Do you know anyone that wishes the Trump presidency was just a horrible nightmare caused by last night’s vegan meatloaf and that they will wake up to find Barack Obama is still their President? The bad news is they may have a tenuous grasp on reality, but the good news is they aren’t alone — Instagram has them covered.
According to The Atlantic, the Instagram page of Obama White House photographer Pete Souza has become an oasis of calm — a safe space if you will — for those poor souls too grief-stricken by the 2016 election of Donald Trump to do anything besides wish Obama was still their president.
In a strange way, it does make sense. Most liberals, except for the most diehard Hillary Clinton supporters, prefer Obama to Clinton, so it’s natural that the president of fantasyland for people posting #NotMyPresident on social media should be Barry and not Hillary.
Souza regularly posts Obama White House pictures to his account, even acknowledging when he posts non-Obama material, “I realize people want their daily Obama fix,” as quoted in The Atlantic piece. I wonder how many journalists visit his Instagram to fondly remember the good old days when they could print whatever the Obama administration sent them and not have to do real work?
Chris Matthews of MSNBC infamously said Obama gave him a “thrill up his leg” when speaking — do you think Matthews would lose that feeling so quickly? I’d wager there are as many journalists following Souza’s Instagram as there are millennials that never had to experience defeat in their coddled lives.
Speaking of the media, Souza may be auditioning for a gig in the mainstream media using the Instagram account. The Atlantic article details the way he takes digs at the Trump presidency through his Obama posts, such as complaining about the new White House drapes. Why isn’t he on CNN already?
Sadly, this trend of Obama supporters refusing to accept reality is not likely to change anytime soon, especially if the Trump administration is successful in changing many of Obama’s most cherished policy positions; leftists will dig in their heels over just who exactly is president. In other words, the irrationality is going to get worse in the coming months and years, not fade into obscurity. This will be exacerbated by Obama’s Washington, D.C., home acting as the nerve center of the anti-Trump resistance, with Obama and house guest Valerie Jarrett leading the charge against the current administration.
Pretending on Instagram that Obama is still POTUS is just the first step. Any day now we will start seeing Harry Potter fanfiction in which Mr. Obama is named Headmaster of Hogwarts. Some of it could be mistaken as being written by J.K. Rowling herself.
It won’t be surprising if the next Democrat primary becomes a race of who can appear the most Obama-like to energize a base that resorts to Instagramming about the former President. The Obama administration may have supported Hillary as the most qualified person for the presidency, but Democrat voters clearly disagreed. Being worthy of the Obama-loving Instagram crowd will be the most important qualification in four years. That is, of course, assuming that the next primary isn’t fixed.
Conservatives understand what Obama’s fans are dealing with to some extent; we did go through the eight years of the Obama administration. We didn’t create safe spaces to praise former presidents, though; we got on with our lives and worked to improve ourselves, our families, and our country. Hopefully, millennials, journalists, and other assorted Instagrammers can make the same choices moving forward.
Colin Madine is a contributor and editor at Breitbart News and can be reached at cmadine@breitbart.com
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