In Obama They Trusted

In a 2008 column that still deserves to be mocked, Mark Morford wondered if Barack Obama was a “Lightworker”: someone who could “help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment.”

Morford wrote these words shortly after Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary. Buoyed by such airy slogans as “change we can believe in,” Obama became a two-term president. But change is a constant in politics, whether you believe in it or not. Obama has now been succeeded twice by his arguable antithesis, Donald Trump, with a hapless interlude courtesy of Joe Biden, Obama’s vice president. The “Lightworker” has dimmed.

About the Author

Jack Butler

Jack Butler is a former submissions editor at National Review.

Featured Tags

In a 2008 column that still deserves to be mocked, Mark Morford wondered if Barack Obama was a “Lightworker”: someone who could “help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment.”

Morford wrote these words shortly after Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary. Buoyed by such airy slogans as “change we can believe in,” Obama became a two-term president. But change is a constant in politics, whether you believe in it or not. Obama has now been succeeded twice by his arguable antithesis, Donald Trump, with a hapless interlude courtesy of Joe Biden, Obama’s vice president. The “Lightworker” has dimmed.