is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Twitter @NebojsaMalic

is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Twitter @NebojsaMalic

Barack Obama’s belated and calculated endorsement of his own vice-president shows the Democrats have learned nothing and forgotten nothing from 2016, doubling down on the same behavior that got Donald Trump into the White House.

In a lengthy video recorded in advance – but of course – and released on Tuesday, Obama deployed his trademark rhetorical gifts to make his support for Biden a nostalgia ride into the eight years the duo was in the White House together.

Even then, Obama gave Biden what amounted to a backhanded compliment, saying he would “surround himself with good people – experts, scientists, military officials, who actually know how to run the government.”

Also on rt.com Obama endorses Biden for president in long-expected video

It was no doubt meant as a slight on Trump, whom the Obama-worshipping mainstream media has repeatedly accused over the past four years of both personal incompetence or inability to pick competent underlings. Yet it can also be read as the admission – of what is intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer – that Biden is over the hill and would be at best a figurehead president.

A case could be made that Obama was one too, with Biden serving as the DNC “minder” to ensure the “hope and change” candidate from 2008 doesn’t deliver too much of either and thus upset the cozy deal the party had carved out for itself as the pretend-champion of the downtrodden and the toast of the moneyed coastal elites.

Also on rt.com No Surprise: Obama endorses fellow corporate Democrat Joe Biden

Then there was the absolute stunning bravery of waiting almost a year – Biden announced on April 25, 2019 – to endorse his veep.

Moreover, Obama apparently recorded the video on Monday – according to CNN, which is so deeply embedded in the Democratic party there’s no reason to doubt their reporting on this. What else happened on Monday? Well, the last remaining contender for the nomination – Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders – joined Biden’s online livestream to make a big show of bending the knee and supporting “Joe” against the Bad Orange Man in the White House.

Sanders may have looked like he was chewing on a lemon the entire time, but he at least bothered with a live appearance, even if it may have been cringingly staged to the extent the two septuagenarians could be trusted to stay on script.

Also on rt.com Sanders joins Biden livestream to give full-throated ENDORSEMENT

It speaks volumes about Obama that he couldn’t even muster the pretend-spontaneity to do the same. Or that his entire endorsement video was filled with passive-aggressive notes, from that dig about Biden’s mental acuity to potshots at Trump and Fox News without actually calling them out by name. It’s all very high school.

Don’t bother looking for substance in his calls to make America progressive by electing Biden, either. Obama was “eight years in power,” as his sycophants are so eager to point out – what has he actually done towards that end? There was a reason that Sanders was able to generate such energy and enthusiasm among the younger Democrats in 2016, by promising what Obama failed to deliver.

This is not about delivering some shining vision of a fair, prosperous, green, social justice America – it’s about putting the DNC in power, first and foremost. If the former president actually cared about the agenda he once championed, he’d have endorsed Sanders long ago, rather than staying “active behind the scenes” – per CNN, again – to steer the nomination process.

More Black people & Latinos, more women, more queer people, & more working class people gave to Bernie’s campaign than any other. Bernie polled best against Trump, and had the most competitive fundraising against him. He had the largest volunteer army. And he was winning.🤷🏾‍♀️ https://t.co/NqSoPvtwSU — Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) April 14, 2020

Wasn’t Obama supposed to be the most transparent president ever, and democracy dies in darkness something something? Never mind any of that, don’t you know how Bad the Orange Man is?

Whatever you do, don’t ever ask about Obama and Biden’s actual policies during those eight years, from putting Hillary Clinton in charge of US foreign policy and sneering “you didn’t build that” at Americans who actually did, to pretending to be champions of democracy while ruling by “pen and phone” and trying to fundamentally change the country by executive fiat. Anyone doing so would be racist, according to the court media that declared the color of Obama’s skin far more important than the content of his character.

The DNC had elevated Obama into an almost religious figure, so much so that the 2020 contenders competed who would be a better imitation. There can be only one messiah, however.

Also on rt.com The whole Democratic primary is an Obama lookalike contest (and everyone's losing)

Obama would now have everyone believe Biden is the worthy heir to his Legacy. Recall, however, that he gave the same kind of endorsement to Clinton in 2016. This so inspired the Democrats that they stayed home in droves or even voted for Trump, catching the entire DNC-media axis so completely off guard they tried for years to blame the result on Russia.

Now the same people who claim one can’t turn back the clock (on the supposedly inevitable march of Progress) are trying to do just that, by declaring Biden a return to the time of Obama. The uncomfortable truth is that those eight years is how America got Trump.

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