How to Understand ‘Obamagate’
President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, or his lack of a plan to do so, has been almost universally criticized, and while Trump has been obviously angry at the criticism, none of it managed to spur him into real action until Barack Obama weighed in. Not that he took action to improve the nation’s response, of course—instead, he demanded the prosecution of his predecessor.
On May 9, CNN reported that Obama had labeled Trump’s pandemic response “an absolute chaotic disaster” the day before, on a call with alumni of his administration. Early the next morning, as part of a long string of Mother’s Day tweets—as these rants exceed themselves, it’s become more and more difficult to find superlatives to adequately describe them—Trump retweeted a user who had mentioned “Obamagate.” The term has quickly become part of Trump’s vernacular, with 13 subsequent uses, including two yesterday.
Precisely what Trump is alleging against Obama is obscure, and probably beside the point. Trump isn’t really—as he heads toward a difficult reelection campaign in the midst of a global crisis.
