans have disappointed Michelle Obama again.
Such a demoralizing, scolding, and gloom-filled screed. Gone are the days of, "When they go low, we go high." They've been replaced by, "You racist, sexist Americans keep me up at night."
But in many ways, her shameful performance summed up what has become of the supposed "campaign of joy."
Batya's right - the whole speech was depressing, demoralizing, and discouraging, as Michelle Obama's transformation into Greta Thunberg looks to be nearly complete.
