The Strange, Nostalgic World of Obama-Biden Fan Fiction - POLITICO Magazine
Those who choose to live in clinical denial, ahoy! This is a no-judgment zone, in which you will be urged to forget the current American president’s name—and instead enjoy escapist fan fiction about Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Yes, there is such a thing. Past presidential fanfic masterworks—like “Kim Jong Elmo vs Dick Cheney and George Bush featuring Lapis Lazuli”—might have been relegated to online speakeasies, but so great is the nostalgie d’Obama that new books about Barry and Joe are bringing fanfic’s nerdy tropes into the light of day in print.
Parodist Andrew Shaffer has just added a new entry to his enjoyably ludicrous Obama-Biden series, which launched last year with Hope Never Dies and features the duo solving mysteries together. The second entry, published in July, is called, you guessed it, Hope Rides Again. Indie director Adam Reid’s gonzo graphic confection, The Adventures of Barry & Joe, which styles Obama and Biden as time-traveling superheroes, was released this past spring. It is here to, if not to save the day, then at least demonstrate the life-changing magic of putting our heads under the covers and pretending it’s 2015.
I respect you if you refuse to look back and entertain fantasies that Obama and Biden might return to deliver the Republic from evil. Biden on the 2020 stump might wield Obama’s name like a talisman to protect himself from criticism, but all sane voters know the Joe-Barack heyday is never coming back.
