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COMMENT
Barack Obanter
George Watkins
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The biggest problem with Obama is his charm.He would steal your future partner before you’d even started going out just by saying hello.
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An ode to the outgoing President
here’s not very much to be excited about in America at the moment. People aren’t leaving the house as much, seeing that in the news the second top trending search on Pornhub was ‘Melania Trump naked’ (with ‘Melania Trump nude’ and ‘Ivanka Trump nude’ coming close behind). There’s been a momentous surge in the number of professional political commentators on Facebook as a result of the state of the States, but I say we need to come together to celebrate just how much the outgoing President turns us into fanboys and fangirls for one last time before he vanishes from our lives forever. Close your eyes and imagine the current Prime Minister Theresa May as the feature of a Buzzfeed article discussing things we all do in private, appearing in a series of GIFs like her checking herself out in the mirror or doodling a picture of her crush. It just doesn’t seem quite right does it? Barack did it, and it was beautiful. I think it’s because the American and British political systems just come across so differently. This was bound to happen though, considering our Parliament is older
than their country (1707, for you history buffs out there). Britain is the equivalent of a parent at a teenager’s birthday party, keeping at the back of the room and making sure the lids are done up tightly on the bottles so that none gets spilled on the brand new carpet. David Cameron, when he would follow Barack like a pet, was not much better. It seems like every Prime Minister has to endure this humiliation, even Tony Blair, when dealing with a man with the reading age of a 6 year old. America is our rebellious child with three ear piercings, a tattoo of a mandala on their thigh and enough wavey garms to supply the people of Bristol for a century, and Barack is their cool friend who has a car. The biggest problem with Mr Obama is his charm. Introducing him to your family would be the worst thing you could ever do. He would steal your future partner before you’d even started going out by just saying hello. Then there’s Donald’s forced grin, which would crack every mirror in a five- mile radius. A half-smirk from Barack would melt you into a puddle of embar-
rassed and flustered goo. There’s no way you can have fish without chips. There’s no way you can have Barack without Michelle (I’ll leave it to you to decide who’s the fish and who’s the chips). The public think so too. They have her back. The mayor of a small town in Virginia has been forced to resign at the time of writing for referring to Mrs Obama as an ‘ape in heels’, after a petition demanding her step down accruing over 170,000 signatures. What’s not to love about her? She appeared on James Corden’s ‘Carpool Karaoke’ for God’s sake, promoting a single for their education initiative for young girls singing along with Missy Elliott. I really struggle to think how I’m going to cope without Barack, Michelle and their daughters in the White House. I know it doesn’t affect me. It literally has no impact on my everyday life. I just like knowing that they’re there, on the other side of the Atlantic, keeping an eye on people like Donald Trump so that we don’t have to. Americans love the Queen and we love the Obamas. The Trumps certainly have a lot to live up to. I don’t
think a slightly creepy relationship with his daughter will sit well somehow compared to funding education for underprivileged young girls across the globe. It will all happen so fast. The Obamas will meet the Trumps at the door and shake hands. Melania will look to Michelle and say, “Hi I’m Michelle”, and they will part ways. Where do they go now? What does Barack do? I say take a job as either a voiceover artist for car adverts (picture him saying “plush interiors”) or becoming a peace envoy. He could well solve the crisis in Gaza by making the Palestinians and Israelis play basketball together. I feel like this has gone slightly off topic now, but the main message still stands: whether you consider Barack a lame duck president or ultimately progressive despite being hindered by a Republican/Conservative-dominated political system, he was the first black President of the United States, and he’s just a bit of a legend. At least we’ve got the first orange president in the history of the United States. What was that about a lack of diversity?
Pictured: O’Bama: I put a whopee cushion under Trum’s seat Biden: You the man B! (source: Donkey Hotey via Flickr)