Friends who are frustrated by the current White House regime still ask me, “Where is Obama?” As if he might miraculously arise again in the political skies like Mighty Mouse singing, “Here I come to save the day!”

Dream on, I point out. Having served two full terms, Barack Obama has maxed out of his constitutional eligibility.

But, behind the scenes, he has found more to do than, say, add to the rising outrage over President Donald Trump’s demolition of the East Wing of the White House.

Specifically, Obama has lent his support to a plan to counteract Trump’s plans to lock in a Republican majority in the House of Representatives through gerrymandering. Unfortunately, that effort looks a lot like gerrymandering itself.

Republicans in several states, at Trump’s urging, have set about an unprecedented mid-decade wave of redistricting. Typically, redistricting happens every decade, after the U.S. census. However, Trump has accurately intuited that the thin GOP majority in the House is in peril thanks to his highly polarizing policies. To help extend Trump’s absolute control of the U.S. government, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott convened a special session of the state legislature last summer to redraw Texas districts in a way that is likely to deliver five more Republicans to Congress.

In late July, Obama spoke with his former attorney general, Eric Holder, about how Democrats should respond. Notably, both Obama and Holder have been outspoken advocates of independent commissions to draw congressional districts free of the political gerrymandering. Holder chairs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which bills itself as fighting extreme gerrymandering and creating fair maps, and Obama has endorsed its efforts.

According to an in-depth Washington Post report, Obama and Holder concluded that those aspirations would have to be put on hold, and that the Democrats would have to fight fire with fire.

At about the same time, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, met with legal experts to explore his state’s options, including how to work around a constitutional requirement of nonpartisan redistricting — without looking too hypocritical.

The situation brings to mind an old saying well known to observers of politics in the Windy City. They are the words, uttered more than a century ago, by the notoriously colorful, corrupt and charismatic Ald. Paddy Bauler: “Chicago ain’t ready for reform.”

It’s easy for wags on the other side of the partisan divide to call out Newsom, Holder and Obama for conveniently abandoning their high ideals, but at this point, to stick to apolitical redistricting in blue states looks a lot like unilateral disarmament.

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Obama and Holder supported Newsom on the grounds that his plans for redistricting were temporary and required the approval of California’s voters.

By mid-August, Obama had become a national advocate for Democrats taking up the redistricting fight. Illinois also got into the action when Texas Democrats slipped away to the Land of Lincoln for two weeks to temporarily block a GOP vote on the new map.

When Texas Republicans threatened to arrest the dissident lawmakers and remove them from office, Obama called in to one of the Democrats’ meetings at a secret location in Illinois to lend support to their stance — and later released a portion of the call to the public.

A few days later, at a Martha’s Vineyard fundraiser for Holder’s redistricting committee, Obama gave his full-throated endorsement of the California proposal.

“I want to see as a long-term goal that we do not have political gerrymandering in America. That would be my preference,” Obama said. “Texas is taking direction from a partisan White House that is effectively saying: gerrymander for partisan purposes so we can maintain the House despite our unpopular policies, redistrict right in the middle of a decade between censuses — which is not how the system was designed. I have tremendous respect for how Gov. Newsom has approached this.”

Obama also filmed an ad for Prop 50, Newsom’s redistricting ballot initiative, aimed at motivating Democrats and independents, saying,
“California, the whole nation is counting on you. Democracy is on the ballot Nov. 4.”

The ad also featured video images of Trump and the National Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in U.S. cities.

“Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years,” says the narration. “With Prop 50, you can stop Republicans in their tracks.”

Efforts to redraw U.S. House districts for partisan advantage have been taken up in Republican-led Missouri, where the legislature approved revised districts but the changes are being legally contested, and officials in more states are considering following suit.

So, to those who are wondering, Obama is doing his part for his party as it struggles to unify itself after its devastating defeat by Trump’s well-oiled machine.

That machine operates at a scale of thoroughgoing corruption and coercion that would have blown Bauler’s mind. The United States government is in desperate need of reform. The question is whether the Democrats, in their post-Joe Biden funk, are able to sell the American electorate on the proposition that they can deliver it.

Obama, a politician who knows a thing or two about overcoming corrupt political machines, can help the Democrats make a convincing case.

Email Clarence Page at cptimee@gmail.com.

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