In a wonderfully powerful speech from President Barack Obama ….
He reminds people of what HE HAD accomplished in office….
How he lifted a country from an economic abyss
He explains what he fought for as President….
He explains what America has been and should continue to be….
He pointed to Republicans standing by while Donald Trump changes things around
He explains that Democrats should mold their protest in the form of votes…
The speech was strong and a difference from an ex-American President in criticizing the present Presidential admin as ‘dangerous times’….
Going as far to talk about the ‘ crazy stuff ‘ coming out of the White House….
Above ALL?
Barack Obama , the President who was known as ‘no drama Obama’ was trying to give reasons for young, old, white, black, poor , middle class and even Republican voters to come out and counter the actions from the Republicans with this individual votes...
A Caution….
Republican’s used America’s first Black/Mixed President as a whipping post to make gains in Congress during the 2010, 2012 and 2014 elections….
Barack Obama launched his midterm campaigning Friday at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, arguing that President Donald Trump poses such a threat to America that it forced him to speak out in an unprecedented way for a former president.
“I’m here today because this is one of those pivotal moments when every one of us as citizens of the United States need to determine just who we are, what it is that we stand for,” Obama said. “As a fellow citizen, not as an ex-president, I’m here to deliver a simple message, which is that you need to vote, because our democracy depends on it.”
Laying out a brief history of America — starting with George Washington’s decision to step out of public life after leaving the presidency — Obama framed the 2018 elections as more significant than ever before.
And for the first time since leaving office, he said Trump’s name.
“It did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause,” Obama said, to applause. “He’s just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years.”
It’s not just about Trump, he said. It’s about Republicans “who know better in Congress … bending over backwards to shield” Trump. They’re hypocrites, he said, and they’re just as dangerous to America. At times mocking them and at times laying into them, Obama said they’ve abandoned all that they’re supposed to stand for as Republicans, and as citizens of this country.
“None of this is conservative. I don’t mean to pretend I’m channeling Lincoln now, but that’s not what he had in mind, I don’t think, when he formed the Republican Party. It sure isn’t normal. It’s radical. It’s a vision that says our protection of our power is all that matters,” Obama said.
Nor, Obama said, should anyone feel good about the idea, expressed in the anonymous New York Times op-ed earlier this week, that there are adults in the room managing Trump.
“That is not a check. That’s not how our democracy’s supposed to work. These people aren’t elected,” he said. “They’re not doing us a service by actively promoting 90 percent of the crazy stuff that’s coming out of this White House, and saying, ‘Don’t worry, we’re preventing the other 10 percent.’”
There was nothing subtle about the speech. Vote, and vote for Democrats, Obama said, several times. Trump’s policies on everything from the environment to veterans’ affairs are morally wrong, and a mismanagement of government…..
As has typically been the case, james in his writing here, infers that any criticism of Obama as President was based on racial animus. Just like he claims that any criticism or opposition of Pelosi is based on gender.
“Whipping post” really? What are you getting at?
These kind of mindsets and accusations, regularly utilized by the left is a big part of the reason that a reactionary backlash occurred that elected someone as unworthy as Donald Trump.
I do NOT infer THAT as the overwhelming reason GOPer’s where after Obama…
He IS a Democrat….
THAT is the reason…
Did GOPer’s use race?
Well?
We and others have mentioned THAT extensively HERE and across the political world….
And has ALREADY been hinted at by the right just minutes after the speech…
There WILL be more….
My interest in what your reaction is to the body of the speech CG?
BTW?
Fox DID carry the Obama speech….
Good deal…
More on the Obama speech….
CNN….
The Atlantic….
Vox...with a transcript of the speech….
Fox…
The Hill….
Obama did do his professor mode in the speech….
You should be more careful what you write then, because you were inferring that opposition to Obama was solely race-based, and your use of the term “whipping post” as to what Republicans were “using” him for is pretty rhetorically loaded, whether it went over your head or not.
CNN was showing the speech when I was at lunch. I was not watching it.
Criticism of Trumpism is always warranted, but Obama and the left do not need to act like they have not benefitted from the same sort of politics of grievances and divisions and have not used the very same thing in the public arena up to the current day.
You viewed that way…
(Hmmmm?)
I typed a sentence ….
And race is always gonna be in the background with a black/mixed race American President….
But the Democratic/Republican thing is of course paramount in America…
If you get a chance?
Your view on what Obama said?….
My view is that I am NeverTrump and NeverObama. There’s nothing more to add.
I thought Mr. Obama gave a very fine eulogy for John McCain and that members of his party, himself included, should pay more attention to the unifying lessons spoken by him and others that week, than whatever he was saying today in a campaign rally for Democrats.
Thanks…
It WAS nice to hear him finally speak up…..
Democrats have NOT had someone to grab the attention and run with the STRONG needs to have their and others against Trump come out and vote….
I can understand why Democrats would want Obama involved, but considering his track record when he was the leader of your party getting other Democrats elected…… yikes.
Unmitigated disaster.
Well THAT is true….
He had no coattails to speak of….
But props to him for a iconic healthcare program….
That gets more popular every day
The healthcare program cost a ton of Democrats their jobs and I don’t think it matters what public opinion says about it now. Democrats took hammerings at the polls for it.
The bottom line is that people liked and/or admired Obama but did not like his policies or the results they saw from them.
Most people dislike Donald Trump while at the same time liking what they perceive his policies to be and the results they are seeing.
There is no evidence that “most people like” Trumps policies.
You are equating your party members as “most people.”
And,of course, as a Republican ,you support most of his policies.
You know the point I am making and have agreed on it here before.
The dichotomy of popularity vs. people approving of the economy, etc. And yes, most people believe the economy is in good shape.
As for me, since I believe I am smarter than the average person, I actually cannot help myself by focusing more on the policy positions from Trump that I vehemently disagree with and thus am unable to simply appreciate the things that I may agree with, which as “Deep State Throat” wrote this week, were done in spite of DJT, not because of him.
The simple fact is that Donald Trump is President because of Republican voters and that, while you might not like it and sometimes try to divert attention from it,he is now broadly representative of the Republican Party.
Indeed, using the yardstick you have previously applied to me you are opposed and will not support almost all Republican congressional candidates this year. Correct?
Right, the Democrats consistently brought up Trump’s birth certificate and implied he was born in Africa.
Republicans own the dog whistle, hell they invented it.
False equivalency, but what’s new? Once a Republican apologist, always a Republican apologist.
One thing has nothing to do with the other. And nobody would know more about racial dog whistles, considering your history, than yourself.
Trump is a symptom of a civic problem we have that goes far beyond right or left.
He’s President because Obama voters and those who typically vote Democrat, especially in Rust Belt States, switched sides and voted for him in 2016.
If “Republican voters” alone could have determined an election, Mitt Romney would have been President. How I wish that was so.
We have the same yardstick jack. Where the Republican candidates are the best people for the job, they should win. That is why you will vote for some this November and be on the winning side and I will vote for some as well and likely be on the losing side.
I am unaware (although there may be some I don’t know about) of any Republican candidate for Congress who is not a supporter of Trump
Staff sure have
Don’t worry. I’m sure CG will find some Republican nominee that only licks one of Trump’s balls.
LOL Scott
The Boston Globe
@BostonGlobe
“I’m sorry, I watched it, but I fell asleep,” President Trump said of Barack Obama’s speech Friday. ‘‘I found he’s very good for sleeping.’’
twitter….
(30 seconds into the speech???)
There certainly are some, incumbents and challengers.
Just to name a couple incumbents, there is Carlos Curbelo of South Florida and Will Hurd, an African-American Republican in a battleground race in Texas.
When an election is decided by 80,000 votes across three states there are many many fsctors that can be attributed to the margin.
Going into the minutiae of whether it was Democrats who flipped from Obama to Trump or third party voters or lower turnout in urban minority areas –or whatever. Who knows?
But there is one absolute truth here– without the Republican Party nominating and standing behind Donald J Trump he would not be President.
Republicans created Trump. They own him.
They will be sorry some day….
Wait and see…
Exactly ,and all the twisting and turning and whataboutisms in the world can’t change that simple fact.
The simple fact is the election was close and Democrats blew it, and a lower turnout among key constituencies may be a part of that as well.
Mostly though, it is because people who voted for Obama voted for Trump, and that made all the difference in enough key states to swing the election. It is pointless to move forward towards the future on anything unless one wants to understand why that happened.
Democrats are never going to win again until they are willing to come to terms with this and understand why.
They didn’t create him. They just stood aside and let him take over. That might be even worse.
Oh so personal and so hysterical.
The Republicans created Trump, he simply told them what they wanted to hear.
He is already going full “old white man” and the Republican Congressional candidates are following.
Be afraid, be very afraid— file in the blank.