Fight Fire With Fire, or Be Civil With Trump? The Obama Coalition Is Unsure

Barack Obama at a rally in Las Vegas in October. The former president crossed the country to support the Democratic candidates ahead of the mid-term elections.

LAS VEGAS - John Toles-Bey wants to be clear: he loves Barack Obama.

Mr. Toles-Bey, a 62-year-old small business owner, voted for the former president twice, after never participating in his life's elections. Now politics continues unabated, an obsession he attributes to Obama's influence. He created a t-shirt company called "You can not beat God after Obama leaves office, because the election of President Trump sent him into a negative emotional spiral that only religion could thwart.

But even as Toles-Bey waited in front of one of Obama's recent rallies, he wondered aloud whether the idealism characteristic of his political hero had a place in the current political climate.

"We live in a different world," said Toles-Bey. "And we need something different."

As Obama crossed the country to support the Democratic candidates, some of the coalition members who fueled his historic rise from the rally at the Illinois State House to the first black president of the United States are on their nerves. A week of domestic terrorism has shocked the political system ahead of the 2018 elections. And while Obama's speeches in this election cycle have largely retained their characteristic themes of idealism and hope, some of his supporters are wondering if they attend the capsule-witness of a long time of civil political rhetoric.

Obama remains the country's main Democratic replacement and will grant his star power to some of the most-watched Democratic candidates in the last week of the campaign, including Andrew Gillum in Florida, Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Joe Donnelly in Indiana. . But the election of Mr. Trump has proven the president's theory of measured change, recognize his advisers. He also left behind some legions of voters that Obama has presented to the Democratic group, including youth and minorities.

Obama's aides said the former president considered "resisting" Trump and inspiring voters as a false option. They recall their speeches this summer that broke with the tradition of severely criticizing Mr. Trump, although he rarely mentioned the current president by name.

However, like Mr. Toles-Bey, some Obama supporters have come to want a fist, not a handshake, at a time when the new generation of progressives is hitting Mr. Trump harder than ever. what the former president usually does.

At recent Obama rallies in Las Vegas and Milwaukee, some Liberal voters said they were so angry with the Trump government that it changed what they were looking for in a Democratic messenger.

"For a long time, older generations told us," That's the way politics is supposed to work, "but we reject it," said Gabriella Lorance, a 20-year-old girl who went to see Obama. with his two friends in Milwaukee. She was 10 years old when she was elected president for the first time.

They took a moment to list their favorite politicians: Jason Kander, former Secretary of State of Missouri; Beto O'Rourke, Senate candidate for Texas; and Sharice Davids of Kansas, a mixed martial arts fighter who could become the first Native American lesbian elected to Congress.

Mr. Obama did not make the cut.

"We need to rethink how we are going to change," said LaTosha Brown, organizer and co-founder of Black Voters Matter. She said that although she respected Mr. Obama, especially because he was a former organizer of the community, she came to consider him a "constitutionalist" in a political era that demands more radical action.

"Enough is enough," said Brown. "We are not going to repeat the same cycle of people who tell us to wait, vote and demonstrate our loyalty to this country."

The division could be a glimpse of the future struggles of the Liberals. In the next few years, as voters seek out Obama's successor as the unified face of the Democratic Party, they are asking what is the best tone to oppose Trump, which will be as important as political or political issues. 'ideology.

This year alone, some potential candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination of 2020 have drawn attention to their desire to take anti-Trump rhetoric to the next level. Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said he would "beat hell" in a fight between Mr. Trump (and then apologize), and that Michael Avenatti, a lawyer who has repeatedly faced to Mr. Trump, challenged a member of the president's family. physical altercation.

The questions on the best tone to oppose President Trump will be at the center of the Democratic Party.

Eric Holder, former Attorney General who served under Obama and seeks to run for president, was angered by Obama's network when he took a darker twist to the famous phrase of Michelle Obama: "When they run out, high"

"When they come down, we kick them," Holder said in Georgia this month. "That's what this new Democratic Party is about."

Obama's speeches were full of appeals to the Conservatives, and in Milwaukee he was going to accuse the modern Republican party of appealing to what he called "compassionate conservatives" interested in forming a coalition.

But the next generation of Democrats can give up such hesitations in favor of a more uncompromising tone.

Last week, in the midst of an eruption of political violence, two members of this new group of progressive Democrats distinguished themselves by their brutal language: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

"Imagine if it was the Islamic State that had sent bombs to US officials, started shooting at grocery stores and invaded places of worship," Ocasio-Cortez wrote. "How do you think this administration would react?"

Ms. Tlaib went even further.

"Blaming the Pittsburgh shot at #TreeOfLifeSynagogue shows that his lack of leadership and compassion is POTUS," he said in a tweet containing two explicit sentences addressed to Mr. Trump. "The terrorist had an AR-15 assault rifle (a weapon of war) and had killed other Americans, human beings who deserved better."

Mrs. Obama defended her "go high" mantra, claiming that leaders have a responsibility to demonstrate a "decency level" and that "fear is not an adequate motivator".

Valerie Jarrett, a close adviser to Obama, said in an interview that she understands the frustration of Democrats under the Trump government. Jarrett said it may be "more difficult" for the president to try to "call on our best angels" during this political period, but that remains necessary.

Obama "would not be what he is if he had changed his message now," said Jarrett. "The question is not simply: do you give people what they think they want to listen to in an instant, you give them the message that you think it is important to listen to. the leadership."

Some of Obama's supporters agreed with Ms. Jarrett. Kasey Dean, 28, who was waiting for Obama before his rally in Nevada last week, said it was the duty of politicians to raise the country in times of uncertainty, not to fall into fear. Hallie Sebena, 34, who attended the Obama rally in Milwaukee, said "there are ways to counterattack without being dirty."

"We need conversations that start from a place of civility," said Sebena.

Obama was absent from the political arena for more than a year before returning this summer before the mid-term elections.

Maybe it should be someone more "fighting," said Tom Mooshegian, 64, in Las Vegas.

Trump "sets the standard," said Mooshegian, adding that "the person who will run against him in 2020 will have to do the same."

Dana Williams, 41, who was waiting for Obama with her husband and daughter in Las Vegas, said she thought Trump had introduced a policy style of personal attacks. To fight it, the Democrats may have to face "fire with fire," he said, borrowing a favorite phrase from Mr. Trump.

"When they show up, we will have to make an effort," Brown said, adding that she was not convinced that "people in high positions" understood the urgency of the moment.

Obama did not respond publicly to Mr Holder's comments, but on several occasions in his speeches this summer, the former president has passionately pleaded for his political brand: optimistic, civil and motivated by gradual progress.

"There is something at stake in this election that goes beyond politics," Obama said in Milwaukee last week. "What is at stake is a decent policy, and honest and legal, it is about doing what is right for the people and worthy of the country we love."

Obama, who has avoided the political arena for more than a year before returning this summer, has focused his efforts on states where Democrats face major races in the Senate. It also tends to organize rallies in urban areas with voters historically less likely to vote in mid-term elections, including youth and minorities.

Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for Obama, who now runs a liberal media company, said the former president's message had evolved on key issues such as electoral repression and structural racism. The Republican Party has been more openly associated with Whites' identity politics and the reduction of immigration, Favreau said, and Obama has become more explicit in his accusations. In doing so, he set the course for democratic candidates to be able to criticize without confusion.

Favreau said campaigns such as Gillum in Florida, Abrams in Georgia and O'Rourke in Texas were "the next generation and next generation of this message of hope for Obama".

"If you only fight Donald Trump, and if you only fight the Republicans with whatever illness you can imagine, you have not done all the work," he said. "What voters want is people fighting for problems."