Both President Obama and Should-Have-Been-President Clinton speak from difficult positions these days. Outgoing presidents are generally expected to retreat into the background, giving their successors an informal grace period, while the losing candidate in an election is supposed to respect and uphold the peaceful transition of power, rather than continuing the campaign against the victor (even if they did win the popular vote).
But both Mom and Dad have been lending their support to anti-Trump protests, without explicitly speaking out against President Trump.
President Obama released a statement on Monday via his spokesperson Kevin Lewis, praising protesters and criticizing the immigration ban.
Via Twitter/@KLewis44
As the New York Times points out, 10 days after leaving office is quite a short amount of time for a former president to start speaking out, showing just how compelled Obama must have been to throw his support behind the protests. You can be certain Obama was disturbed by many other Executive Orders in the past 10 days, but he is going to be strategic about if and when to speak. “Obama knows there are many much more drastic measures that he might want to speak out on, and he’s saving more direct intervention for maximum impact,” reports Politico. “He knows he only gets one chance at it being the first time that he takes on Trump himself.” A subtweet via a spokesperson, as opposed to his own @BarackObama Twitter handle, is certainly starting small; but at this rate, a stronger, personal tweet looks inevitable.
Hillary Clinton has been firing off some subtweets of her own, standing with and praising those protesting at the Women’s March and against Trump’s immigration ban.
Tweets via @HillaryClinton
She has also copped some criticism for not making it to the protests herself- after all, Bernie was there.
Yeah, um, Bernie also didn’t just lose the election to Trump??
The Obamas have been indicating for some time that they will soon be back to fight alongside us. Obama promised in his farewell address to the nation that “I won’t stop; in fact, I will be right there with you, as a citizen, for all my days that remain.”
The day he left office, President Obama tweeted that he and Michelle were taking a quick — and well-deserved — holiday, but that they would be “back to work” soon. And you know when Barack Obama says “work,” he means “literally making the world a better place.” He has also been retweeting links to his new foundation, the Obama Foundation, which is about more than just raising money — the site says it will be focused on “developing the next generation of citizens — and what it means to be a good citizen in the 21st century.”
Tweet via @BarackObama
I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell feel better knowing that Superman is about to join the fray.
Top image via Wikipedia Commons
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