The Obamas may be over in more ways than one.
Despite deliberately stoking divorce rumors, their political and cultural relevance has now hit an all-time low.
Barack Obama, according to a March CNN poll, is considered by a paltry 4 percent of Democratic-aligned adults to be the ideological leader of the party.
This, following a humiliating bombshell in the new book Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, that Obama and his ego have destroyed the Dems.
Lest you think this a Republican hatchet job, authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes work for left-leaning news outlets — NBC and The Hill, respectively.
No one says it better than the anonymous party operative who, as the book reports, said that ‘Obama destroyed that s**t’ — meaning the party itself.
Pols and powerbrokers who worked with the Clintons and the Bidens feel that Obama, by founding his own nonprofit ‘Organizing for Action’ in 2012, began competing against the party ‘for money and power’.
The authors write: ‘He left the party weaker than he found it.’
Finally, the left gets it.
Barack Obama, according to a March CNN poll, is considered by a paltry 4 percent of Democratic-aligned adults to be the ideological leader of the party. (Pictured: Barack Obama at a Hamilton College speaking event).
Having spent recent stoking scandal divorce rumors, the Obamas’ political and cultural relevance has now hit an all-time low. (Pictured: Michelle Obama talks on her podcast).
After all, it was Obama’s second term that got Donald Trump elected for the first time.
Further proof of Obama’s lowly status: His reported opposition to Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee, after President Biden was forced to withdraw last year, went ignored.
And Harris — as we all well know, one of the worst nominees the Dems have ever put forward — was not humbled by a former president’s resistance but rather, according to this new book, ‘openly annoyed’.
‘As the hours rolled by, and it became clear that [Harris] was on her way to seizing the nomination by storm, Obama’s opposition to her grew more confounding,’ the authors wrote. ‘Harris was ‘very annoyed’ with him, according to a confidante. They had plenty of donors and political allies in common. Where was Obama?’
Probably in disbelief that his word was no longer scripture and verse. And confused that all of his greatness led not only to President Trump but to this cackling moron getting the nod.
The once-transformational figure that was Barack Obama, now told to be a good soldier — a mere footman! — and get in line.
It took five full days after Biden dropped out for Obama and his wife Michelle to call Harris — a staged act captured on camera and meant to look, the book says, spontaneous.
‘It took days of intense negotiations to strike a deal on the simplest act in politics,’ the book reports. ‘The whole frame, including the script, was designed to elevate the Obamas by making it look like she was begging for their blessing. This was typical bulls**t. [Harris] had to fake surprise and enthusiasm.’
But she did get her revenge — remember that moment of ‘surprise’, Harris remarking on the fact that Michelle and Barack were calling ‘together’?
It seems those ‘separate bedrooms’ rumors have been circulating in DC longer than we knew.
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MAUREEN CALLAHAN: Michelle Obama's rage-filled new podcast betrays the truth about her marriage
Yes, the fall from grace, profitability and cultural relevance is steep.
Turns out no one really wants to hear former First Lady Michelle gripe about her life, her fame, her wealth or her husband, because her new podcast ‘IMO’ — co-hosted with her charisma-free brother Craig — is now ranked a dismal #34 on Spotify.
Comparatively, Amy Poehler, who just launched her own podcast, hit #3 with a bullet.
Could this be why Michelle keeps playing up rumors by talking ad nauseum about her marriage?
Or why she’s using her podcast to execute the longest ongoing humiliation of her husband possible? Or why she seems to be enduring one of the strangest female midlife crises in recent memory, taking to the air with her hair in pom-poms atop her head?
This is the 61-year-old former First Lady of the United States acting, looking and sounding, frankly, like a teenager.
When asked on her latest, irrelevant podcast episode if women are smart to marry men who aren’t financially stable, she said, ‘Uh, I married one.’
Wow. Here, again, is the root of Michelle’s rage: The former first couple are multimillionaires with four estates around the country because of Barack — not her.
She is the grinder and he is the star — or, should we say, was the star.
Now he cuts a maudlin, lonely figure: At Jimmy Carter’s funeral, at the Inauguration and, just a few days ago, strolling through DC, caught ‘photobombing’ a young family out looking at the cherry blossoms.
It seems both Obamas are using this much-rumored marital trouble as clickbait. Nothing else seems to be working.
The formerly dignified Barack is playing along, making the very strange admission last week that he has been in a ‘deep deficit’ with Michelle for dragging her to the White House.
We know. We all, regrettably, know too much about this seemingly miserable marriage.
Even Ted Sarandos, the head of Netflix who signed the former First Couple in a splashy deal in 2018, recently hinted that the Obamas’ productions don’t deliver eyeballs or views.
‘They’re not big commercial projects, typically,’ Sarandos told Semafor. ‘It’s not what they were trying to do.’
Oh — you mean Netflix cut the Obamas a reported 8-figure deal but in return expected nothing to actually succeed?
‘There’s an element of prestige television that they brought to us,’ Sarandos added. Is he kidding?
Otherwise, how does he explain the ‘prestige’ of Michelle’s little-hyped reality Netflix show ‘Later Daters’, about older singles looking for love?
Unless, perhaps, Michelle sees a bit of herself in those older singles. Maybe she’s preparing to go back on the market.
After all, she did just tell her brother Craig on their podcast that ‘women are open to many different kinds of men and lifestyles.’
What could she be implying?
Abandoned by the Dems and DC, it now seems even Hollywood has had enough of the Obamas.
Really, the biggest star Michelle could book for episode two was Issa Rae?
Even George Clooney, according to another new political book – Uncharted by Chris Whipple – raged at an MSBNC producer after host Mika Brzezinski made the actor sound like Obama’s puppet.
A mere eight years ago, Clooney would have bragged that Obama was a close friend. Now, it seems, Barack — and Michelle — are liabilities.
Again: Just look to Sarandos, who, in another recent interview, was asked directly if he plans to renew the Obama’s deal.
‘I don’t want to comment on anyone’s renewals,’ Sarandos said.
Is there a better metaphor than that?