Obama’s Presidential Center, Brought to You by the Oligarchs
Former President Barack Obama just unveiled his presidential library, an oligarch-funded shrine to himself. It’s a perfect bookend to a presidency that bailed out Wall Street donors who were throwing millions of Americans out of their homes.

The timing of Barack Obama’s unveiling of his Wall Street–funded presidential center seems especially tone-deaf: this is a moment when most Americans can’t afford anything, in part because of the oligarchs who were enriched during his presidency. (Scott Kowalchyk / CBS via Getty Images)
With his presidential library, former President Barack Obama is unveiling an oligarch-funded shrine to himself amid everyone in America being fleeced by oligarchs. It’s a perfect bookend of a presidency that bailed out its Wall Street donors who were throwing millions of Americans out of their homes (and no, the bailouts were not “paid back”).
Obama says he wants his $850 million Obama Presidential Center, slated to open in June, “to put my presidency in context” — and in a sense, that’s what the shrine does. Its sponsor list is context for a presidency that promised hope and change and then used a massive electoral mandate to deliver more of the same. Indeed, the list is a who’s who of the winners of the Obama era: tech moguls, financial giants, telecom behemoths, a health insurance giant, and other bold-faced names of the oligarchy.
Of course, that kind of donor list is now standard fare for presidential foundations, but the timing of Obama’s celebration of his shrine seems especially tone-deaf: this is a moment when most Americans can’t afford anything, in part, because of the oligarchs that were enriched during his presidential tenure.