Obama administration

The Obama administration functions in the novel as a persistent point of reference, a political and cultural yardstick against which the Claremont presidency, the 2020 election, and the personal trajectories of the central characters are measured. It is less a period of governance than a set of associations—coolness, celebrity, and a certain progressive optimism—that the narrative repeatedly invokes to define what the present administration aspires to be and what its opponents fear it represents. The administration's legacy shapes the public image of the First Family, the rhetorical strategies of the campaign, and the private ambitions of the First Son, making it a quiet but constant force in the story's political and emotional landscape.

A Standard of Political Coolness

The most direct invocation of the Obama administration comes in the novel's account of how the White House Trio—Alex, June, and Nora—was packaged for the public. The nickname, officially coined by People magazine, was in reality carefully tested with focus groups by the White House press team and fed directly to the publication. The strategy was a deliberate departure from how previous First Families had handled their children: the Kennedys and Clintons had shielded the First Offspring from the press, granting them privacy for awkward phases and organic childhood experiences, while Sasha and Malia Obama were hounded and picked apart by the press before they finished high school. The Claremont team's bold new plan was to get ahead of the narrative, presenting three attractive, bright, charismatic, marketable millennials as celebrities in their own right. The logic was explicitly tied to the Obama precedent: "Obama was cool," and therefore the whole First Family could be cool too. The phrase "It's not ideal, but it works," attributed to Alex's mother, captures the calculated pragmatism of borrowing the Obama aura of coolness for political gain.

A Political Weapon in the 2020 Election

The Obama administration also becomes a rhetorical weapon in the 2020 campaign, invoked by Ellen Claremont's opponents to stoke fear and anger. During a heated family argument, Oscar Diaz warns his ex-wife that she needs to take the election seriously, pointing to the eight years of Obama and now her own presidency as fuel for the opposition's rage. "They're angry, Ellen, and Richards is out for blood!" he insists, framing the Obama years as a provocation that has energized the other side. Ellen's furious response—that she doesn't need his help to win an election, that she didn't need it in Congress or to become president the first time—shows how the Obama legacy is both a burden and a target. The administration is positioned as the immediate predecessor that the Richards campaign seeks to punish, with the implication that the Claremont presidency is seen as an extension of the Obama era and therefore deserving of the same hostility. This political framing intensifies the stakes of the election and the personal attacks that follow.

A Temporal Marker for Alex's Future

The Obama administration also serves as a personal temporal marker for Alex Claremont-Diaz, particularly in his thinking about his own future. The novel repeatedly shows Alex contemplating a path that diverges from the immediate political career he has always assumed. The Texas Binder, a collection of case files from his mother's home state, represents the kind of work that could be done through law rather than politics, and Alex reflects on the feeling at the base of his spine, like there's a lot of fight in him that could be honed down to a more productive point. The thought of law school is a recurring temptation, one he has always rejected because he doesn't wait for things, doesn't put in the time, doesn't do what he's told. The Obama administration appears in this context as a reference point for the kind of political career he might have, a model of what he could become if he followed the expected path. When he finally reveals to Nora that he snuck off and took the LSAT that summer, her simple, excited response—"Oh! Oh … law school"—confirms that this is where he has been unknowingly headed all along, a future that stands in contrast to the immediate gratification of the political track he was on.

The Obama-Era Private Server Precedent

When the Waterloo Letters scandal breaks, the Obama administration is invoked again, this time as a precedent for the private email server at the center of the controversy. The Daily Mail's report reveals that the correspondence between Alex and Henry was lifted from a private server used by White House residents, and Republican presidential candidate Jeffrey Richards immediately seizes on this as a security concern, demanding to know what other information was disseminated on the server. Sources close to the Claremont administration respond by insisting that the private server is similar to the one set up during President George W. Bush's administration, used only for day-to-day operations and personal correspondence. The reference to the Bush-era precedent is a defensive move, but the shadow of the Obama administration's own email controversies hangs over the exchange, making the server a political liability regardless of its actual contents. The scandal becomes a test of whether the administration can control the narrative, and the Obama-era associations of coolness and progressivism are replaced by the more fraught associations of surveillance and political attack.

A Contrast to the Richards Campaign's Conspiracy

The Obama administration also provides a moral and political contrast to the conspiracy that ultimately brings down the Richards campaign. When Nora reveals that Richards hired a firm that hired hackers to obtain surveillance tapes from the Beekman, and that he then hired another third party to buy everything and resell it to the Daily Mail, the scheme is exposed as a hostile act against a sitting president. The podcast host Oliver Westbrook summarizes the three big takeaways from the news: the First Son didn't actually do anything wrong, Richards committed a hostile act of conspiracy, and Rafael Luna is perhaps the unlikeliest hero of the 2020 presidential race. The Obama administration, with its associations of coolness and relative stability, stands in implicit contrast to this dirty campaign, a reminder of a time when politics seemed less vicious. The novel uses this contrast to heighten the sense that the 2020 election represents a turning point, a choice between the Obama-era ideal of cool, celebrity politics and the darker, more cynical politics of surveillance and personal destruction.

A Quiet Presence in Private Moments

The Obama administration even appears in the novel's most private moments, a subtle reminder of the political world that surrounds the central romance. When Alex dreams of taking Henry back to the lake house after the inauguration, he imagines a future where his mother is in office again and they won't have to worry about winning any more elections. The fantasy of a post-election life, of cooking migas in the mornings and swimming all day and making out on the pier without caring if the neighbors see, is predicated on the assumption that the Claremont administration will continue, that the Obama-era legacy of Democratic governance will be extended. Similarly, when Henry finally commits to Alex, speaking of his terror and his mad life and his desire to offer Alex the chance of a life, Alex reaches out to touch his face and thinks about holding the Bible at his mother's inauguration with the same hand. The image of the inauguration, a ritual that connects the Claremont presidency to the Obama years and to the broader history of American democracy, grounds the private commitment in a public, political context. The Obama administration, in these moments, is not just a political reference but a promise of continuity, a future that the characters hope to build together.