Today in Johannesburg President Obama delivered what his PR people advised in advance would be “the most important speech since his presidency.”

African media went bonkers, believing that it would be in Africa that Obama trounced Trump, pummeled Putin and praised right-hearted souls around the world. It didn’t happen. His speech was inspirational but totally inadequate for our times. I was sorely disappointed.

Obama delivered the keynote speech at the 100th anniversary of Mandela’s birth. He was surrounded by the highest dignitaries in South Africa, including President Cyril Ramaphosa who recently replaced a Trump-like troll of a president, Jacob Zuma, successfully steering the country away from a cliff. Everyone was on pins-and-needles expecting a bold, historic speech.

The cheers for Obama were remarkable, equal to those for Ramaphosa. Ramaphosa, in fact, introduced Obama and was interrupted by the spontaneous applause every time his name was mentioned.

Obama had just arrived South Africa from Kenya, where the only criticism he was able to provoke was that he hadn’t stayed long enough. He is visiting the continent now as a part of one of his foundation’s youth projects, which identifies and supports up-and-coming youth leaders in African countries.

The South Africans wound themselves up expecting an American lambast by a former American president.

“In a disastrous European journey,” a commentator wrote in South African’s Daily maverick today before the speech, “[Trump] had hissyfits in Brussels at Nato, then embarrassments galore in Britain, [then] the president did his level best to grovel before the feet of Vladimir Putin. Some … are expressing their horror and embarrassment over Trump’s flights of fancy or, worse, over Trump’s fealty to the master of the Kremlin.”

“It is a most peculiar summit,” wrote Prof. John Stremlau, a famous global relations professor at Witwatersrand. “You cant help but wonder what in the world does Putin have on Trump.”

The host for the event – setting the stage just before Obama spoke – charged that “Global political trends portray an assault on Mandela’s democracy. We did not think so far into democracy so many people would again risk losing all their elemental rights.”

When he finally took the stage about an hour late Obama had a difficult time starting until the endless chants of “Yes, we can!” petered out.

But he did not mention Trump once. He did not mention as so many hoped the catastrophic summit with Putin, or the dismal meetings that are destroying the European alliance, or any of a number of other inhumanities that South Africans would understand more than most.

The closest he came to any specific horrors of the current times was mentioning that Mandela and his jailmates had been denied “holding a child” for the lengthy terms of their imprisonment. He ad-libbed and poorly tried to explain the analogy to the immigration controversy, and came back to it later with a similar oblique reference about the sanctity of mother and children.

He was inspirational. He spoke in broad generalities that were framed by an acute observation of current affairs berating the current denigrating politics that “is now on the move, on a pace that would have seemed unimaginable. I’m not being alarmist, I’m simply stating the facts. Strongman politics are ascending whereby elections and pretense of democracy are maintained where those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning.

“Wealth is determined primarily by conquest,” he opined before extolling the “yawning disparities in income and education.” He chastised the “New international elite and professional class that supports [inequality]” and advised that we have to discard “the charity mindset” and embrace “paying higher taxes.”

He aggressively criticized the media for “blurring the lines between news and entertainment” and deeply criticized social media for allowing themselves to become mouthpieces for evil.

“People just make stuff up,” he nearly shouted. As a result there is a dangerous “promotion of anti-intellectualism and a rejection of science.” He said it was unbelievable that political “leaders are caught in a lie and just lie some more” concluding that these “denial of facts could be the undoing of democracy.”

All well and good, with many thousands of smiles and lots of polite applause. When read word-to-word it’s a masterful address, clear and to the point.

But what to do about all this?

“Keep marching,” was about the best he could advise. To be fair, he spent a lot of time urging everyone to keep the faith in democracy, and like all old men he praised the young.

As in his presidency, Obama was too mild. He is too optimistic and has too much faith in democratic ideals and social goodness to confront the evil of our times. He did bring tears to my eyes, but it was because of what he didn’t say.