You Don’t Have to Be Nice to Him
Photo by CSPAN
If you have ever heard the phrase “no war but the class war” and weren’t quite sure what that meant, this clip of Barack Obama and Donald Trump at Jimmy Carter’s funeral today serves as a good summary of the point inherent in that classic phrase.
Obama and Trump yucking it up at Carter’s funeral
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein.bsky.social) January 9, 2025 at 11:04 AM
Nothing to see here, just a couple of normal presidents being bros and telling jokes during totally normal times!
Obviously, I don’t think these clips of momentary pleasantries at a solemn gathering mean that Obama likes Trump, and I actually think it’s pretty clear that he is trying to hide his disdain for Trump in that video. After all, this is the man who authored the supposed origin story of President Donald Trump by roasting him on the dais at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (it’s a fun story but it forgets the small detail that Trump had already “run” for president 10,000 times by that point to hawk his books). Obama is just being polite at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral, not wanting to make a scene to keep the focus on the former president being laid to rest, so the excuses for him have gone so far.
But I’ve got news for one of our two most famous living presidents: if you sit down next to the other one, you’re going to draw people’s attention towards you. You also don’t have to be nice to Trump to not make a scene and be respectful towards Jimmy Carter, you can just ignore him, or if being rude feels beyond the pale, give a quick and dismissive nod acknowledging that he said a thing. In fact, given that Carter believed that Trump was an “illegitimate” president, it’s not out of bounds to suggest that the former president may have wished Obama had pretended as if a man “put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf” was not disgracing his funeral with his fetid presence.
Why in the world do Democrats do shit like this with people they hate?
You don’t have to be nice to him! You don’t have to treat him as an equal! You just spent a near-decade howling (correctly) about how he is a fascist! Why are you giving the fascist any kind of normal treatment??? It’s almost enough to suggest that elite Democrats didn’t believe all that screeching about fascism and that the party doesn’t have any real convictions or beliefs! I know that’s a difficult notion to wrap one’s head around these days, but it still is one possibility worth considering.
But Occam’s Razor with this party is always that they’re a bunch of weenies who are allergic to power and only believe in maintaining the surface-level politeness of the status quo that the vast majority of this country says it hates. Trump would never treat the Democrats like this if the shoe was on the other foot. If Kamala Harris had won, Trump would have been likelier to punch Obama in the throat at Carter’s funeral than to have made niceties with him.
The Democrats think that when they do shit like this it demonstrates to people how they are the adults in the room, but all it does is reinforce the widespread belief that they don’t believe what they say and are losing losers who lose and then laugh at the winner’s bad jokes. I’m putting on my tinfoil hat and agreeing with WuTangIsForTheChildren that George W. Bush was telling Obama “thanks for taking one for the team and sitting next to Trump” with that quick chest tap, because it fits in with the larger story the Democratic Party has told this century: Obama is the only Democrat with the guts to own a stupid idea in public, and they still somehow cannot defeat one of their favorite painters/war criminals no matter how many opportunities they get.
You don’t have to be nice to Trump! Any normal person concerned with keeping the decorum at Jimmy Carter’s funeral would just ignore this meat-filled bottle of spray tanner and racism, but not with this party. Their bipartisan brain rot is terminal, as Air Bud is currently on a 50-4 run while they continue to point to the rule book, pleading with a non-existent referee that a dog can’t possibly play basketball while simultaneously telling voters that they need to work together with Air Bud to find common sense bipartisan solutions to stop the run. In a way, this is a heartwarming gift from Obama to the 39th U.S. President, as it reinforces Jimmy Carter’s legacy that it is important and instructive what former presidents say and do after they leave office.