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The 44th president returns to stage with his party facing critical midterm 

by MIRANDA DAVIS & TED MANN 

BARACK Obama’s long-awaited presidential centre opens last two weeks poised as a monument to contradiction as much as to the former president. 

Intended as a celebration of the progress embodied by the nation’s first Black leader, its Juneteenth unveiling comes at a time when his agenda — and broader diversity initiatives — are wilting from a decade of concerted attack. 

An implicit repudiation of his brash, populist successor, the US$850 million (RM3.5 billion) monolith nevertheless towers over Chicago’s Midway Plaisance. Imposing in both scope and scale, the so-called “Obamalisk” is as overt an attempt to use architecture to personify his legacy as the current president’s oft-ridiculed calls to remake Washington with oversized monuments and gold leaf. 

Meant as tribute to grassroots politics, the centre’s debut is still sure to bring attention to the coming presidential ambitions for Illinois’ billionaire governor and a former Chicago mayor with some four decades as a party operative. 

Most on the nose, it’s a presidential centre without traditional physical archives — instead featuring exhibits that lean heavily into video and interactive displays. 

Reconciling these incongruities falls to the 44th president, who is set to christen the building with a speech that marks his reemergence into the political arena ahead of a critical midterm election, where Democrats desperately need to mount a political comeback — and are grasping for the message and strategy to deliver that redemption. 

Obama has taken plenty of flak for focusing his post-presidential life more on Hollywood pursuits than contemporary politics, even as US President Donald Trump’s movement has steadily eroded many of the gains of his administration. Since leaving office, he’s typically remained off the political stage except to close out major national elections. 

But recent months have seen the former president inch back into public life, offering counsel to emerging Democratic stars like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and campaigning for James Talarico, the Democrat seeking to win the party’s first Texas US Senate election since 1988. Last fall, he hit the trail for two female gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey, aiding victories that buoyed the party for the first time in a year. 

The library opening also comes at an inflection point for US politics: The “Make America Great Again” movement that followed Obama’s “hope, change and when they go low we go high” campaign is wrestling with its own future. 

His aides and allies suggest that Obama sees last two week’s events as a chance to re-energise a movement in desperate need of revival.

“What I have sensed in the atmosphere is a bit of apathy and sense a lack of power to make things better,” said Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett. “What we want people to understand is that there have been challenging times before, where obstacles seemed insurmountable and yet they were overcome.” 

Obama himself hasn’t shied away from the idea of the centre as a repudiation of his successor, albeit implicitly. Speaking on June 16 to a group of supporters and contributors, the former president said he worried institutions had “fallen victim to the siren song of, ‘Everything’s about money, and everything’s about attention and everything’s about fame.” 

The centre, Obama said, was intended to make sure the country was true to the spirit of those “who aren’t trying to get every last nickel, and aren’t cutting corners when it comes to values, and treat people high and low with respect and kindness.” 

Shying From Controversy 

Leveraging the pomp and circumstance of the opening is a natural inclination for Obama, who launched into the national consciousness during his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention and often relied on high-profile moments to mount a rhetorical appeal to the nation. 

But the presidential center itself brings some of the obstacles mapping his brand of Democratic politics onto the next generation. 

The museum doesn’t focus on the more controversial elements of the Obama presidency, like the backlash to his handling of the financial crisis or his expansion of the US drone strike programme, that have disillusioned some younger progressives. Trump is hardly acknowledged and aides at a preview event even took pains to avoid mentioning the current president by name. 

That’s standard for presidential libraries, according to Benjamin Hufbauer, a professor at the University of Louisville who studies the buildings. While the museum contextualises Obama’s political ascent within previous social movements like the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage and the Civil Rights era, it’s absent any substantial connections between the Obama era and our current political environment, he said. 

“In retrospect, many people think the banks were too shielded from everything that had gone on, the stimulus wasn’t sufficient, etc,” Hufbauer said. “All of these things led to subsequent backlash that may have ultimately, unexpectedly, not intentionally, led to the rise of Trump.” 

2028 Dreams 

The campus itself also speaks to a national divide that Obama struggled to bridge during his two terms in office. 

The centre includes a Chicago Public Library branch, a sports court, community gardens, walking trails and a children’s playground, intended to foster a sense of community and promote grassroots political activism like the neighbourhood canvassing efforts Obama himself undertook as a young lawyer. 

That mission could be crucial for the next generation of Chicago leaders; current Mayor Brandon Johnson is among the least-popular big city leaders with a mere 34% favourability rating, according to a poll by the Chicago Tribune in April. A 2024 survey by The Harris Poll showed dissatisfaction among residents, with some Chicagoans saying special interest groups have too much political influence. 

But in a digital-forward world — and nestled in a city that the current president has long cast as crime-ridden and ineffectively run — the onus is on the centre to prove its ability to drive the type of change it proclaims still possible, particularly after a federal immigration crackdown that was widely condemned by local politicians as violent and potentially unconstitutional. 

Ironically, two of the city’s more pugilistic leaders — former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who served as Obama’s first chief of staff, and current Illinois Governor JB Pritzker — may see the festivities as a springboard for their own White House ambitions. 

Both have drawn Trump’s ire with standoffs over issues including migration, federal funding and crime. And Chicago is vying to host its second consecutive Democratic National Convention, with the 2028 edition — not unlike the 2024 version — intended to function as an indictment of Trump. 

Asked if voters are interested in returning to Obama era politics, Emanuel said it’s not about returning to a time that’s passed. 

“The Hunger Game politics we have are not natural,” he said. “We’ve just gone 20 years with a retrospective like trying to return a past that’s not coming back, so I don’t think that, but I do think it’s a reminder going forward of what is possible in America.” 

He said the current administration has forgotten that many of the Obama-era policies they’re trying to roll back are largely popular with the American public. 

Prior to the opening, the centre hosted a private dinner for the convention’s site selection committee, with Pritzker focusing his remarks on how the city has become a centre of resistance during the second Trump administration, according to a person familiar with the matter. 

‘Toward a More Perfect Union’ exhibit gallery within the Museum at the Obama Presidential Centre

Celebrities, Donors 

For whatever challenges Obama confronts as he opens the centre, he does remain, by far, the most popular Democratic politician in the US and one of the few members of his party who can draw donors, celebrities and corporate titans with ease. 

Replicating that success will be essential for the party in both the midterms and next presidential contest, after former President Joe Biden’s botched handling of age-related concerns and Trump’s triumphant return to office badly bruised the party’s standing. 

But Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos, who has spent the past two years cozying up to Trump, underwrote a plaza in 2021 in honor of civil rights icon John Lewis at the centre. Corporate giants like Exelon Corp and McDonald’s Corp provided key support, as did Hollywood director George Lucas and his wife, Ariel Investments co-CEO Mellody Hobson, and NBA great Michael Jordan. The opening ceremony will feature musical legends like Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson and Stevie Wonder. 

Ultimately, though, the success of the foundation will be measured beyond last two week’s unveiling — as will Obama’s effort to rejuvenate his party. 

The decision to offer only digitised archives — with the president’s actual papers housed at a facility in Maryland — remains controversial. So is the design of the building, which looms over the surrounding environment and has drawn repeated mockery — including from Trump. 

The architecture, a blocky, abstract mass designed to evoke four grasped hands, is a natural foil for the current president, who himself is a fan of ostentatious construction but with neoclassical style. 

Jarrett said that her measure of success was whether it could benefit Chicago and transcend the bitter politics of the day. In a recent television appearance, she said that while Trump wasn’t invited to the opening ceremony, he and other Republicans were welcome to visit the facility. 

“I’m serious, if the Republican convention wanted to come to the Obama Centre, we would host them too,” she said. — Bloomberg

• This article first appeared in The Malaysian Reserve weekly print edition 

The post Obama seeks to defend, define presidential legacy with RM3.5b centre appeared first on The Malaysian Reserve.