Will Obama Stay Relevant?

After eight years in the White House, former President Barack Obama has left the building.

But he’s not finished yet.

Hi everybody! Back to the original handle. Is this thing still on? Michelle and I are off on a quick vacation, then we’ll get back to work.

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) January 20, 2017

While he told Barbara Walters in 2013 that he was done running for office, Obama plans to tackle many of the issues he battled with as leader of the country, such as immigration and gun control.

But will the former president retain his purported ability to speak to and for the people?

Google Trends says maybe.

A comparison of Google searches for President Donald Trump and Barack Obama shows a stark difference at the time of the 2012 and 2016 elections.

Searches for Obama did peak around the time of the 2012 election, but those numbers are nowhere near the number of searches for Donald Trump before and during the 2016 election. In fact, searches for Trump were more numerous in the months leading up to November 2016 in comparison to searches for Obama in 2012, which picked up much closer to the election.

In the past 90 days, searches for Obama have remained higher than during the years of his presidency. While his numbers are far lower than Trump’s, they peak at the same time. This data seems to show that people care what our former president has to say about our current president’s recent actions. In this way, Obama may continue to be a public voice.