Trump Announced WHO Defunding Because, For 12 Minutes, Barack Obama Gave the USA a President
April 15th 2020
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at a gathering of the nation's governors in the State Dining Room of the White House (Pete Souza)
By KM Wehrstein (of the Daily Kos community)
An edited version of my comment on the diary about the endorsement:
This video was absolutely breathtaking. I mean literally. There were parts where I gasped in amazement at how good, at how right, at how perfect the things Obama was saying were. In 12 minutes and 20 seconds, in which time seemed to stand still, he said all the right things, all the things we're all dying of hunger to hear, all the things that a nation and a world is crying out to hear in a leader, in beautiful, simple, relatable ways.
It’s not just an endorsement. It’s about healing the Democratic Party (he does a big shout-out to Bernie). But it's more about healing the whole country. It's about everything that is good about America and the American people. It's about necessary structural changes that we all — even Republicans, when they listen to the wise parts of themselves — know are needed.
It’s Barack Obama being his plain self — loving, empathic, visionary and practical at the same time — in his down-to-earth kind of way. It's absolutely brilliant.
In a time of terror, it is not just reassuring, but something you’d think even or unlikely or impossible: inspirational.
I think it will go down in history.
(In case you haven’t seen it, reveled in it, been healed by it:)
But in the back of my head as I wrote was a niggling thought.
What will that thing in the Oval Office do to top this, to seize the headlines away? What terrible thing can he think of?
After three years of this unending nightmare, we’re all getting the hang of it, aren’t we?
The answer came in the daily clown/horror show called a “press briefing”. Defunding the World Health Organization. In the middle of a pandemic.
Of course that zoomed to the top of the trending topics on Twitter, above #ThanksObama.
Now it’s not actually legal for Trump to cut funding to the WHO. It was spending designated by Congress, so it’s outside his power. He’s also going to get blowback for it from all over the world, not just the USA.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if tomorrow he says “I never said I’d cut funding to the WHO.”
Because his gambit will have had the effect he wanted: to grab attention back from Obama.
Because if he watched the Obama video… he knows how completely and utterly and irreparably outdone he was. How his predecessor did, with little effort, what he, with his mental disorder that is the most vicious and dangerous of all mental disorders, could never do if he had 100 years to polish the speech or to save his life. How Obama did something he is gifted at doing so that it comes very naturally: made everyone who viewed this 12 minutes and 20 seconds feel better about themselves, who they are and who the soul of their nation is. How he did something else he is gifted at: threw open the window of vision and possibility for a greater America. How Obama, simply by being who he is, gave all America — yes, even the MAGA gang — what they have been starved for for three years, and what they are absolutely desperate for and dependent on, in the middle of a terrifying crisis.
He gave America a President.
In 12 minutes and 20 seconds, Obama took us back in time, to when the country was run by grown ups led by a brilliant, calm, utterly competent and impeccable civil gentleman.
For 12 minutes and 20 seconds, you are in another America: the previous one, where lies didn’t rule, where all the isms were unacceptable, where there was hope and change, where Russians hadn’t installed a minion into power, where crises were solved instead of caused or exacerbated by a genuine leader of the free world.
For 12 minutes and 20 seconds, the blackness that has fallen over America and the world is blown away.
You can feel it when you watch. All the way through I was stunned and amazed at what he said and what I felt. I’ve gotten so used to the crap, I’ve forgotten what goodness in a president is like!
That tension inside relaxes. Your shoulders drop a little, since for 12 minutes and 20 seconds you don’t have to look over them. You feel your heart lift and your soul release. You suddenly see a bright future, a better America, and how it is perfectly possible.
And so... the evil monster who sits where great people belong, not him, watched this and his natural instincts kicked in. That guy made America feel better. How can I ruin it, like I ruin everything else he did, a process I live for? How can I outdo him by doing what I do best? How can I terrify and infuriate and divide and fuck over everyone again, so they’ll forget how great he is and all look at me? He just made the world a better place the human species, fuck him. How can I make it worse again?
I doubt the words are there in his dementia-addled conscious mind. But in his grossly-diseased subconscious mind, the intent is exactly that. That’s malignant narcissistic personality disorder. Always remember that example I gave before, of the boyfriend who was happy his girlfriend committed suicide because of how he treated her. Because it proved he was important.
He gave them what I never can — a true President. How do I fuck that up, since that’s how I win?
So here is what I think everyone should do.
Watched the WHO-defunding shitshow? Watch the endorsement again. Let it heal you again. Then share it, share it, share it. Tell people how you feel.
Bookmark the link, or store the clip on one or more devices. Every time you get that godawful sickening “there is no bottom” feeling at another evil move of Trump’s — watch and listen to Obama. Use it as therapy. Share it as therapy, telling people how it helped you.
Share it and share it some more, telling people “This is who we really are! We were for eight years, we can be again!”
The idea is for history to ultimately forget that Trump said he’d cut funding to the WHO, or even that he did it, except as one of his innumerable crimes — and to remember, for all time, Obama’s 2020 stay-at-home hope and change speech. As I wrote earlier I think it will be historic. I think it may well be the moment that starts a blue tsunami that will lead to the greatest presidential landslide in American history. Well, okay, not start it… it probably started with the first Women’s March. But lifted everyone up in 2020 to seal the deal.
I just want history to start right now, because the speech is there!
Posted with permission