Since 2004, the political precedents Barack Obama sought to establish have already been in motion, and now, in 2026, newcomers Abdul El-Sayed and Zohran Mamdani appear to be advancing his unfinished mission in exactly that direction. That may be why Obama seems to be playing the role of a proud father, secretly smiling in approval as his well-schooled children venture out to harvest the seeds he’s spent more than 20 years sowing. As these wet-behind-the-ears political successors seek to establish themselves as the new face of what Obama has long hoped would take shape, Obama appears to be tacitly passing the torch to trophy-kids El-Sayed and Mamdani and —



















