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Why Donald Trump Is Actually Obama’s Natural Successor | Michael Slaby | Big Think

Big Think | August 28, 2025



Why Donald Trump Is Actually Obama’s Natural Successor
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“History is decided by the people that show up,” and about 60 million people — about 1/5th of the country — showed up to vote for a boorish reality TV star with no experience in politics. It shocked just about everyone, namely the news media and coastal liberals who thought that Hilary Clinton was a shoe-in for the presidency. Michael Slaby—who worked for Obama in the crucial 2012 elections—shows that Trump is part of a direct line from the “hope / change” motif of Barack Obama, albeit on a much darker and aggressive tone. So how do we get back to a level of normality? We engage the majority of America—the 65% of Americans that believe Trump is doing a terrible job—and try and get them to actively participate in politics and show that their voice matters.
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MICHAEL SLABY:

Michael Slaby is a global leader in digital and social media strategy, technology and data analytics, and explores how together they can elevate mission-driven organizations. For Michael, it is not only about developing the necessary technological platform, but understanding what it is that brings people together to take action online, as well as offline. Currently, he is Managing Partner of Timshel—a new company working to help solve social, civic, and humanitarian problems via better technology, engagement capabilities development, and creative capital. Previously he was a Fellow at Shorenstein Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

In 2012, when the Obama administration began gearing up for re-election, one of the first calls went to Michael Slaby, who was chief technology officer in 2008—when the historical campaign leveraged the internet and social media to raise funds and organize volunteers in ways that had never been seen before.

Michael helped lead Obama for America as Chief Integration and Innovation Officer in 2012, overseeing the CTO, CIO, and CAO, in order to ensure effective implementation and integration of technology across the entire campaign.
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TRANSCRIPT:

Michael Slaby: I think the 2016 election has been eye-opening for me personally, and there’s been a lot of personal reflection around “what does it mean to be involved?” for a lot of people. I think—and I hope—that we take President Trump’s victory as a warning of what disengagement can cost us.

And I think our leaders have failed to lead on a lot of different dimensions. I think government has lost a productive culture of public service that makes it hard to participate, it makes it hard to understand the value of engaging in politics. Our first associations with the word “politician” is like, corruption/dishonesty. Public service should be about our highest ideals, it should be about our collective success, it should be about what is best and most ambitious for a group of people working together around a shared sense of purpose.

So I think as people wake up to “Wait a second, how is this possible here?” I think there’s a couple of things at work there.

One is: as the country becomes more urban, and urban centers are decidedly more liberal, we have a sense that the country is much more liberal than it actually is. Turns out it’s a really big country. It turns out there’s a lot of people who still don’t live in cities.

It turns out there are a lot of sort of frustrated people who live in cities who believed in Obama because of the promises he made about changing the system that Trump was a much more natural successor to than Secretary Clinton was.

And so I think the concept of someone who is frustrated and anxious seeing President Obama fail to largely change the culture of politics, see Trump as the bull for the china shop and there’s a pretty straight line, and this is a lot easier to see in retrospect. I thought Secretary Clinton was going to win, so this is all with the benefit of hindsight and a lot of thought, and a lot of talking to a lot of people in a lot of places that aren’t Chicago and aren’t downtown New York.

But what I think this has awakened in people is the reality that people have to participate. There’s this saying that “history is decided by the people that show up,” there’s like nine different versions of that aphorism that are largely true in a participatory democracy. And I think we’ve gotten a little lazy, and I think President Trump scares a lot of people… and in a way that has been amazing to watch new people en…

For the full transcript, check out https://bigthink.com/videos/michael-slaby-cynicism-is-killing-our-democracy-only-political-participation-can-save-it

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Comments

This post currently has 40 comments.

  4. @PietyOFpaxson

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    Until the “Citizen’s United” amendment is revoked which allows corporations to buy politicians, we have no hope. The Supreme Court turned its back on the American public in this regard, and it is a BIG regard. So sad.

  5. @airfoiling

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    Considering the founding fathers made it impossible for women, people of color and even white guys without land to vote, so America was started as a pluticracy.

  6. @chrisbarber3531

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    Politics is nothing more than a hand job meant to give people the impression that they have some control over their lives. I didn't vote for Trump in 2016, but if he runs in 2024 I will. If that is what it takes to crash the system, purge the career politicians, and give control back to the people in time, then it is the only option.

  7. @DaveE99

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    Why haven’t we told conservatives that with out net Neutrality , their media can be hampered and filtered on idelogical grounds. They already (falsely) believe that they are censured and limited. Tell them companies can filter out their voice without net nutrality.

  9. @Tom-the-Necromancer

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    An 11.5% turn out rate should just demand a repeat vote in a democracy because that is not a representative proportion of the public. An 11.5% turn out rate to me says "there are serious deliberate obstacles to the public being represented in office." I also don't understand how it's possible to be both a republic and a democracy since republic interests would inherently overtake public interests as a result of a perceptual power differential combined with severely imbalanced wealth distribution. It's not really a democracy if the democratic component is just being hijacked continuously by the interests of the wealthy republic.

  11. @sixsentsoldiers

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    Are you kidding? Trumps victory in 16, will be memorized. It will be the great American story. One day. Its actually the founders still hard at work. Electoral college. Neccessary for a more perfect union.

  12. @jamesvaughan8355

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    Here's a warning for the Left: if the world needs to be saved, if it is going to be saved, it is not going to be saved by pieces of shit like you. For the right: they don't even care, unless it's about some rich bastard rigging the "game" in their own favor and then paying no taxes.

  15. @jasonryan1954

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    Obama gave the Republicans everything they wanted. While Democrats keep blaming everyone else but themselves. No reason to vote in 2020. Nothing will change

  16. @Cameraqueen14

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    Trump is a reflection of the cynicism of the country. He matches their level of anger. For some, he’s a cry for help in a dysfunctional system, a last resort.

  17. @mattm6580

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    Secretary Clinton DID win. Her problem was not in getting votes (she had 4 million more) her problem was the electoral college. And that will be the problem in 2020 as well. But will Democrats ever be bold enough to forcefully push for the removal of such an undemocratic format? No. That's their mistake. They dont know that people like bold.

  23. @Michael-dt1mv

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    Snyder is a marvelous historian who has become a major public figure since the publication of hid superb short book On Tyranny. He has a YouTube channel where he regularly posts brief, informal commentary. It’s called TimothySnyderSpeaks. Very highly recommended,

  26. @linuxman777

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    I would be a Liberal, if women did not have the vote. Alot of American society is frustrated with how bad women's behaviour has been since 2008 and keeping Hillary from the presidency was our last defense from complete female supremacy.

  27. @lemonadecupcakes

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    So, you really do think that the disenchantment in politics is a RECENT development? I disagree. And also… I didn't want Trump in the white house. Or near it. Or cutting its lawn, or looking at pictures of it in a book while vacationing in Tahiti… (you get the picture) BUT… I was really worried when I saw that he at least PRETENDED to care about the 'flyover states'. That he made people feel like he would look out for the ones who are trying desperately to be self-sufficient, positive additions to society who struggle and work three jobs but see their money siphoned away to people who SEEM to be fully healthy adults capable of pulling themselves up and having a better life but SEEM to just want to lay around taking drugs and having babies and getting free housing, food and health care. Now, I KNOW there is so much more to it than that, and I know he doesn't care at all, that Trump only looks out for himself- HOWEVER… look at what the average Trump supporter actually wanted/felt like they heard from him. They wanted to hear "Hard work and sacrifice will be rewarded. We will straighten up our own problems before taking on the burden of the rest of the world's. Crime and criminals will not have a place here. We will become prosperous and worthy of pride in a way we don't feel right now." and voila! He not only lured in all the bigots, but all those people who think their problems are tied in with established government.

  32. @TheSaltyAdmiral

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    Also, let's not forget how this election exposed how outdated our democratic model is. You vote, you count the votes, the person with the most won, boom! That we don't do it this way is one of the major reasons America has the lowest voter turnout of all comparable nations, because in America it really is true that your vote doesn't matter many times. That is pure poison and needs to be fixed.

  34. @ericlawrence9060

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    DNC …. CHEATED. the public's vote matters not anyway. You are assigning blame to a broken system. The citizens don;t have power ANYHOW, nor do they care frankly. Wake up. Money in politics has resulted in this, as has endless distractions.

  40. @EclecticoIconoclasta

    August 28, 2025 at 7:20 am

    Obama is Trump´s successor because Obama is just another Corporatist neoliberal democrat similar to the Clintons. I really amazes me that Obama sometimes gets called part of the left. Obama´s economic policies would be considered center right and right wing in western europe and latin america. As such those sorts of policies just keep leaving working and poor people behind and so the white working class decided to vote for someone like Trump who mixed vague protectionism and workerism with right wing racialism in line with someone like Marine Le Pen and others like here who sometimes are thought of as neofascist politicians. When liberalism fails fascism is one that is always waiting. Bernie Sanders would have won and delivered real left wing socialdemocratic policies. Obama is just a black Clinton

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