Feel the Obama core with the Obama library's inaugural artifacts

Hello, in this issue we’ll look at the first artifacts heading to former President Barack Obama’s presidential library and how one Idaho county just puts its whole election online for the public to see for themselves.

 

Feel the Obamacore with the Obama library's inaugural artifacts

 

 

For Democrats feeling blue since the election, there’s still nostalgia.

Ahead of the 2026 opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Library in Chicago, the library is giving a first look at some of the more than 35,000 artifacts it already has on hand, ranging from Christmas ornaments to heads of state gifts. Staff began processing, inventorying, cataloging, and photographing the objects on Jan. 20, 2017, the day Obama left office, and made them available online this fall on its artifacts collection website. It’s a blast from the past.

There’s a portrait gallery of the former president, with work including a golden “Hope” portrait by Shepard Fairey, and an entire FLOTUS fashion gallery of 213 garments worn by former first lady Michelle Obama. An Affordable Healthcare t-shirt celebrates one of the Obama administration’s most significant achievements while a custom “YS WE CAN” Illinois license plate shows Obama’s campaign slogan over a portrait of fellow Illinoisan President Abraham Lincoln.

 

 

The tech that the 44th president used in office is a fun time capsule of very recent history, and includes Obama’s Blackberry, GoPro camera, and Apple iPad Air 2. The presidential iPhone is an iPhone 6 in space gray with black a OtterBox case and presidential seal sticker.

Much has been made of Gen Z voters who are aging into voting and political consciousness in the long Trump era and only know a politics of smashed norms, conspiracies, name calling, and declining trust in institutions. But the story is different for Millennials, a generation that I and many of this newsletter’s readers are a part of.

 

 

Many Millennials cast their first ballots for Obama or his Republican opponents, and though the era wasn’t without its own crisis, from the Great Recession’s long recovery to racial injustice, it was also one of possibility, and in retrospect, civility. Obama’s historic campaign ran on hope and change, the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona once defended him as a “decent family man,” and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah would literally sing “America the Beautiful” a cappella on the stump. Boy Scout shit.

For Millennials, it was a generational political awakening that was far more Parks and Recreation than Celebrity Apprentice or House of Cards, but today, such gestures seem quaint. Obama’s now history, McCain’s dead, and Romney’s retiring, and the incoming president has trashed all three. If you or a Millennial you know has felt particularly politically disoriented the past decade, well, that might have at least something to do with it. 

 

Millennial nostalgia has hit culture at large, and that sentimental feeling some might feel scrolling through the Obama library’s collection is its political equivalent, “Obamacore.” The newfound nostalgia for the Obama era that bubbled up with Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 snap candidacy may well be tempered with Harris’ loss, but Democrats looking ahead to 2028 and beyond would be wise to not completely ignore it. There’s power in nostalgia. Until then, we’ll always have yesterday.

 

Have you seen this?

2024 revived the question: Do campaigns still matter? Given the resources the Harris-Walz ticket had at its disposal in 2024, practitioners are once again grappling with an old question: can campaigns make a real difference on the ground or are electoral outcomes really dictated by environmental factors? 

 

This 30-pound marble MAGA hat costs $48,000. Artist Robin Antar records pop culture in white Carrara marble. The hat is part of a series called “What’s going on in America now.” 

 

They supported a TikTok ban, but still used the app to win their elections. 23 of the 49 members of Congress who have verified TikTok accounts voted for the “TikTok ban.” [NBC News] Luxury French clothing brand rips off logo of the New York Young Republicans. The sweatshirt, which French clothing brand Enfants Riches Déprimés sells for $1,399, uses an eagle logo from the 113-year-old Republican group. [New York Post]