The president borrowed themes of American exceptionalism as a window opens for Democrats to appeal to Republicans unsatisfied with Trump

Barack Obama hijacked some of the Republicans’ most enduring themes in an address to the Democratic convention that painted a patriotic and optimistic portrait of America, prominent conservatives observed.



“American exceptionalism and greatness, shining city on hill, founding documents, etc – they’re trying to take all our stuff,” Rich Lowry, the editor of the conservative National Review, noted on Twitter.

John Podhoretz, a former speechwriter to Ronald Reagan, the former Republican president revered within his party, tweeted: “Take about five paragraphs out of that Obama speech and it could have been a Reagan speech. Trust me. I know.”

Many of those who have watched Obama over the last 12 years would argue that his address in Philadelphia on Wednesday struck many of the notes that have defined his oratory since he burst on to the national stage at the 2004 Democratic national convention in Boston as a young state senator from Illinois.

But the outpouring of bipartisan praise for the speech, tinged with a sense of ruefulness among conservative commentators and strategists, underscored one of the truly unique narratives of the 2016 election: with Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, Democrats now have an opening to campaign uncompromisingly on the founding principles of America and what are most commonly perceived as its consistent values.

“We have abandoned this year the rhetorical gifts that we used to put on display,” said Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican strategist and vocal proponent of the “Never Trump” movement.

“We used to talk about the shining city on the hill, and now we talk about building the wall. We used to talk about opportunity for everyone, and now we talk about anger and fear and brown people taking your jobs.

“We’ve closed off all the hope and optimism and trust and abandoned the power of talking about the American dream,” he added. “I think that is a dead end politically and rhetorically.”

Obama, in his remarks, directly invoked the characterization by Reagan of America as “a shining city on a hill” as a contrast to Trump’s decidedly gloomier assessment of the nation as “a divided crime scene that only he can fix”, as the president put it.

But rather than simply dwelling on the real estate mogul’s reliance on fear-mongering, as many other Democratic speakers did this week, Obama went a step further. While much of the Democrats’ messaging has relied on defining Republicans as belonging to the “Party of Trump”, the president refused to paint his political opponents with that broad brush.

“Look, we Democrats have always had plenty of differences with the Republican party, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Obama said. “But what we heard in Cleveland last week wasn’t particularly Republican – and it sure wasn’t conservative.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Red, white and blue … a delegate awaits the start of the last day of the Democratic national convention. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

“While everyone is talking today about Obama’s statement that America ‘will not be ruled’, that to me was a much bigger line,” said Noah Rothman, an editor at the conservative Commentary magazine.

“It was really important and necessary to frame this as out of the norm, as a very unique departure from conservatism and Republicanism,” he said. “I thought that was very smart, if not without sacrifice.”

As politics have become more polarized, conventions have increasingly become vehicles for each party to shore up enthusiasm within its base.



The gathering of Republicans in Cleveland last week was very much an exercise in inciting the anger among the grassroots voters who propelled Trump to the nomination. With chants of “lock her up!” becoming almost a slogan, in reference to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while at the helm of the state department, the GOP convention did not so much make the case for Trump as make it against his opponent.

“Republicans really dropped the ball last week,” said Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host and blogger.

“The Democrats in primetime this week have spent more time talking about God and faith than the Republicans did last week, and they’re spending more time making the case for their candidate as opposed to the case against the other candidate.”

While Obama certainly delivered a passionate rebuke of Trump, Erickson said the framing of the president’s argument as one of quintessential American values was striking enough that he heard from a high-ranking House Republican after the speech who described himself as “mortified”.



“The president gave the speech that our nominee should have been giving last week … He stole all our best lines.”

The role reversal was a testament to the sense among Democrats that Trump presents a rare opportunity to make inroads with the moderate Republican or independent voters who reject his candidacy.

There was no greater reflection of this than the overarching theme of Wednesday evening, with speakers who ranged from the former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican-turned-independent, to a cadre of military generals and admirals.



“The whole night last night was disorienting for Republicans whose formative political decade was the aughts,” said Rothman.

“You had a convention full of Democrats who routinely broke out into chants of USA and who were shouting down anti-war protesters … It was definitely a different Democratic party than I’ve come up with for the last 20 years.”

That’s not to say a significant faction of Republicans without a home this cycle would cast a ballot for Clinton. Most of the conservative figures who showered praise on Obama’s speech said they were more likely to sit out the election or write in a candidate.

But Wilson said there was a spectrum of Republican-leaning voters, especially suburban men and women, who could be drawn to Democrats in November if simply for the sensible governance Obama implored Americans to uphold.

“It’s not going to be this giant number. It’s not going to be tens of millions,” he said, “but it doesn’t take tens of millions.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Pledge of Allegiance is performed during on the fourth and final day of the DNC, ahead of Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

In 2012, Mitt Romney lost key battleground states such as Virginia and Florida by five- or six-figure margins, Wilson pointed out. The Democrats’ play on temperament and tone could have some sway, even if only converting a fraction of Republicans or Republican-leaning independents.

“It framed this election to Republicans who can’t stand Donald Trump as a cultural question,” Wilson said.

“Do you want a country that reflects Donald Trump? Do you want a country where your kids grow up thinking Donald Trump is the kind of person they should aspire to be?”

A video message played in primetime before Obama’s speech on Wednesday further bolstered the Democrats’ overtures, homing in on arguably the Republican party’s most cherished issue: national security.

Entitled Solemn Responsibility, the short film showcased prominent Republican figures – from Romney to former presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham to top national security and defense officials – warning that Trump was fundamentally unfit to serve as commander-in-chief. Woven into their grave concerns was the sound of previous presidents, such as John F Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and, of course, Reagan – delivering some of their most memorable lines formulating America’s foreign policy.

But not everyone was convinced that rhetoric alone was a winning strategy.

Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard and a leading neoconservative, said Trump had thus far defied the conventional rules of politics. If voters were not yet turned off by his series of irrational statements, he said, there was little indication the tide would shift

“I’m dubious if they think they can do much good by just a few phrases or messaging,” he said.

“If you’re an actual Republican, you’ve probably voted against Obama twice … I thought it was a reasonable effort on his part, but he doesn’t have a lot of credibility telling Republicans what they should think.”

The real test, Kristol added, would be Hillary Clinton’s speech, when she takes the stage on Thursday.

“I think she needs to really substantively explain why Trump’s policy would weaken the US,” he said.

“They need to much more explicitly draw a picture of what a Trump presidency would look like that would scare some moderates and conservatives. That has not been done in this convention.”