"It was as if my very presence in the White House had triggered a deep-seated panic, a sense that the natural order had been disrupted," Mr Obama writes.
Credit: Reuters
Paranoia and anxiety about a “black man in the White House” drove the Republican Party towards Donald Trump, Barack Obama has said in his new memoir, reflecting on a divided America.
Mr Obama, in his most scathing assessment of the outgoing president to date, claimed that Mr Trump offered an “elixir for the racial anxiety” to millions of “spooked” Americans.
"It was as if my very presence in the White House had triggered a deep-seated panic, a sense that the natural order had been disrupted," Mr Obama writes. "Which is exactly what Donald Trump understood when he started peddling assertions that I had not been born in the United States and was thus an illegitimate president.”
Donald Trump, with his wife Melania Trump, is sworn in as President at the US Capitol in Washington, DC
Credit: AFP
Mr Obama frames the “obstructionism” of Republicans, whom he says often left him hamstrung, as being rooted in their attempt to appeal to fears about the first black president.
The much-anticipated 768-page memoir, titled A Promised Land and due out on November 17, chronicles the future president’s childhood and political rise, as well as his 2008 election victory and his two terms in office. It is thought that he deliberately waited until after the election to publish the tome.
In it, he claims that Sarah Palin, former vice presidential nominee and Tea Party member, first gave voice to these racial anxieties.
People hold a "Remove Trump Pence Now" sign during a protest against racism and issues with the presidential election after in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Credit: AFP
"Through Palin, it seemed as if the dark spirits that had long been lurking on the edges of the [GOP] — xenophobia, anti intellectualism, paranoid conspiracy theories, an antipathy toward Black and brown folks — were finding their way to center stage."
In a particularly timely reflection, he reveals the thought process behind picking Joe Biden, now President-elect, as his running mate
"One of the reasons I’d chosen Joe to act as an intermediary — in addition to his Senate experience and legislative acumen — was my awareness that in (Senate Majority Leader Mitch) McConnell’s mind, negotiations with the vice president didn’t inflame the Republican base in quite the same way that any appearance of cooperation with (Black, Muslim socialist) Obama was bound to do," Mr Obama writes.
Writing on his famed “bromance” with his vice president, Mr Obama said on Mr Biden:"What mattered most, though, was what my gut told me — that Joe was decent, honest, and loyal. I believed that he cared about ordinary people, and that when things got tough, I could trust him. I wouldn’t be disappointed."
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