Barack Obama first came to national fame more than two decades ago with a stirring speech declaring that there was not a red America and a blue America, only a United States of America. And yet, all these years later, Mr. Obama is about to open a presidential museum that seems to prove the opposite.
It would be hard to visit the Obama Presidential Center, which has risen on Chicago’s South Side, and not come away thinking that there really are separate Americas. It is a trip to a parallel universe, one suffused in earnest talk of hope and change, not dark warnings about American carnage, one marching toward a multiracial, progressive future rather than dismantling a suffocating woke tyranny.
The opening of any presidential museum is a chance for a former commander in chief to tell his story to future generations and perhaps to rewrite it for history, celebrating the triumphs and setting aside the defeats. As Mr. Obama opens his center later this month, nearly 10 years after he left office, the 44th president is seeking to frame his legacy as that of a change agent who propelled the country to a better place, even as his volatile successor paints him as a villain who should be imprisoned.
“This is where hope has a home,” said Tina Tchen, executive vice president of programs for the center and a former chief of staff to Michelle Obama when she was first lady. The center, added Louise Bernard, the museum director, is a place to show the “uplifting, joyful experience of the Obama White House.” But that is a message decidedly out of step with today’s cynical zeitgeist.
There is no greater evidence of that than the fact that Mr. Obama has opted not to invite President Trump to the formal dedication of the $850 million center on June 18, the first time in modern history that an incumbent president was not welcome at such an event, which typically brings all of the living presidents together. It defies imagination to picture Mr. Trump paying homage to the man he has accused of “treason” — or Mr. Obama wanting him to.
Mr. Trump’s ascension has long cast a shadow over Mr. Obama’s legacy, raising questions about how a country that elected the first Black man to the White House would then turn around and elect a president supported by white supremacists. So many people who have visited the Obama museum in its “soft launch” have cried that the staff has left out boxes of tissues. “Lots of tears,” said Valerie Jarrett, the chief executive officer of the Obama Foundation. “Lots of tears.”
Timothy Naftali, a presidential scholar at Columbia University and the founding director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, said Mr. Obama remained “an inspirational figure,” as few presidents have been.
“But what is clearer now than just after he left office,” Mr. Naftali said, “is that he wasn’t a transformational president in the mold of F.D.R. or Reagan, despite being their peer in terms of being a once-in-a-generation political talent.” He added that “making sense of that shouldn’t just be a question for historians — it’s a question for all of us.”
For his part, Mr. Obama rejects the notion that Mr. Trump’s presidency amounts to a repudiation of his own. “No, actually, 60 percent of the country still agrees with me,” he said is the answer he gives to those who suggest that. Indeed, Mr. Obama now far outpaces Mr. Trump in the public eye. Gallup last year found his approval rating at 59 percent, while Mr. Trump’s support has sunk to a second-term low of 37 percent in New York Times/Siena polling.
In an interview with Peter Slevin of The New Yorker last month, Mr. Obama said he tries to reassure those who believe that America is in the throes of an unprecedented crisis given Mr. Trump’s attacks on democratic norms and standards. “I say, ‘No, you know what? Civil War — really bad,’” he said. “‘Jim Crow — tough. You know, our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents went through stuff that was profoundly tougher than what we’re going through.’”
Still, the contrast with Mr. Trump’s vision is evident in the new center, located near the University of Chicago. The imposing 225-foot granite-covered tower nicknamed the “Obamalisk” reshapes the city’s skyline, but the top of the building features words of inspiration instead of Mr. Obama’s name or image. It includes a statue of its protagonist, along with his wife, but it is close to life-size, not 22 feet tall and golden. It has a version of the Oval Office, but one swathed in earth tones, not gilt. It has a public library and playgrounds, not a pricey hotel or Arab luxury jet.
The 19-acre center is rooted in the Chicago community where Michelle Obama grew up and Barack Obama lived as a young man and got his start in politics. Mrs. Obama insisted that it have a sledding hill for winter. Mr. Obama wanted outdoor barbecue grills. The center features original art and will host community events and leadership programs.
Inside the tower, the museum opens with the history of America’s struggles to make “a more perfect union,” starting with the Declaration of Independence and continuing through slavery, the suffrage movement, civil rights and the evolution of democracy, all to make the point that Mr. Obama’s rise came on the shoulders of those who came before.
Trump Administration: Live Updates
Updated
- These Republicans broke with Trump on the war in Iran.
- Trump signs an executive order removing job protections from federal workers.
- ‘I love it’: Trump says he is still in favor of the $1.8 billion payout fund.
The exhibits tell the story that Mr. Obama wants to tell: From the excitement of his historic election through the rescue of the economy after the financial crash of 2008, the passage of the Affordable Care Act and the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. On display are the Lincoln Bible that he used to take the oath of office twice, the Nobel Peace Prize that he won, a flag taken on the commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden and the wedding ring of Jim Obergefell, whose case legalized same-sex marriage.
“I think it tells the complete story of how he came to be, where he is today and what he sees for the future,” said Ms. Jarrett, a longtime Obama family friend and senior White House adviser before leading the Obama Foundation.
Mr. Obama’s picture and voice are everywhere, as 37 short movies play across multiple floors. There is a lot of Michelle Obama, too, from her high school honor roll certificate to the Let’s Move! physical fitness campaign she led. “We also wanted to ensure that Mrs. Obama’s story was woven throughout,” Ms. Bernard said. “As first lady, she’s not a kind of decorative set piece, just about the dresses.”
By contrast, almost entirely absent from the exhibits are Joseph R. Biden Jr., the vice president who went on to become the 46th president; Hillary Clinton, the defeated primary rival who went on to serve as secretary of state; or other cabinet secretaries. At most, they make cameo appearances. For that matter, there is no acknowledgment of Mr. Trump, much less examination of what his victory in 2016 meant for Mr. Obama’s legacy.
Presidential museums, of course, mainly tell stories of success not failure, certainly when first opened by the president’s supporters before they are turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration, whose nonpartisan historians eventually adapt the exhibits. Mr. Obama is no exception. The wall-sized timeline of his presidency makes no mention of the two disastrous midterm elections his party endured, nor Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine and seizure of Crimea.
“It wasn’t all sunshine and roses during our time in the presidency, and I think we tell that story,” Ms. Tchen said. “I think we tried to be balanced in showing the backlash, showing the things that we didn’t get done, showing the pushback that we got on things like immigration.”
But the things that didn’t get done are explained as someone else’s fault — obstruction by Republicans, backlash from extremists. Congress would not close Guantánamo Bay, pass immigration legislation or impose even relatively modest gun restrictions. Congress was also to blame when Mr. Obama decided against ordering a military strike against Syria to enforce his “red line” on chemical weapons attacks on civilians. There is no discussion of Mr. Obama’s own misjudgments or reflection on what he could have done differently.
Other presidents have struggled to find that balance in their libraries, but some made more of an effort than others. Gerald R. Ford included the stairs used to evacuate Americans from the roof in Saigon on the day the Vietnamese capital fell, a painful reminder of defeat for the United States and one of the most searing moments of his presidency.
George W. Bush addressed the Iraq invasion and response to Hurricane Katrina with an interactive theater that presented the scenarios and asked visitors to decide what they would have done in those circumstances. Bill Clinton included a brief reference to his impeachment for lying under oath about his affair with a former White House intern, although he characterized it as a “quest for power that the president’s opponents could not win at the ballot box.”
All of those libraries, however, were eventually turned over to the National Archives . Mr. Obama, by contrast, has opted out of the federal system. And while his records will be stored by the archives, the museum will remain in the hands of his private organization.
“The original purpose of a presidential library was to preserve an administration’s records,” said Tevi Troy, a senior fellow at the Ronald Reagan Institute and former Bush administration official who now writes books of presidential history. “Over time, they have become more focused on legacy burnishing.” Now, he added, “Obama’s center represents a new step in this process,” with records held by the government while the presidential center is “focusing mainly on Obama’s legacy and continuing activities.”
That means that the Obama center will rely in part on borrowing artifacts from the archives for its exhibits. But one artifact is not in government hands and not on display in the museum.
Michael Strautmanis, a former White House aide now serving as the chief corporate affairs officer for the Obama Foundation, said the one thing he particularly wanted for the museum was the tan suit that Mr. Obama once wore, only for it to become an odd source of online commentary. But Ms. Jarrett said it was not available. “President Obama,” she said, “gave it away when he was cleaning out his closet.”
Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The Times. He is covering his sixth presidency and sometimes writes analytical pieces that place presidents and their administrations in a larger context and historical framework.
The post With His New Museum, Obama Offers a Trip to a Parallel America appeared first on New York Times.
