The one person who knew that the Joe Biden presidency was something other than “Obama’s third term” was Barack Obama.  If Obama had any illusions about his control over events, he was rudely disabused of them on July 21, 2024.  This was the Sunday on which Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Kamala Harris.

The announcements caught Obama flatfooted.  Biden had not consulted with his former boss either on his decision to drop out nor on his decision to endorse Harris.  At 12:46 p.m. EDT, Biden posted on X his intention to withdraw.

The endorsement of Harris, also on X, came at 1:13 p.m.  The media have expressed no curiosity about the 27-minute gap.  If pressure had been brought on Biden to endorse Harris, the Obamas weren’t the ones bringing it.

The Clintons are another story.  At 2:10 p.m., Bill and Hillary posted a joint statement on X, declaring, “We are honored to join the President in endorsing Vice President Harris and will do whatever we can to support her.”  At 2:34 p.m. Alex Soros, scion of the Soros evil empire and fiancé of Hillary intimate Huma Abedin, posted on X, “It’s time for us all to unite around Kamala Harris and beat Donald Trump.”  By day’s end, just about every prominent Democrat had hopped on the Harris bandwagon.

Every prominent Democrat except the Obamas.

People noticed.  At 9:10 p.m. on July 21, the New York Times ran a story headlined, “Why Obama hasn’t endorsed Harris.”  As the days counted down without an Obama endorsement, some Democrats in Congress openly criticized the former president.  As for the media, they chose not to inquire too deeply about the hesitation.  At this point, they were all in for Kamala.  Internecine friction did Harris no good.

The New York Post played by its own rules.  One source within the Biden family told the Post, “Obama’s very upset because he knows she can’t win.”  The anonymous source made the credible claim that Obama, working through proxy George Clooney, had helped launch the coup against Biden but was “shocked” when Biden endorsed Harris.  Said another source, “Obama always thinks he is the smartest and coolest guy in the room.  He’s friends with George Clooney, after all.”

Finally, on July 26, Barack and Michelle announced, “We couldn’t be more excited for her — or more thrilled to endorse Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.”  By this time, no one believed them.

Less than a month before the election, the Obamas hit the campaign trail on Harris’s behalf.  To remain relevant in Democrat circles, they could not do otherwise.  Barack’s initial assignment was to hector black men into voting for Harris.

In Pittsburgh on October 10, Obama said, “We have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running.”  This apathy, he added, “seems to be more pronounced with the brothers.”  Accusing black men of misogyny did not fly with “the brothers” who saw through the black façade of both Harris and Obama.

When that tactic backfired, Obama ended the campaign — and the Obama era — the way he began his career: peddling racial hoaxes.  In Milwaukee, on the final Sunday before the election, a weary Obama gave a speech that was less about praising Harris than it was about slandering Trump.

After assuring the audience that “real strength is about telling the truth even when it’s inconvenient,” Obama recycled a series of lies that had been slam-debunked, even by fact-checkers on his own side.  Reading from the teleprompter, and slipping in and out of a faux black preacher accent, Obama mustered his energy at speech’s end to do some cringe-worthy race-baiting.

Obama told the anxious crowd that, among his other sins against common decency, Donald Trump had suggested that “any Mexican crossing the border is a criminal and a rapist.”  He had “instituted a so-called Muslim ban.”  And yes, that oldie but goodie: He had “said that there were ‘very fine people on both sides’ of a white supremist [sic] rally.”

“The brothers" weren’t buying.  In the closing weeks of the campaign, young black men openly scorned Obama’s efforts to woo them through an appeal to their shared blackness.  An estimated 40 percent of black men under 40 voted for Trump.  More than half of Hispanic men did the same.  “I voted for Obama because he was a black man,” one African-American customer at a Pennsylvania barbershop told a CBS reporter.  “That was a mistake.”

With a Trump administration in power, we might see more than the dismantling of the DIE regime that has sustained the Obamas throughout their careers.  We might also see behind the curtain of the Russian collusion hoax and the other chicanery that bear Obama’s fingerprints.  For the twenty years of his public life, Obama’s stature as a black icon protected him from serious media scrutiny.  On November 5, the iconoclasts prevailed.

It is time to start hammering.

Jack Cashill’s newest book, Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6, is available in all formats.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.