Someone posted a photo of former President Barack Obama feeding meals to homeless and at-risk veterans during Thanksgiving from two years ago and claimed that the photo was of Obama in Texas after Hurricane Harvey.
Of course the photo began trending because, if nothing else, it showed the contrast between the two administrations: the Obama administration, which is akin to a loving grandmother, and the Trump administration, which is akin to the uncle who stays in the grandmother’s basement and has his plate left outside the basement door because he doesn’t come upstairs.
The photo was shared not only because it showed a caring and kind president that is nonexistent—it was shared because it’s believable. It’s believable that former President Obama (we miss you so much, you don’t even know!) would hurry to Texas to help out because that is the kind of man he was when in office. It was shared because people wanted an opportunity to combat the hatred that has become the norm during this administration’s run in office. It was shared because it’s believable that a superhero (Obama) would do superhero shit. And more importantly, social media users had the opportunity to post the superhero against the vacationing villain Trump.
The photo wasn’t fake; it actually happened. During 2015, the president and his family gave out food during Thanksgiving. The photo is not of Obama serving food in Texas this year. The reason it’s so believable is that we had eight years of proactive presidenting that proved that Obama was a man of the people. During his tenure, he tried to actually make America better.