Last night was Obama night at the DNC as both Barack and Michelle Obama spoke to endorse Kamala Harris while denouncing Donald Trump. Perusing my various media streams this AM suggests they did a bang up job of it. Perhaps a few sobering reminders are in order:

1. Obama promised in 2007 he’d codify Roe v. Wade into law as his top priority. Once he won the election, he did nothing; in fact, he said it wasn’t among his top priorities.
2. Obama himself admitted that his administration, politically speaking, could best be described as moderate Republican. Here he was honest, for Obama was pro-corporate, pro-banks, pro-war, pro-Big Pharma, and pro-Wall Street.
3. Obama gave us a corporate-friendly health care plan without a single payer option. Thus, Americans continue to pay more than double what people in countries like Germany and France pay for their health care.
4. Obama “surged” in Afghanistan with military forces, prolonging a lost war in that country.
5. Obama, with Hillary Clinton by his side, overthrew Libya, leaving that a country a wreck. Open slave markets, anyone?
6. Obama, by his own admission, became very good at killing people, especially via drone assassinations.
7. Obama, after winning a Nobel Peace Prize for not being George W. Bush, promised a muscular U.S. foreign policy supported by military operations to protect vital U.S. (corporate) interests.
8. Obama bailed out the banks while allowing them to foreclose on millions of homeowners.
9. Obama admitted “We tortured some folks” and then held no one accountable except for the brave whistleblower, John Kiriakou, who helped to expose the torture regimen (and regime).
10. Obama said we had to look forward, not backward, so no one was held accountable for the disastrous Iraq War.

That’s just ten reminders, off the top of my head, so I wouldn’t get too excited by soaring rhetoric from the Obamas about saving democracy.

The main point here isn’t to bash the Democrats or to rain on their parade. It’s to realize where the corporate-aligned Democratic Party really stands on issues like war and economic fairness, to take that knowledge in fully, and then to use it to change the Party.

And the time to do that is now, when Harris/Walz need your vote. It’s too late to wait until after the election, which Harris just may win (a big reason why, I think, is Trump fatigue, as Americans ponder what another four years of the Trump circus may be like).

A Sign You Didn’t See Inside the Convention Hall