It's pretty easy to imagine President Obama shaking his head throughout this entire election. The sitting president has told Donald Trump to "stop whining," [1] erupted in laughter [2] when asked to "defend his legacy" against Trump, and continues to have a bit of fun [3] in his last year in office.
There are surely, however, thoughts and feelings about the election that Obama is unable to fully disclose — so This American Life went ahead and imagined what those thoughts and feelings are.
On a recent episode, titled "Seriously?", the beloved podcast enlisted singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles and Hamilton's Leslie Odom Jr. to create a song from Obama's perspective. The sobering and poignant song particularly addresses the intolerance exhibited by Trump [4] and some of his supporters. One lyric reads, "A rogue ripple turned tidal wave in reaction to what I tried to do — a rebirth of a nation's hatred. Red, white, and blue. Is black in there, too?"
A video of the song being recorded has since swept through the internet, racking up over 140,000 views on YouTube [5] since it was shared on Oct. 28. Watch the touching clip above.