The Dictatorship
Barack and Michelle Obama hope ‘America will see itself’ in newly opened presidential center
After more than a decade in the making, the Obama Presidential Center has opened its doors. To mark the occasion, former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama sat down with MS NOW’s Michele Norris to talk about the stories that helped inspire the center, their legacy and how they believe “America will see itself” reflected throughout the sprawling 19-acre campus in Chicago’s South Side.
While the former president told Norris the construction of the center was a “long journey,” he said that throughout the process, he and the former first lady had a consistent vision of what they hoped to “accomplish,” one that started with its location, which he described as the “epicenter” of his life in Chicago: the South Side.
“Michelle and I had a very clear sense that we wanted this to be a place that would attract visitors from around the world, that would record what happened during my presidency, but, that more than anything, was a vital, alive, dynamic place for the South Side of Chicago and the city of Chicago,” he said.
“We are home,” Michelle Obama told Norris, speaking from inside the center’s reading room. The former first lady, who was born and raised in Chicago’s South Side, said that during her childhood, she could not imagine having access to anything like the presidential center, which includes 28 commissioned art installations scattered throughout the campus.
“In order to do or see or experience anything beyond what you knew, you had to get on a bus or pay for parking or take the L and go to a whole other community to experience beautiful parks and to really enjoy the lake and to see art and to see culture,” she said.
Michelle Obama said she hoped the $850 million investment would mean children wouldn’t have to travel far to gain such perspective. “I think about what it’ll mean to kids like me,” she said. “This is something that Barack and I talked about. This is why the artwork at the presidential center is as important as the archives. Because it was important for me that kids like me could be right in their neighborhood and see world-class art.”
The Obamas also responded to concern from some who feared the center could have a negative impact on the surrounding community, and lead to displacement and rent hikes.
“The question is always from our perspective, are we making sure that the people who are already there can get a piece of that rising tide?” Barack Obama told Norris, noting that one of his team’s “biggest priorities” was making sure members of the local community could “not just apply for jobs but actually get jobs and get trained for jobs.”
The former president said that he hoped that over time the center would become “the kind of community improvement that is not just bringing in people from the outside but also lifting up folks from the inside,” adding, “that’s our hope.”
The pair discussed the long journey and the work that went into conceptualizing, planning and building such a sprawling complex. While Michelle Obama said she was involved, she stressed to Norris that she “wanted this to be Barack’s show.”
In fact, the former first lady said she had not seen the finished project until just a few days ago. During her tour, she told Norris she became emotional while watching a particular video in one exhibit that captured the crowd’s reaction in Grant Park to her husband’s historic win in 2008.
Since she and her family were preparing for Barack Obama’s victory speech, she said she “never had a chance to see the reaction, in all these years.”
“It was really the first time I saw accounts of the emotion people felt [when the race was called]. I’d never experienced that,” she said.
While the Obama Presidential Center Museum will tell the story of the former president’s journey to the White House, he told Norris he believed it was important to “ground” what happened during his presidency in the “broader sweep of American history.”
“Frankly, I would probably have had even less of me,” he said. “Maybe this is the academic in me that’s more interested in folks getting a sense of history more broadly. And my presidency is just a chapter in that.”
The former president said reflecting on the country’s “complicated” history was perhaps more important now than ever, dismissing an idea he said was being pushed by “the right” and “the Trump administration,” that “any suggestion or criticism that America was anything other than perfect is unpatriotic.”
“I think it’s possible to celebrate the founders and appreciate what they did, as well as look objectively and critically at how their values strayed very far from what they professed,” he argued. “I think when you understand the complexities of America and the contradictions of America, I don’t think it makes you love it less. I think it makes you love it more.”
He told Norris he believed taking that kind of approach made you more “resilient” during “periods like we’re in now,” where many feel “despair” and “anger.”
Adding: “That perspective allows you to then say, ‘OK, we’ve gone through crazy periods like this before.’ … It fortifies you to say that, yes, this has been part of the journey that we’re on, and there’s no reason to suggest that we can’t get through this one either.”
That message of hope and unity was also present in what Michelle Obama told Norris she hoped visitors would take away from their time at the center.
“What will resonate for people of all backgrounds is they will see themselves in these floors — America will see itself,” she said. “And I’m saying all of America, regardless of political party, regardless of whether you voted for us, or like us, or have nasty things to say about us, or not, or love us. You will walk through these halls and you will feel seen here.”
Highlighting the voices of everyday Americans was a key focus of the Obamas during the center’s conceptualization, including in what the former president described as his favorite exhibit: a showcase of some letters he received from the American people during his time in office, located outside a replica of his Oval Office in the center’s museum.
He told Norris that the exhibit included a short video, which he said left him “choked up,” highlighting some of the stories shared in those letters. “It’s a mother talking about, you know, ‘Mr. President, I’m struggling.’ And it’s a vet, you know, who’s still trying to find his path after he’s no longer serving,” he said. “People are really raw in their emotions in some of these letters, partly because they don’t expect the president’s actually going to read it. It’s almost like a meditation for them — a way of getting stuff off their chest.”
During their visit, the former president urged visitors at the center to stop to read those letters and listen to those stories. “Take the time to watch that,” he said. “‘Cause I think that as much as anything captures what I always hoped the spirit of my presidency was.”
When Norris asked Obama to elaborate on what he believed that “spirit” was, the former president said he hoped his time in office showed the importance of “a sense of generosity towards each other” and “a sense of that everybody counts and everybody matters.”
“And that when we act on that basic presumption, when we extend grace to each other, when we’re willing to fight for that idea without sacrificing a recognition of the humanity of those that we’re fighting against, if we can manage that — even if it’s messy and not always perfect — then I think this country does well and the world does better,” he said.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”
ByDarryl Robertson
From the start, Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter has been consistent that his primary concern in life is making even more money. “I’d rather die enormous than live dormant,” he raps on “Can I Live?” That’s one of the songs on his 1996 debut masterpiece, “Reasonable Doubt,” which is mostly about him making the transition from drug dealer to musical artist. And “Can’t Knock the Hustle,” the first song on that album, is his declaration that no one can criticize him for how he accumulates wealth.
But 30 years later, people are knocking Jay-Z’s hustle. The hip-hop legend and media mogul is partnering with Target to push out a new collector’s item: a 30th-anniversary edition of “Reasonable Doubt” on vinyl. When Target ended its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives during the first days of the second Trump administration, Levy Armstrong to someMonique Cullars-Doty and Jaylani Hussein, stood outside Target’s headquarters in Minneapolis and announced that a nationwide boycott would begin on Feb. 1, 2025. Later, the Rev. Jamal Bryant, a prominent Black pastor in Atlanta, also called for a boycott. Target suffered declining store traffic and significantly fewer sales.
“Can’t Knock the Hustle” is his declaration that no one can criticize him for how he accumulates wealth.
In March, when Bryant announced an end to the boycott, Levy Armstrong wrote in an op-ed for MS NOW that Bryant had “no authority” to end the boycott and that it continues. “Why should we end the boycott now when Target hasn’t changed any of the policies that caused us to launch the boycott?”
This isn’t the first time Jay-Z has seen an opportunity for himself with an institution catching the brunt of Black people’s anger. As many Black people were boycotting the NFL for its mistreatment of quarterback Colin Kaepernick after he kneeled during the national anthem, Jay-Z’s Roc Nation brand announced a partnership with the NFL to plan its Super Bowl halftime shows. “I think we’ve moved past kneeling,” Jay-Z said then. “I think it’s time to go into actionable items. I don’t want people to stop protesting at all. Kneeling is a form of protest. I support protests across the board. We need to shed light on the issue, and I think everyone knows what the issue is.”
Jay-Z has consistently shown that he will choose partnership over principles, as “Point of View” host Natalya Somers recently noted: “We’ve seen when Colin Kaepernick was going through it with the NFL, and ended up being blackballed, and didn’t come to his defense. And now, right in the middle of his very own people being in the middle of a Target boycott, he is partnering with Target.”
Minneapolis-based Target has not only been criticized for abandoning its DEI initiatives but also has been accused of not standing up for immigrant communities during the ramped-up ICE raids in Minnesota earlier this year.
As impressive as Jay-Z’s ability to rap is, and as powerful as his story is about his rise from drug dealer to billionaire, he is a prime example of why we shouldn’t treat entertainers as political leaders, especially not an entertainer who candidly rapped, “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.”
Jay-Z isn’t the only Black music artist to partner with Target. J.Cole partnered with the retail giant to exclusively sell vinyl copies of his latest album, “The Fall-Off” and to sell the 10th anniversary of 2014’s“Forest Hill Drive.” Kendrick Lamar’s 2024 album “GNX” is also being sold on vinyl exclusively at Target. But Jay-Z has enough money and clout to play by his own rules. He could have chosen another retailer if he had wanted to.
Jay-Z made a guest appearance on a 2006 song by Nas called “Black Republican.” In the chorus, we hear him say, “I feel like a Black Republican, money I got comin’ in / Can’t turn my back on the hood, I got love for them.”
The part about money coming in is obviously still true. But some of his decisions should make us question his claim that he can’t turn his back on the hood.
Darryl Robertson
Darryl Robertson is a freelance writer, a research assistant for The New York Times, a section editor for Souls and a student at Columbia University. His research interests include hip-hop and understanding how the Black Power movement services its communities. He is also interested in understanding how social, geographical and historical factors contribute to hip-hop.
The Dictatorship
Elon Musk’s right-wing cheerleaders are deeply offended by criticism of his trillionaire status
Elon Musk’s new status as the world’s first trillionaire has unsurprisingly generated strong criticismmuch to the horror of his loudest fans, who view pretty much any criticism of Musk as an attack on freedom and prosperity.
Some Musk detractors lamented the very existence of a trillionaire as an obscenity, when millions of Americans live one broken bone or illness away from financial ruin. Surely if a rising tide lifts all boats, then one man becoming a trillionaire — roughly tripling his net worth since bankrolling President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign — ought to mean there’s enough wealth to trickle down to provide basic social services for the tens of millions of Americans struggling to make rent every month? Perhaps if one man’s businesses have been subsidized for years by billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayersand whose net worth exceeds the GDP of all but 19 countriesthen maybe there’s enough left over for average Americans to receive the kind of basic health coverage that’s a staple of every Western capitalist democracy but our own?
No! That’s just jealous, parasitic commie talk from people who hate “the accomplishments of great men,” say Musk’s right-wing fans — who are often beneficiaries of billionaires’ largesse themselves.
Among the self-parodic headlines: the National Post’s “Here’s how to properly love Elon Musk, the world’s greatest entrepreneur,” The Spectator’s “Why can’t Elon Musk’s critics just be pleased for him?”, The Federalist’s “Leftist Freak Out Over Elon Musk’s Trillionaire Status Embodies Their Hatred For Success.”
Joel Berry, former managing editor of The Babylon Bee (MAGA’s one-joke answer to The Onion), posted to X, “The government takes over one trillion every year from hardworking taxpayers to fund welfare recipients. Elon has never taken a single cent from me.”
In fact, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, — the cash payments that are commonly referred to as “welfare” — pays out just over $8 billion per year. Families below the poverty line receive anywhere between $162 to $915 per month, depending on the state, according to a 2024 report by the Congressional Research Service. Meanwhile “in 2024 alone, federal and local governments committed at least $6.3 billion to Musk’s companies, the highest total to date,” according to reporting by The Washington Post.
That’s just jealous, parasitic commie talk from people who hate “the accomplishments of great men,” say Musk’s right-wing bootlickers — who are often beneficiaries of billionaires’ largesse themselves.
The reality of one man being roughly three times richer than the next plutocrat is, as Musk is wont to say, “concerning.” That this man’s wealth is inextricably tied to businesses with sweetheart government contracts and miniscule tax rates, even more so. The fact that this same man is a manic poster on social media, where he frequently endorses racist tropes and amplifies right-wing conspiracy theories, is written off by many Musk apologists as just the price of working with a capitalist visionary. But Musk is legitimately dangerous.
After his money helped Trump take back the White House, the president authorized Musk to create the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which recklessly destroyed many legitimate agencies that provided real, tangible value to America and its security — and not just stock holders’ bottom lines. The destruction of the U.S. Agency for International Development (which had a budget of about $34 billion a year) is estimated to have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of peoplehindered America’s (and the world’s) ability to respond to public health crises (like the recent Ebola outbreak) and created a power vacuum in many parts of the world that was quickly filled by local warlordsreligious extremist groups and China.
Musk is attempting to impose his extreme politics outside the U.S. as well. A giddy booster for the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfDwhose members he implored to get over their guilt for their nation’s not-too-distant Nazi past, Musk has since turned his sights on the U.K., where last year he told a crowd of over 100,000 at a far-right rally, “Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die, that’s the truth, I think.” Just last week, Musk egged on racist, far-right mobs rampaging through Belfasteven using his Nazi-friendly platform X to post locations for the mobs to organize.
The Verge recently published an article by TC Sottek titled, “The world’s first trillionaire is a killer.” This sparked performative outrage from some of Musk’s right-wing influencer pals, who accused the outlet of “hoping to inspire the next Luigi Mangione” and referred to Musk’s critics as “vile soul-sucking wreckers who despise all excellence.”
But Sottek makes a good case to back up the article’s provocative headline. Musk, he notes, called USAID a “criminal organization” that he was “feeding … into the wood chipper” — evoking a gruesome murder in the film, “Fargo.” Musk’s killing of USAID led to what experts estimate is close to a million deaths in a little more than a year, mostly children, due to preventable diseases.
Sottek continues:
The intentional destruction of the ability to save lives and reduce suffering is psychopathic behavior — the kind that would prevent any rational, kind person from giving power to anyone capable of it. But here we are. And while there has always been a class of mega-rich menaces, including horrible racists in power who are indifferent to suffering, we seem to be crossing the Rubicon with Musk. Few people in history, if ever, will have accumulated the same combination of wealth, media power, and government influence.
I’m having trouble spotting a falsehood in that passage. And I cannot take seriously the protestations from groupies of the richest and most powerful people in the world, who claim that strident criticisms of their heroes — including the use of labels like “Nazi” and “fascist” — are tantamount to inciting violence.
On Wednesday, Musk referred to the Federal Trade Commission “as modern day Mengeles, an utterly evil organization.” You see, the MAGA civility cops’ ethos holds that any comparisons between them and Nazis and killers should be criminalized. But at the same time, their enemies — including people just a little weirded out by the fact that the world’s first trillionaire is such an unstable and vicious person — are so dangerous that no softer descriptions will suffice.
That’s how they justify likening Musk’s critics to both Nazis and communists, while simultaneously claiming Musk’s life is threatened because those critics noted the fact that his reckless actions, in fact, did lead to pointless death and unspeakable destruction.
It’s hard to choose what’s more distasteful — treating the world’s richest man, whose wealth is increasingly tied to the fortunes of the U.S. government, as some kind of heroic, revolutionary figure, or whitewashing the consequences that his thoughtless, erratic, grievance-based decision-making has wreaked on some of the world’s most vulnerable people. Either way, Musk’s superfans continue to outdo themselves in the field of caping for power while somehow attempting to pose as “anti-elites.”
Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and opinion columnist for MS NOW.
The Dictatorship
This UFC insult sparked praise for Michelle Obama — and highlighted a very Trumpian pattern
ByMichael Steele
After winning a cage match in front of the White House on Sunday, UFC fighter Josh Hokit paused his postfight interview to take a vulgar swipe at former first lady Michelle Obama.
In the days that followed, Obama began trending across social media — not because of the insult, but because Americans responded by celebrating hersharing elegant portraits, highlighting her accomplishments and praising the grace and dignity she brought to public life.
It is a familiar pattern in the Trump era. First comes the clumsy effort to glorify the president and demean his perceived opponents. Then comes the public reaction that elevates the very people and values he is trying to diminish.
Trump reminded Americans of everything they appreciated about the Obamas.
President Donald Trump wanted Americans to celebrate his birthday with a big UFC fight. Instead, he reminded Americans of everything they appreciated about the Obamas.
He wanted to be greeted as a native son at a Knicks game in Madison Square Garden. Instead, New Yorkers booed when his face flashed on the jumbotron, and fans literally burned sage to spiritually cleanse the arena after he left.
He wanted the nation to honor him during the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Instead, he saw headlines dominated by canceled performances and announcements of rival events, including a star-studded concert at the Obama presidential library.
Trump wants love, but he doesn’t know how to win it. He wants respect, but he doesn’t know how to earn it. He wants to be feared, but he doesn’t know how to inspire it.
Frustrated, he turns to forced displays of loyalty and empty threats. And Americans respond with ridicule or something he may find worse: indifference.
Trump demanded a Nobel Peace Prize and happily settled for a made-up one from FIFA. No one cared. But fans poured into the streets to celebrate when the Knicks won the NBA championshipbecause the team earned it by pushing past years of disappointment and working hard.
The president has spent most of his political career demeaning immigrants and putting down other countries. But soccer fans from around the world are celebrating World Cup wins with one another as immigrant communities around the U.S. are glued to their TVs.
Sports is the great leveler. It’s not just about the skills and athleticism, it’s about strangers in the stands sharing a history and having faith in the players’ ability to show what hard work and dedication can produce.
It’s part of the American story. Sports do not know class or race. When a team wins, it’s a celebration of community and shared purpose.
Trump doesn’t understand that because he doesn’t know what it’s like to belong. He can’t imagine being part of a group without being in charge and making it afraid of him. He doesn’t know how to play a game that isn’t rigged in his favor, or how to lose gracefully and shake hands.
So perhaps it’s not surprising that his big UFC cage match ended not with an outpouring of excitement from fans, but with a crude insult.
For more thought-provoking insights from Michael Steele, Alicia Menendez and Symone Sanders Townsend, watch“The Weeknight”every Monday-Friday at 7 p.m. ET on MS NOW.
Michael Steele
Michael Steele is a co-host of “The Weeknight,” which airs Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. ET on MS NOW.
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