WASHINGTON– For a few, brief moments last week, Barack Obama and I shared a station in life. 

On Tuesday morning, the former president, as I, addressed a digital audience from a Kalorama dwelling. He had books behind him. I had books behind me. His locale was a hacienda, mine was a proud writer’s dormitory. His audience was a reeling American people and a riven Democratic Party. Mine was the editorial board of this fine magazine. 

But let’s not dwell on the narcissism of small differences.

For as long as the current Corona crisis endures—and it looks as if it could be a pitter-patter bleed from months into years —disease and fear are the great levelers. Former President Obama sits as you and I do: under house arrest. As government lifers have long suspected—civilian life can be a drag.

Joe Biden, now out of government for the first time since before Woodstock, may yet be president this time next year. But for now he shares the fate of the millennial generation he’s expressed so little sympathy for. As recent video messages attest, he’s stuck in the basement. 

As is quietly, but widely, remarked upon, his former boss has gotten himself more plutocratic digs. Or as the 44th president predicted in his last address to the White House Correspondents Dinner: he’s earned himself “some serious Tubmans.”

Bipartisan populist rebellion is the conventional narrative of the last few years. But while such insurrections occurred in states both crimson and azure, only one riot was quelled. 

On the Right, the war was lost, and the treaty signed. The survivors crossed the line but into a foreign country. At the Republican convention this summer, in actuality or in absentia, Trumpian nationalism will not be rejected, but ratified. No matter how glib his intraparty opponents may be, and they are, they’re still living in a nightmare. 

Bernie Sanders’ revolution, on the other hand, was put down for the second time in four years. And defeat came at the hand of an arguably even more fumbling candidate than before. 

Sanders’ campaign suspension earlier this month was the funeral-dirge of a wacky career. In his endorsement of Biden last week, Barack Obama called Sanders “an American original.” It was vintage Obama, an officially polite remark, with a frightfully ambiguous meaning. Ted Kaczynski is an American original. 

Even out of office, Obama wields considerable power. 

For Donald Trump, he’s the shark from below. Nostalgia is an exploitable resource for former presidents. Bill Clinton once knew this well. It’s clear history will render a separate verdict, but in the contemporary world, even George W. Bush has fallen hiney-first back into moderate respectability. 

Of course, Obama’s position is more complex. He left office with an approval rating nearing sixty percent. He was genuinely popular and remains so. While true Trumpsters might protest, Hillary Clinton was repudiated in 2016, not Barack Obama. Because Mr. Trump passed on the presidential race in 2012, we’ll never actually know what would have happened if the duo parted and walked ten paces.

As for Obama’s reputation, barring some mammoth cultural shift—as happened with #MeToo and the myriad picadillos of William Jefferson Clinton—he’s probably safe. Which is a sticky wicket, not only for his archrival President Trump, but for his former lieutenant Biden, as well, who should want to prove he’s his own man. 

But how legitimate is Obama’s legacy in a Democratic Party leaping leftward? It’s as if the 44th president won the war, while losing every battle. It’s Bernie’s party now, and he’s left the room. 

“You know,” Obama said in his video message. “I could not be prouder of the incredible progress we made together during my presidency. But if I were running today, I wouldn’t run the same race, or have the same platform, as I did in 2008.”

Speaking of ’08: Like Obama, Biden used to love reaching across the aisle. But a young senator who once broke bread with former segregationists is now a former vice president who says he will run one of, if not, the “most progressive” administrations in American history.

And I don’t think he’s lying.