Former President Barack Obama filmed a video for the progressive media company Attn: in which he chides progressives over their excuses for not voting.
Democrats frequently struggle to turn out voters for midterms—three of the last four have gone poorly—and Obama sought to get ahead of reasons they may cite to not show up at the polls. He mocked people for caring more about Instagram than elections and encouraged them to use Google to read up on candidates, calling it "super easy to read."
"A lot of our unelected officials are uninformed!" Obama said with exasperation at the beginning of the segment.
Obama then read through a list of "excuses" people give not to vote. Democrats are trying to have their first successful midterm since 2006, when George W. Bush was president. Republicans took back the House in 2010 and then the Senate in 2014 in rebukes of Obama and the Democratic Party.
President @BarackObama doesn't have time for these 7 excuses not to vote. pic.twitter.com/2Etpm6taTq
— attn (@attn) October 17, 2018
Excuse 1: "I don't care about politics."
"Look, I don't care about Pokemon, but that doesn't mean it won't keep on coming back," Obama said. "That's actually what people in power are betting on, that you'll check out, that you won't vote. And when you opt out, that's what allows other people to essentially fill that void."
"If you really want to throw a wrench in their plans, throw them out," he added. "Vote in somebody better."
Excuse 2: "Why bother voting when I can't relate to the candidates?"
Obama said that was a good question, but he told potential voters to take heart in the number of female and LGBT candidates this year, as well as young leaders from "across the political spectrum" seeking office.
Excuse 3: "My vote doesn't matter."
Obama noted President Donald Trump's victory—without naming him—was decided by less than 100,000 votes across three states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Had Hillary Clinton won those three states, she would have been the 45th president.
"More people go to Coachella," Obama lamented. "Look. When it comes to something like 'Dancing With The Stars,' people actually think their vote matters. But a vote in this November's election actually does matter."
He added you wouldn't let your grandparents pick your playlist, so why let them pick your representative?
Excuse 4: "Midterm elections are boring."
"Sometimes, these elections are even more important than a presidential race," Obama said, noting 36 governorships and all 435 spots in the House of Representatives are up for grabs. He did not mention U.S. Senate races, where Democrats face a tough map.
"Elections, by the way, aren't boring," he added. "You know what's boring? Scrolling through endless photos of your dinner on Instagram. That's boring."
Excuse 5: "I don't know the candidates well enough. I am uninformed."
"This thing has something called Google," Obama said, pointing at a tablet. "You can't use Google to figure out which candidates on your local ballot think that the Earth is flat and climate change is a hoax? Google is super easy to read."
Obama called for people who don't believe in equal pay or gun control or a minimum wage hike to be voted out.
Excuse 6: "I don't know where I'm supposed to vote."
Obama gave the link to Vote.org and told viewers to head there to find out if they're registered and where to go to the polls.
Excuse 7: "I don't have time to vote."
Obama explained absentee ballots are available in all 50 states, and there is early voting in 37 states.
"Which is like going to a private Jay-Z/Beyonce concert, just without Jay-Z and Beyonce," he said.
It's not the first time Obama has employed a tough tone against his own supporters. In the closing days of the 2016 campaign, Obama suggested men who didn't want to vote for Hillary Clinton were sexist:
"I want to be honest," he said. "You know, there's a reason why we haven't had a woman president before … And we have to ask ourselves as men, because I hope my daughters are going to be able to achieve anything they want to achieve, and I know that my wife is not just my equal but my superior."
The crowd roared its approval.
"And I want every man out there who's voting to kind of look inside yourself and ask yourself, if you're having problems with this stuff, how much of it is that we're just not used to it?" Obama asked. "When a guy is ambitious and out in the public arena and working hard, well that's OK, but when a woman suddenly does it, suddenly you're all like, ‘Well, why's she doing that?' I'm just being honest."
He also did a segment in 2016 with Samantha Bee, a liberal TBS late-night host, where the pair mocked millennial stereotypes and encouraged young voters to show out for Clinton.
"Young people have a bigger stake in this election than anybody. I would hope that you'd be willing to take about the same amount of time that you spend just looking through cat videos on your phone to make sure that the democracy's working," Obama said.
"Sorry," Bee said in a Valley Girl accent. "I was just Snapchatting myself as a bottlenose dolphin."