Barack Obama didn’t want any part of the culture wars. His speeches were filled with totally sincere calls for unity, and he did his absolute best to avoid provoking angry white people. His status as the first black president, however, made him the embodiment of the conflict with the reactionary right, which for the first time could easily imagine power slipping through their fingers, and responded accordingly.
Obama’s failure to unite the country, through no fault of his own, was the biggest disappointment of his presidency. Trump, of course, made dividing the country by ratcheting up the culture wars and owning the libs his calling card, so things have only gotten worse since 2016.
Some commentators have attributed Biden’s success with the COVID bill to his reluctance to engage on cultural issues. Whatever truth there is to this argument, understand that it is not a new tactic. Biden is simply better positioned to lower the temperature than Obama was by virtue of the fact that he is an old, unthreatening white guy.