Trump says Harvard is teaching ‘remedial mathematics.' Is there any truth to that?
Even with her previous calculus experience, she said, the Harvard course was far from an easy A. 'I'm glad that I took a class that pushed me,' Richardson said.
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In recent months, amid the White House's ongoing battle with Harvard, the Trump administration has used that class to question
the university's academic rigor.
In what has become a familiar refrain, Education Secretary
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'I want Harvard to be great again,' Trump said in the Oval Office
last month. 'Harvard announced two weeks ago that they're going to teach remedial mathematics. Remedial, meaning they're going to teach low grade mathematics like two plus two is four. How did these people get into Harvard if they can't do basic mathematics?'
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Richardson said she
laughed when she heard the remedial math comment because 'MA5 is the exact same class [as MA]. It just meets five times a week' as opposed to four.
According to an online course description of MA5, the extra day of instruction time 'will target foundational skills in algebra, geometry, and quantitative reasoning that will help you unlock success in Math MA.'
Harvard has offered for decades. Even MA5's format is not entirely new. Five days of instruction was previously required for all students taking Math MA in 2018.
'If you look at academic support and a college trying to help their students, and you think that's unnecessary or it's embarrassing that they have to provide that kind of support, then it's coming from a place of ignorance,' said Richardson. 'You have no understanding of how, not just college, but how learning works. You can't learn without help.'
All Harvard freshmen take a placement exam in mathematics prior to their arrival on campus. Based on how they score, the university suggests which course they should be placed into. Math MA5, MA, and its companion course, MB, make up Harvard's most basic introductory calculus courses known as the M series. MA5 was introduced last year by Harvard to combat pandemic learning losses, which saw students show up to campus with gaps in their math knowledge, especially in early high school courses like algebra, as a result of virtual learning.
'When this first came out about us teaching remedial math, I was like, 'Well, this is news to me and I wouldn't even know how to do it,'' said
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Only 20 students took MA5 this past academic year according to Kelly. The course was taught across two sections, each with 10 students, Kelly said, all of whom have declared majors like economics or biology that necessitate a strong foundation in calculus.
'One thing that's been insulting to me this whole time is the narrative that the students we're teaching and that we're working with don't belong here, because they 100 percent belong here,' said Kelly, who has personally instructed some of the students who took MA5. 'I love working with them. They're going to go off and do great things and I know it.'
Remedial math courses in higher education
are typically defined as 'non credit bearing courses that cover middle school and high school content below that of college algebra,' said
The controversy started a few months ago when a social media post about the course from an educational nonprofit CEO was picked up by conservative influencers.
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'If Harvard students are struggling with some of this foundational math and they're having to put extra time and reorganize classes to make it work, what does that say about the state of math deficits right now in America?' he explained, adding that he 'wasn't trying to put any spin on it' by using the word 'remedial' in his post. 'I was just trying to make it succinct,' he said.
Still, that didn't stop conservatives from latching onto both the remedial characterization and the Crimson article as evidence that Harvard has let its admissions standards slip in pursuit of leftist ideology and hitting racial diversity quotas.
In April,
'I'm certainly concerned that anyone at Harvard would need to have this sort of remediation,' Garrett, a former tenured professor at Bakersfield College, a community college in California, said in an interview with the Globe. 'It's disheartening to see Harvard abdicate their mission and choose instead to prioritize less-prepared students and effectively have to water down instruction.'
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Garrett dismissed pandemic learning loss as 'a false explanation' for Harvard reviewing 'basic' concepts from algebra and geometry with students. Instead, he said,
Harvard's choice to eliminate standardized testing as a condition for application weakened the students they've admitted. Harvard, like many other universities,
said assertions about an academic downturn at the university are falsehoods.
Every 10 years, the commission conducts a multi-year, peer review of institutions it accredits, he said, in order to ensure they are worthy to be degree-granting colleges and universities.
'The students getting into Harvard are doing the most rigorous academic work in the world, so to suggest that Harvard students need remedial education is not really a serious argument,' Schall said, pointing to
Julian E.J. Sorapuru can be reached at
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The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
Harvard can't truly win its fight against Trump
Imagine a boxing match in which one fighter can block the blows of his opponent but isn't permitted to hit back. When struck by a low blow, the injured fighter may appeal, but the referee can only admonish the unscrupulous fighter to abide by the rules. He is not allowed to end the match by throwing in the towel — and his opponent is free to keep punching. This is the situation in which Harvard now finds itself. The Trump administration has accused Harvard University of tolerating antisemitism and implementing diversity, equity and inclusion policies that violate civil rights laws. On those tenuous grounds, the federal government has frozen or terminated billions in research funding, launched at least eight highly intrusive investigations, threatened to revoke the university's tax-exempt status and tried to end its ability to enroll international students. If a private actor illegally crippled Harvard's ability to operate, the university could ask a court to order the defendant to desist, award the institution attorneys' fees and costs and mandate monetary compensation for the harms it suffered. But the federal government has sovereign immunity, largely protecting it from suits and monetary damages. Harvard has already sued the government twice. The first lawsuit, filed in April, accuses the Trump administration of withholding billions in federal funding 'as leverage to gain control of academic decision making' in flagrant violation of the First Amendment and the procedural safeguards of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The second lawsuit, filed in May, challenges the government's revocation of Harvard's right to enroll international students 'without process or cause, to immediate and devastating effect for Harvard and more than 7,000 visa holders,' as another 'blatant violation of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act.' In both suits, Harvard seeks injunctions vacating the government's orders and reimbursement of its legal fees and costs. Just hours after Harvard filed its second lawsuit, the judge issued a temporary restraining order barring implementation of the edict prohibiting Harvard from enrolling international students. But neither lawsuit seeks — or can request — monetary compensation for the extraordinary harm Harvard is suffering at the government's hands. Harvard's research programs have been thrown into disarray, its reputation tarnished and, it argues, 'its ability to recruit and retain talent, secure future funding, and maintain its relationships with other institutions' significantly diminished. Harvard has been forced to allocate at least $250 million to salvage some of the research jeopardized by the government's funding freeze. The school has already spent huge amounts of time, energy and money responding to the government's many investigations and sweeping demands for information. And the fight is only in its early rounds. Although the Constitution does not explicitly address sovereign immunity, courts have held from the earliest days of the republic that the government cannot be sued without its consent. This principle is drawn from English common law, which assumed that 'the King can do no wrong.' As legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky has observed, the effect of sovereign immunity is 'to ensure that some individuals who have suffered egregious harms will be unable to receive redress for their injuries.' Congress can waive the government's immunity from suit through laws such as the Administrative Procedure Act, which underpins most of Harvard's claims against the government. But while that law allows courts to declare certain government actions illegal and issue injunctive relief, it does not permit the award of monetary damages. The Federal Tort Claims Act allows plaintiffs to seek damages for certain negligent or wrongful acts by government officials, such as a car crash or sexual assault. But its waiver doesn't extend to acts involving the performance of 'a discretionary function or duty on the part of a federal agency or an employee of the Government, whether or not the discretion involved be abused.' The law is thus rendered useless to parties injured by government edicts or policies, however damaging or illegal. As the Supreme Court has noted, protecting the government from monetary damages for policy judgments 'prevents judicial 'second-guessing' of legislative and administrative decisions.' Sovereign immunity also reduces the risk that liability concerns will prevent government officials from taking sound but potentially costly actions. But monetary damages serve two important legal functions: they help compensate victims for their injuries, and, by leveling the playing field, they deter government officials from committing wrongful acts. Without the ability to obtain monetary compensation, Harvard can deflect some of the government's attacks through court orders, but it cannot be made whole for the harm done to its finances, its reputation and members of the campus community. Worse still, there is nothing to deter the government from continuing its assault. And some actions will be difficult to challenge in court, such as the government's threat to exclude Harvard from future research grants, and its recent decision to pause all international student visa interviews, an action that will harm hundreds of colleges and universities, including Harvard. And under legislation working its way through Congress, the school may end up paying roughly $850 million annually in endowment excise taxes. As much as some critics of Harvard may revel in watching America's oldest, richest and most influential university humbled, the country benefits enormously from an institution that has trained eight American presidents, produced 161 Nobel laureates and made countless life-changing discoveries in medicine, science and technology, earning 155 patents last year alone. Harvard's experience demonstrates how much the rule of law depends on those in power exercising that power with restraint and in the public interest. Harvard cannot win this fight. It is rigged. But that doesn't mean the university should not stay in the ring, litigate, mobilize its alumni, donors and friends, and enlist the support of other colleges and universities, hoping to remain standing long enough for a new Congress and administration to stop the carnage. And, to that end, to make sure voters understand that when government officials are hell bent on punishing their political enemies (real and imagined) regardless of how large the collateral damage, just about every American loses. Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. David Wippman is emeritus president of Hamilton College.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Steven Pinker's Damning Defense of Harvard
Talk may be cheap, and actions may speak louder than words. Nevertheless, rhetoric matters. It arouses passions, noble and base. It frames issues, clarifies stakes, defines missions, and directs activity to its proper ends; it also obscures consequences, sows confusion, and leads astray. A statesmans rhetoric unites free and democratic citizens by connecting short-term exigencies to the nations enduring principles. A demagogues rhetoric undercuts a constitutional republics long-term interests by fomenting grievances and legitimating the thirst for retribution. In late May in "Harvard Derangement Syndrome," a 4000-word New York Times essay criticizing the universitys right-wing critics, Steven Pinker argues "that the invective now being aimed at Harvard has become unhinged." The prolific Harvard psychology professor and bestselling author admirably acknowledges that Harvard is alarmingly flawed, but he insists that his university deserves to be preserved and improved rather than destroyed. Still, his defense of Harvard is damning. Pinker furnishes a sampling of the scorn that the right has been heaping on his university. Recently, mostly right-wing critics have denounced Harvard as "a 'national disgrace, a 'woke madrasa, a 'Maoist indoctrination camp, a 'ship of fools, a 'bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment, a 'cesspool of extremist riots" and an 'Islamist outpost in which the 'dominant view on campus is 'destroy the Jews, and youve destroyed the root of Western civilization." Not to be outdone, President Trump has opined that Harvard is, writes Pinker, "'an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institution, a 'Liberal mess and a 'threat to Democracy, which has been 'hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and "birdbrains" who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called future leaders." Harsh rhetoric, indeed. What is the reality? Rare among his colleagues, Pinker has an honorable decade-long record of criticizing and seeking to correct Harvard from within. He has called on the university to admit students based on merit, protect free speech, rein in DEI, and, a year after Hamas Oct. 7 massacres in southern Israel, "teach our students to grapple with moral and historical complexity." In 2023 - late in the day it must be noted - he co-founded the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard. These are earnest and commendable efforts. But Pinker underestimates the cumulative damage Harvard has inflicted on itself over many years by sidelining merit, censoring speech, admitting students unprepared to grapple with moral and historical complexity, and hiring and retaining faculty and administrators indifferent or ill-disposed to academic freedom. To counter the right-wing critics who want to crush Harvard, Pinker invokes characteristically conservative concerns. He espouses incremental reform and appreciation of the services - such as scientific research - rendered by Harvard. He warns against the common tendency to view institutions, like people, as either all good or all bad rather than as a mix of strengths and weaknesses. He urges "proportionality" in dealing with Harvards "serious ailments." And he advises that "[t]he appropriate treatment (as with other imperfect institutions) is to diagnose which parts need which remedies, not to cut its carotid and watch it bleed out." These are sound prescriptions. Still, Pinker might have come closer to grasping the roots of right-wing ire by recognizing that Harvard would have avoided transforming itself into a haven for illiberalism if university administrators and faculty had exercised the moderation that he calls upon the universitys right-wing critics to practice. Instead, Pinker maintains that a significant portion of right-wing ire is misplaced. Harvard has become a "tempting target" for the right, he thinks, because among its 25,000 students and 2,400 faculty "eccentrics and troublemakers" are inevitable "and today their antics can go viral." Well-meaning inquirers, moreover, will sometimes get carried away in debate over weighty and consequential issues. And "global networks" shape Harvard faculty and graduate students more than does Harvard while "peer cultures" influence students more than "indoctrination by professors." These routine considerations and commonplace effects would explain occasional lapses on Harvards part from its educational mission. They do not begin to capture the magnitude and perdurance of the pathologies that plague Harvard and higher education more generally. Since the 1951 publication of William F. Buckleys "God and Man at Yale," mostly conservatives have diagnosed those pathologies. Allan Blooms "The Closing of the American Mind" (1987), Roger Kimballs "Tenured Radicals" (1990), and Allan Charles Kors and Harvey Silverglates "The Shadow University" (1998) remain timely. Pinker acknowledges that "some of the enmity against Harvard has been earned." Yet contrary to his assurances, his examples suggest that the problem stems not from "eccentrics and troublemakers" and occasional departures from decorum by otherwise upstanding members of the academic community, but rather from a dominant intellectual culture that subordinates free inquiry to the enforcement of progressive dogma: In 2021 the biologist Carole Hoovenwas demonized and ostracized, effectively driving her out of Harvard, for explaining in an interview how biology defines male and female. Her cancellation was the last straw that led us to create the academic freedom council, but it was neither the first nor the last. The epidemiologist Tyler VanderWeelewas forced to grovel in "restorative justice" sessions when someone discovered that he had co-signed an amicus brief in the 2015 Supreme Court case arguing against same-sex marriage. A class by the bioengineerKit Parkeron evaluating crime prevention programs was quashed after students found it disturbing." The legal scholarRonald Sullivan was dismissed as faculty dean of a residential house when his legal representation of Harvey Weinstein made students feel "unsafe." These gross violations of academic freedom, Pinker suggests, are the exception. But the counterexamples that he offers to demonstrate that the rule at Havard is to tolerate a diversity of opinions reinforce the conviction that the university has lost its way. Across more than two decades at Harvard, Pinker states, he has "taught many controversial ideas including the reality of sex differences, the heritability of intelligence and the evolutionary roots of violence." He fails to note that the typical objections on campus to these ideas are rooted not in empirical evidence but rather in moral and political outrage. His assertion that most of his colleagues also "follow the data and report what their findings indicate or show, however politically incorrect" also has the opposite effect of that which he intends. Thats because "politically incorrect" research findings at Harvard turn out to consist in confirming the fairly obvious and mostly mundane: Race has some biological reality. Marriage reduces crime. So does hot-spot policing. Racismhas been in decline. Phonics is essential to reading instruction. Trigger warnings can do more harm than good. Africans were active in the slave trade. Educational attainment is partly in the genes. Cracking down on drugs has benefits, and legalizing them has harms. Markets can make people fairer and more generous. Pinker, though, contends that the conduct of such research shows that "[f]or all the headlines, day-to-day life at Harvard consists of publishing ideas without fear or favor." It doesnt. That an enlightened liberal of Pinkers stature believes that Harvard scholarship involving for the most part the confirmation of readily observable phenomena warrants praise for standing against the crowd dramatizes just how far gone is the universitys intellectual life. Determined to see Harvard as open and pluralistic, Pinker asserts that the faculty contains "dozens of prominent conservatives, like the legal scholar Adrian Vermeule and the economist Greg Mankiw." If, however, there were, say, five dozen conservative faculty members on campus, that would amount to less than 3% of the universitys 2,400 faculty members, and it would underscore that Harvard is a one-party operation. Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, suggests the situation is much worse than Pinker realizes. "I have been at the university for 21 years," he told me, "and have no idea who the dozens of prominent conservatives are." Goldsmiths HLS colleague, Professor Vermeule, one of Pinkers two examples of conservatives on campus, went further in a reply to Pinker on "X": "With all due respect, out of these two (2) examples of 'conservative faculty, one supported Harris in 2024. The other doesnt call himself a 'conservative, because he thinks there is little left to conserve." In an email exchange, Vermeule - the one who doesnt call himself a conservative - elaborated: "Now that Harvey Mansfield has retired, its extremely difficult to name any 'prominent conservatives at Harvard, let alone 'dozens. Although I suppose there may be a few natural scientists flying under the radar." Pinker briefly defends Harvards undergraduate curriculum. He reports that the universitys introduction to economics remains very popular and is routinely taught by conservatives or neoliberals, most courses are mainstream, and typical woke classes are small boutique offerings. He overlooks, however, the progressive orthodoxy that permeates the mainstream classes. And he disregards Harvards impoverishment of its undergraduate curriculum - similar to other elite universities - in areas that constitute liberal educations core: American political ideas and institutions; constitutional, diplomatic, economic, religious, and military history; the great books of Western civilization; and serious study - rooted in knowledge of language, culture, and history - of other peoples and nations. While Pinker is correct that the right would do well to rein in its invective, his Harvard-is-not-as-bad-as-it-seems rhetoric could use some fine tuning as well. His lengthy New York Times assessment corroborates the suspicion that for those concerned about the plight of liberal education, Harvard is at least as bad as it seems. Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at and he can be followed on X @BerkowitzPeter.
Atlantic
2 hours ago
- Atlantic
Where Is Barack Obama?
Last month, while Donald Trump was in the Middle East being gifted a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar, Barack Obama headed off on his own foreign excursion: a trip to Norway, in a much smaller and more tasteful jet, to visit the summer estate of his old friend King Harald V. Together, they would savor the genteel glories of Bygdøyveien in May. They chewed over global affairs and the freshest local salmon, which had been smoked on the premises and seasoned with herbs from the royal garden. Trump has begun his second term with a continuous spree of democracy-shaking, economy-quaking, norm-obliterating action. And Obama, true to form, has remained carefully above it all. He picks his spots, which seldom involve Trump. In March, he celebrated the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act and posted his annual NCAA basketball brackets. In April, he sent out an Easter message and mourned the death of the pope. In May, he welcomed His Holiness Pope Leo XIV ('a fellow Chicagoan') and sent prayers to Joe Biden following his prostate-cancer diagnosis. No matter how brazen Trump becomes, the most effective communicator in the Democratic Party continues to opt for minimal communication. His 'audacity of hope' presidency has given way to the fierce lethargy of semi-retirement. Obama occasionally dips into politics with brief and unmemorable statements, or sporadic fundraising emails (subject: 'Barack Obama wants to meet you. Yes you.'). He praised his law-school alma mater, Harvard, for 'rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt' by the White House 'to stifle academic freedom.' He criticized a Republican bill that would threaten health care for millions. He touted a liberal judge who was running for a crucial seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. When called upon, he can still deliver a top-notch campaign spiel, donor pitch, convention speech, or eulogy. Beyond that, Obama pops in with summer and year-end book, music, and film recommendations. He recently highlighted a few articles about AI and retweeted a promotional spot for Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds, a new Netflix documentary from his and Michelle's production company. (Michelle also has a fashion book coming out later this year: 'a celebration of confidence, identity, and authenticity,' she calls it.) Apparently, Barack is a devoted listener of The Ringer 's Bill Simmons Podcast, or so he told Jimmy Kimmel over dinner. In normal times, no one would deny Obama these diversions. He performed the world's most stressful job for eight years, served his country, made his history, and deserved to kick back and do the usual ex-president things: start a foundation, build a library, make unspeakable amounts of money. But the inevitable Trump-era counterpoint is that these are not normal times. And Obama's detachment feels jarringly incongruous with the desperation of his longtime admirers—even more so given Trump's assaults on what Obama achieved in office. It would be one thing if Obama had disappeared after leaving the White House, maybe taking up painting like George W. Bush. The problem is that Obama still very much has a public profile—one that screams comfort and nonchalance at a time when so many other Americans are terrified. 'There are many grandmas and Rachel Maddow viewers who have been more vocal in this moment than Barack Obama has,' Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Institute, told me. 'It is heartbreaking,' he added, 'to see him sacrificing that megaphone when nobody else quite has it.' People who have worked with Obama since he left office say that he is extremely judicious about when he weighs in. 'We try to preserve his voice so that when he does speak, it has impact,' Eric Schultz, a close adviser to Obama in his post-presidency, told me. 'There is a dilution factor that we're very aware of.' 'The thing you don't want to do is, you don't want to regularize him,' former Attorney General Eric Holder, a close Obama friend and collaborator, told me. When I asked Holder what he meant by 'regularize,' he explained that there was a danger of turning Obama into just another hack commentator—' Tuesdays With Barack, or something like that,' Holder said. Like many of Obama's confidants, Holder bristles at suggestions that the former president has somehow deserted the Trump opposition. 'Should he do more? Everybody can have their opinions,' Holder said. 'The one thing that always kind of pisses me off is when people say he's not out there, or that he's not doing things, that he's just retired and we never hear from him. If you fucking look, folks, you would see that he's out there.' From the April 2016 issue: The Obama doctrine Obama's aides also say that he is loath to overshadow the next generation of Democratic leaders. They emphasize that he spends a great deal of time speaking privately with candidates and officials who seek his advice. But unfortunately for Democrats, they have not found their next fresh generational sensation since Obama was elected 17 years ago (Joe Biden obviously doesn't count). Until a new leader emerges, Obama could certainly take on a more vocal role without 'regularizing' himself in the lowlands of Trump-era politics. Obama remains the most popular Democrat alive at a time of historic unpopularity for his party. Unlike Biden, he appears not to have lost a step, or three. Unlike with Bill Clinton, his voice remains strong and his baggage minimal. Unlike both Biden and Clinton, he is relatively young and has a large constituency of Americans who still want to hear from him, including Black Americans, young voters, and other longtime Democratic blocs that gravitated toward Trump in November. 'Should Obama get out and do more? Yes, please,' Tracy Sefl, a Democratic media consultant in Chicago, told me. 'Help us,' she added. 'We're sinking over here.' Obama's conspicuous scarcity while Trump inflicts such damage isn't just a bad look. It's a dereliction of the message that he built his career on. When Obama first ran for president in 2008, his former life as a community organizer was central to his message. His campaign was not merely for him, but for civic action itself—the idea of Americans being invested in their own change. Throughout his time in the White House, he emphasized that 'citizen' was his most important title. After he left office in 2017, Obama said that he would work to inspire and develop the next cohort of leaders, which is essentially the mission of his foundation. It would seem a contradiction for him to say that he's devoting much of his post-presidency to promoting civic engagement when he himself seems so disengaged. To some degree, patience with Obama began wearing thin when he was still in office. His approval ratings sagged partway through his second term (before rebounding at the end). The rollout of the Affordable Care Act in 2013 was a fiasco, and the midterm elections of 2014 were a massacre. Obama looked powerless as Republicans in Congress ensured that he would pass no major legislation in his second term and blocked his nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. 'Obama, out,' the president said in the denouement of his last comedy routine at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, in 2016. In Obama lore, this mic-drop moment would instantly become famous—and prophetic. After Trump's first victory, Obama tried to reassure supporters that this was merely a setback. 'I don't believe in apocalyptic—until the apocalypse comes,' he said in an interview with The New Yorker. Insofar as Obama talked about how he imagined his post-presidency, he was inclined to disengage from day-to-day politics. At a press conference in November 2016, Obama said that he planned to 'take Michelle on vacation, get some rest, spend time with my girls, and do some writing, do some thinking.' He promised to give Trump the chance to do his job 'without somebody popping off in every instance.' But in that same press conference, he also allowed that if something arose that raised 'core questions about our values and our ideals, and if I think that it's necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, then I'll examine it when it comes.' That happened almost immediately. A few days after vowing in his inaugural address to end the 'American carnage' that he was inheriting, Trump signed an executive order banning foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days. The so-called Muslim travel ban would quickly be blocked by the courts, but not before sowing chaos at U.S. points of entry. Obama put out a brief statement through a spokesperson ('the president fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion'), and went on vacation. Trump's early onslaught made clear that Obama's ex-presidency would prove far more complicated than previous ones. And Obama's taste for glamorous settings and famous company—Richard Branson, David Geffen, George Clooney—made for a grating contrast with the turmoil back home. 'Just tone it down with the kitesurfing pictures,' John Oliver, the host of HBO's Last Week Tonight, said of Obama in an interview with Seth Meyers less than a month after the president left office. 'America is on fire,' Oliver added. 'I know that people accused him of being out of touch with the American people during his presidency. I'm not sure he's ever been more out of touch than he is now.' Oliver's spasm foreshadowed a rolling annoyance that continued as Trump's presidency wore on: that Obama was squandering his power and influence. 'Oh, Obama is still tweeting good tweets. That's very nice of him,' the anti-Trump writer Drew Magary wrote in a Medium column titled 'Where the Hell Is Barack Obama?' in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. 'I'm sick of Obama staying above the fray while that fray is swallowing us whole.' Obama did insert himself in the 2024 election, reportedly taking an aggressive behind-the-scenes role last summer in trying to nudge Biden out of the race. He delivered a showstopper speech at the Democratic National Convention and campaigned several times for Kamala Harris in the fall. But among longtime Obama admirers I've spoken with, frustration with the former president has built since Trump returned to office. While campaigning for Harris last year, Obama framed the stakes of the election in terms of a looming catastrophe. 'These aren't ordinary times, and these are not ordinary elections,' he said at a campaign stop in Pittsburgh. Yet now that the impact is unfolding in the most pernicious ways, Obama seems to be resuming his ordinary chill and same old bits. Green, of the Progressive Change Institute, told me that when Obama put out his March Madness picks this year, he texted Schultz, the Obama adviser. 'Have I missed him speaking up in other places recently?' Green asked him. 'He did not respond to that.' (Schultz confirmed to me that he ignored the message but vowed to be 'more responsive to Adam Green's texts in the future.') Being a former president is inherently tricky: The role is ill-defined, and peripheral by definition. Part of the trickiness is how an ex-president can remain relevant, if he wants to. This is especially so given the current president. 'I don't know that anybody is relevant in the Trump era,' Mark Updegrove, a presidential historian and head of the LBJ Foundation, told me. Updegrove, who wrote a book called Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House, said that Trump has succeeded in creating a reality in which every president who came before is suspect. 'All the standard rules of being an ex-president are no longer applicable,' he said. Still, Obama never presented himself as a 'standard rules' leader. This was the idea that his political rise was predicated on—that change required bold, against-the-grain thinking and uncomfortable action. Clearly, Obama still views himself this way, or at least still wants to be perceived this way. (A few years ago, he hosted a podcast with Bruce Springsteen called Renegades.) From the July 1973 issue: The last days of the president Stepping into the current political melee would not be an easy or comfortable role for Obama. He represents a figure of the past, which seems more and more like the ancient past as the Trump era crushes on. He is a notably long-view guy, who has spent a great deal of time composing a meticulous account of his own narrative. 'We're part of a long-running story,' Obama said in 2014. 'We just try to get our paragraph right.' Or thousands of paragraphs, in his case: The first installment of Obama's presidential memoir, A Promised Land, covered 768 pages and 29 hours of audio. No release date has been set for the second volume. But this might be one of those times for Obama to take a break from the long arc of the moral universe and tend to the immediate crisis. Several Democrats I've spoken with said they wish that Obama would stop worrying so much about the 'dilution factor.' While Democrats struggle to find their next phenom, Obama could be their interim boss. He could engage regularly, pointing out Trump's latest abuses. He did so earlier this spring, during an onstage conversation at Hamilton College. He was thoughtful, funny, and sounded genuinely aghast, even angry. He could do these public dialogues much more often, and even make them thematic. Focus on Trump's serial violations of the Constitution one week (recall that Obama once taught constitutional law), the latest instance of Trump's naked corruption the next. Blast out the most scathing lines on social media. Yes, it might trigger Trump, and create more attention than Obama evidently wants. But Trump has shown that ubiquity can be a superpower, just as Biden showed that obscurity can be ruinous. People would notice. Democrats love nothing more than to hold up Obama as their monument to Republican bad faith. Can you imagine if Obama did this? some Democrat will inevitably say whenever Trump does something tacky, cruel, or blatantly unethical (usually before breakfast). Obama could lean into this hypocrisy—tape recurring five-minute video clips highlighting Trump's latest scurrilous act and title the series 'Can You Imagine If I Did This?' Or another idea—an admittedly far-fetched one. Trump has decreed that a massive military parade be held through the streets of Washington on June 14. This will ostensibly celebrate the Army's 250th anniversary, but it also happens to fall on Trump's 79th birthday. The parade will cost an estimated $45 million, including $16 million in damage to the streets. (Can you imagine if Obama did this?) The spectacle cries out for counterprogramming. Obama could hold his own event, in Washington or somewhere nearby. It would get tons of attention and drive Trump crazy, especially if it draws a bigger crowd. Better yet, make it a parade, or 'citizen's march,' something that builds momentum as it goes, the former president and community organizer leading on foot. This would be the renegade move. Few things would fire up Democrats like a head-to-head matchup between Trump and Obama. If nothing else, it would be fun to contemplate while Democrats keep casting about for their long-delayed future. 'The party needs new rising stars, and they need the room to figure out how to meet this moment, just like Obama figured out how to meet the moment 20 years ago,' Jon Favreau, a co-host of Pod Save America and former director of speechwriting for the 44th president, told me. 'Unless, of course, Trump tries to run for a third term, in which case I'll be begging Obama to come out of retirement.'
