On Thursday, Barack Obama opened a 19.3-acre presidential center in Chicago with Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Jennifer Hudson, Bono, John Legend, three former presidents, Angela Merkel, and thousands of people on the South Side who treated the whole thing like a family reunion. Donald Trump was not invited. Try not to think about what his version of this event would look like.
Ten Years, One Hell of a Campus
The Obama Presidential Center officially opened its doors in Jackson Park on Chicago's South Side, capping more than a decade of planning and construction. According to BBC News, the 19.3-acre campus sits near the South Side neighborhood where the Obamas lived before the White House, and Obama made clear the location was not negotiable.
"For me, this centre could not be any place else," Obama told the crowd. "It's an expression of thanks, an acknowledgement that so much of what I hold most dear I owe to the people of this city and the people of these surrounding neighbourhoods."
The facility is not your standard presidential library, which in most cases means a beige building full of file boxes and gift shop refrigerator magnets. BBC News reports it combines museum and reading room functions with a playground, basketball court, recording studio, and public library. Obama said he specifically did not want it to be a "lifeless mausoleum." Whether or not that was a subtweet directed at anyone in particular, we will leave to the reader.
The Speech That Made a Former President Cry
The emotional centerpiece of the ceremony was Michelle Obama's tribute to her husband, which, according to CBS News, began with her looking directly at him and saying, "Barack, you got to look at me." His audible response, picked up by a microphone, was "No I'm not," as the crowd laughed. He knew exactly what was coming.
What came was a speech about his presidency, his character, his "unshakeable moral fiber," and their family. CBS News reports that at one point he reached up to wipe away tears and glanced up at her before dropping his eyes again. Barack Obama, who spent eight years staring down financial crises, foreign policy disasters, and a Republican Party that decided obstruction was a governing philosophy, could not handle his wife saying nice things about him in public. That's the whole story. That's the whole beautiful, infuriating story.
Obama got his revenge in his own keynote, telling the crowd, "To Michelle, she did me wrong! She wouldn't let me see her speech!" He added, "She knew that she was gonna mess me up, but she did it anyway," as his family laughed. Ten years out of office and the man still has timing.
What Obama Actually Said
Obama's keynote address did not spend much time on nostalgia. CBS News reports he acknowledged the past decade has brought more war, a pandemic, democratic backsliding, and technology that has worsened inequality. He was not up there pretending everything is fine.
"When we lose faith in each other, when we stop believing that voting matters, that citizenship matters, that our collective voices matter," he said, "then we give away our power to decide our own futures, and we open the door to the most ruthless, or the most careless, or the most fearful among us, who see some groups and some people as more equal than others, and see government as nothing more than a way to divvy up the spoils and punish enemies."
He did not say Donald Trump's name. He did not have to. According to BBC News, multiple speakers at the ceremony alluded to Trump's policies as responsible for political and cultural division in the country. Obama framed the center's purpose not as nostalgia for a better era but, as CBS News reports him saying, to "remind us of who we can be, to remind us what's possible so we can forge ahead, clear-eyed and confident, and do the work that still needs to be done." That is a remarkably restrained way to say what everyone in that crowd was thinking.
The Guest List Was Stacked, the Absentee Notable
Former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden were all present, according to BBC News, introduced ahead of the Obamas during the ceremony. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attended as international leaders who served alongside Obama. The full lineup of dignitaries and former heads of state was substantial.
Then there is the person who was not there. BBC News reports that Donald Trump, who has feuded openly and persistently with Obama for over a decade, starting with the birther conspiracy he used to build his political brand, was not invited. This is simply a fact. It was stated plainly. We are choosing not to add anything to it because some facts are already doing everything they need to do.
On the celebrity side, CBS News and BBC News both report performances from Jennifer Hudson, who sang the national anthem and a number from Man of La Mancha, John Legend, Common, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Bono and The Edge, Marc Anthony, Christina Aguilera, Eddie Vedder, and The Roots. Vedder performed an original song written with youth from the Guitars Over Guns program. Stevie Wonder closed the show with "Higher Ground," pulling every other performer back onstage for the finale, with CBS News reporting the Obamas singing right along from their seats.
Chicago Showed Up
The ceremony itself was invitation-only, but CBS News reports that thousands gathered for a massive public watch party on Midway Plaisance nearby. People told reporters it felt like "a family reunion," "a liberation," and "the most wonderful moment" they could have imagined. One grandmother brought her four-year-old granddaughter because she wanted her to feel what it was like to be there. She said it would be written about in books.
The center opens to the general public on Friday. Michelle Obama's invitation during the ceremony was direct: "We want you to come here and put away your phones and talk and laugh and cry. Make new friends, get your hands dirty in my garden, put your baby on a swing in the playground, have a romantic picnic on the Great Lane." For a political figure who spent years getting called "angry" by people who found her inconvenient, the instruction to come plant something and push your kid on a swing is, quietly, a very specific kind of defiance.
The Dingo Take
Here is the thing about a moment like this. It is not complicated to feel two things at once: genuine pleasure that something beautiful got built for a South Side Chicago community that has spent decades being used as a backdrop for other people's speeches, and bone-deep exhaustion at the contrast that no one can stop thinking about. One president builds a public library with a basketball court and a playground and a recording studio and invites Stevie Wonder. The other one spent this week doing whatever the other one spent this week doing. The gap is not subtle.
Obama's remarks about "the most ruthless, or the most careless, or the most fearful among us" who use government to "punish enemies" will be called a political attack by people who think naming a behavior is the same as being impolite. It is not a political attack. It is a description. The center itself is a description, actually, of what a person in power can choose to do with that power when they leave it. You can build something for your community that will outlast you, or you can spend your post-presidency selling sneakers and getting convicted of felonies. Both options existed. Both were chosen.
Valerie Jarrett said at the ceremony that the center "is not a monument to the Obamas, it's a tribute to all those who make their journey possible." That framing matters. The current occupant of the White House has put his name on casinos, steaks, a fraudulent university, and now federal buildings across the country. The 44th president put his name on a public playground in Jackson Park. History will sort out which one understood the assignment.
