As the midterms enter the final stretch, the polls are starting to tighten up as predicted and as they always do. Most pollsters now are more worried about accuracy and their own reputations than they are about trying to propagandize for Democrats. They now try to get closer to reality so later they can say they were right, or at least not that far off.
The fact that the polls are starting to indicate that Michigan is a veritable toss-up in the Senate race between America’s Mike Rogers and Egypt’s Abdul El-Sayed tells me El-Sayed likely never had much of an advantage all along. More than likely, his bravado and downright aggressiveness toward interviewers is starting to look more like cover for a fact he knew – that he has been running from behind.
That’s why the former three-term president, if you count the Biden years, Barack Obama, jetted into Detroit from one of his lavish estates to lend a hand to the Democrat Party that he continues to lead, along with one of its new radical Islamic, socialist rising stars, El-Sayed.
Listening to Obama’s words, focusing just on those words and not the context for the event, you’d be hard-pressed to know who he was talking about.
In the end, Obama campaigned for Obama, as he always does. He said what’s-his-name will fight for change, and he’ll get all that dark money out of politics. That is, of course, right after he and his allies spend millions of that money to get him elected.
Obama said something to the effect that El-Sayed will put that money in your pocket. I’m paraphrasing, because Obama is still old-school. Unlike the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates, Obama never tells you what he really means.
The rally, which surely included no small number of bused-in attendees, armed with their pre-printed signs, was held at Cass Technical High School in Detroit before a crowd of 2,000-3,000 people.
It wasn’t long before Obama was focusing mostly on himself. He promised that what’s-his-name would “finish the job we started with the Affordable Care Act and guarantee quality, affordable healthcare to every single American.” That was a reference to El-Sayed’s sputtering campaign promise to push for “Medicare for All,” which has already contracted a case of buyer’s remorse before election day. Most people already know or are starting to realize that Medicare by itself isn’t free, or all that great. And that you still have to buy supplemental insurance.
You can tell Obama, for all his wealth, isn’t much into paying for tier-one speechwriters these days. This was clear when he brought up the tired old trope that President Donald Trump is “enriching himself and his family.”
Even Trump’s detractors knew that message would never fly again after Trump stood up in Butler with a bloody face and implored attendees to “fight, fight, fight.” That was the moment Trump won the 2024 election precisely because everyone, including Obama, could tell Trump wasn’t doing this for personal gain. He never needed to be president to make money and take care of his family.
The only people who’ve enriched themselves from the presidency of late have been the Obamas and Bidens.
While the Obama stump speech has been on the campaign’s schedule for a couple of weeks, the Detroit rally was the first time Obama actually demonstrated his support, such as it was, for what’s-his-name.
Rather than spend much time talking about whatever El-Sayed might do as senator, Obama decided to focus more on attacking Trump, who is not on the ballot in Michigan. While this is a common tactic during these midterms, watching Obama do it, it’s impossible not to pick up on his jealousy vibe.
Trump has done a lot with his time at the White House, and he promises to do more. He’s at center stage right now, and Obama doesn’t like that. The fact that Trump may someday be remembered as a more positively consequential president than he bothers Obama. To be sure, Obama was negatively consequential, and Trump and the rest of us are still working to undo all that damage.
Then came arguably the strangest part of Obama’s speech, which, while it was an indirect attack on Trump, was squarely aimed at Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Obama tried to mock Hegseth for being “laser-focused,” and then he asked the audience: “How much time do you think this man spends in front of the mirror every day?”
A psychologist could write a peer-reviewed paper on that quip alone. The very origin of the term “narcissist” comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, where a young man named Narcissus rejects all romantic advances. To punish him, the goddess Nemesis takes him to a still pool where he sees his own reflection and falls in love with it, not realizing at first that it is he himself. The rest of the story is a tragedy. It’s sort of mind-boggling that Obama would take his remarks sideways like that when he’s supposed to be there to compel Michiganders to vote for what’s-his-name.
Seriously, if anyone is spending time in front of a mirror, and your choice is between Obama and Hegseth, who do you think is doing it?
Obama took a few more shots at Trump, and while they got the reaction you'd expect from the inorganic crowd of Democrat friendlies, they really didn’t come close to damaging Trump or the Republican candidates running during these midterms.
On the Trump White House upgrades, Obama said, “He should be on HGTV… He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”
What does that even mean? Most people in that crowd couldn’t tell you who Saddam Hussein was (remember, these are Democrat voters), and more than a few of them probably like the Cheesecake Factory. Does Obama realize that no small number of these people are lured to these leftist rallies with gift cards to McDonald’s and Taco Bell?
One of the better memes for Trump in which he's always playing the role of Roadrunner to the Democrats’ Wile E. Coyote. No matter what plan of attack the Democrats concoct, it always ends up backfiring on them.
Expect more of the same on Sunday as the president hops aboard Air Force One to travel to Michigan to stump for Rogers and other Republicans. This gives Trump a chance to pick apart everything Obama said on Saturday night and get the last laugh.
Trump doesn’t need speechwriters to be genuinely funny, and his jokes are always much more current and relevant than anything Obama said at his Detroit appearance. So, it’s pretty much a sure bet that everything Obama said will quickly fall flat and start to fade into the abyss by Monday morning, all while Trump retakes control of the news cycle.
Barack Obama has lost his swag. https://t.co/4xzaN3WHEd
— Ermias (@ErmiasAlem) October 25, 2026
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