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Obama issues a dire warning about American democracy in stunning rebuke of Trump

Rogue Valley

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Obama issues a dire warning about American democracy in stunning rebuke of Trump

BB18bg7v.img

8/20/20
From the Philadelphia ground where the American experiment was born, one former president -- in a stunning prime-time address to the nation he once led -- warned that his successor was on the cusp of destroying democracy itself. Obama -- serious and intellectual -- delivered a complex constitutional lecture on primetime television during the virtual Democratic National Convention. He summoned historic sweep, encompassing the Founders, the Civil Rights Movement, America's immigrant heritage and young Americans he called to action today to save their freedoms just as their ancestors had done every time the country's promise was imperiled. Obama, now a private citizen, has no formal power and no mandate to speak to the American people the way he did Wednesday night, at a virtual convention that in its crowd-free isolation served to underscore the grave nature of his message. But he carries the authority of his historic status, the moral weight of two White House terms and enduring popularity in the half of the country revolted by Trump's abuses of power, divisive racial politics and constant cultivation of his own ego.

"Make a plan right now for how you're going to get involved and vote. Do it as early as you can and tell your family and friends how they can vote too," Obama said, accusing the Trump administration of suppressing the vote and counting on the cynicism of the people to guarantee four more years. "What we do echoes through the generations," Obama said, in what amounted to probably the most watched lecture on America's constitutional heritage in history. "I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care," Obama said. "But he never did. For close to four years now, he's shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves. "Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't."

A magnificent speech by former president Barack Obama. He correctly framed this election as a battle in which our democracy itself is at stake.

Mr. Obama did not pull any punches, directly blaming the COVID deaths of 170,000 Americans on Donald Trumps ineptness and apathy.

Related: [url=''https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/barack-obama-called-out-donald-trump-in-his-dnc-speech-and-the-current-president-was-not-happy/ar-BB18aTO6"]Barack Obama called out Donald Trump in his DNC speech[/url]
 
Obama issues a dire warning about American democracy in stunning rebuke of Trump

BB18bg7v.img



A magnificent speech by former president Barack Obama. He correctly framed this election as a battle in which our democracy itself is at stake.

Mr. Obama did not pull any punches, directly blaming the COVID deaths of 170,000 Americans on Donald Trumps ineptness and apathy.

Related: [url=''https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/barack-obama-called-out-donald-trump-in-his-dnc-speech-and-the-current-president-was-not-happy/ar-BB18aTO6"]Barack Obama called out Donald Trump in his DNC speech[/url]

In Trump's defense, Obama is a big reason why Trump is president.
 
In Trump's defense, Obama is a big reason why Trump is president.

No, fascist-loving right wing voters are why.
 
Pro-tip---if you want to inspire undecideds, don't use something that looks like a funeral crypt as your backdrop.
 
The guy who tried to stage a coup against his successor talking about democracy is a little surreal.
 
Obama is a self-unaware hypocrital loon. He had 8 years to get done what he now accuses Trump of not doing...

Trump was elected because of Obama's failures.
 
The guy who tried to stage a coup against his successor talking about democracy is a little surreal.

He must live in an alternate universe. I've never heard such arrogance, and self-unawareness from a former president.
 
And since when does a former president give a convention speech condemning the current president. G. Bush never did that. Say what you want about the man as president, but he has more class in his little finger than Obama has in his whole body.

Obama's whole "above the fray" and "grand uniter" schtick during the 2008 election was such a ****ing con. He's as partisan as they come.
 
Obama issues a dire warning about American democracy in stunning rebuke of Trump

BB18bg7v.img



A magnificent speech by former president Barack Obama. He correctly framed this election as a battle in which our democracy itself is at stake.

Mr. Obama did not pull any punches, directly blaming the COVID deaths of 170,000 Americans on Donald Trumps ineptness and apathy.

Related: [url=''https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/barack-obama-called-out-donald-trump-in-his-dnc-speech-and-the-current-president-was-not-happy/ar-BB18aTO6"]Barack Obama called out Donald Trump in his DNC speech[/url]

I thought it was a great speech. Very timely as well.
 
It was a total beat down of Donald Trump. He's just not qualified.

Donald Trump could never have grown into the position of President of the United States. He doesn't have the ability.
 
And since when does a former president give a convention speech condemning the current president.

When the current President acts like a cruel, wannabe, authoritarian dictator who puts his own political career ahead that of democracy, the health and welfare of his fellow citizens, the Rule of Law, and the Republic itself.
 
The guy who tried to stage a coup against his successor talking about democracy is a little surreal.

What are you talking about? Do you even know?
 
When the current President acts like a cruel, wannabe, authoritarian dictator who puts his own political career ahead that of democracy, the health and welfare of his fellow citizens, the Rule of Law, and the Republic itself.

More like when the former president is a classless, political hack and needs to keep attacking to deflect from his attempted coup of his successor.
 
What are you talking about? Do you even know?

Yes, I do. The entire Russia collusion investigation was invented by the Obama administration to either hobble or remove Trump. Obama explicitly knew it was fake but did it anyway.
 
Obama is a self-unaware hypocrital loon. He had 8 years to get done what he now accuses Trump of not doing...

Trump was elected because of Obama's failures.

Know how Trump got elected? Because if you are of average intelligence exactly half the population is dumber than you. And you don't need half to be elected President.
Obama brought America back from a recession that belonged to a Republican and America's best hope is that history will repeat itself.
 
Obama issues a dire warning about American democracy in stunning rebuke of Trump

BB18bg7v.img



A magnificent speech by former president Barack Obama. He correctly framed this election as a battle in which our democracy itself is at stake.

Mr. Obama did not pull any punches, directly blaming the COVID deaths of 170,000 Americans on Donald Trumps ineptness and apathy.

Related: [url=''https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/barack-obama-called-out-donald-trump-in-his-dnc-speech-and-the-current-president-was-not-happy/ar-BB18aTO6"]Barack Obama called out Donald Trump in his DNC speech[/url]
IMHO, by saying this out loud he has given everyone who already realizes this permission to act accordingly.
 
More like when the former president is a classless, political hack and needs to keep attacking to deflect from his attempted coup of his successor.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...n-trump-contains-an-even-more-urgent-warning/

It really boils down to whether or not you believe in the core values the founding fathers believed in.

Greg Sargent summed it up better than I ever could:

Obama’s scathing takedown of Trump contains an even more urgent warning

Former president Barack Obama’s convention speech was suffused with urgency and fear. The man who achieved national renown 16 years ago with another convention speech — an optimistic paeanto the possibilities of national unity — depicted a moment of extraordinary national peril, one in which reelecting President Trump would pose an existential threat to our political system and way of life.

But if we focus mainly on Obama’s palpable urgency about the damage a second Trump term threatens, we risk overlooking the former president’s deeper and, in a way, even more grave warning, and the source of its true force and power.

It’s that one of the most dire threats to self rule is the very act of losing sight of the idea that this self rule — in whatever form and historical context it exists — is itself something worth preserving, worth cherishing, worth fighting for.

Political oratory delivered under extreme national duress has historically drawn urgency from variations of this warning — for two and a half millennia. In his magisterial history of political thought, philosopher Alan Ryan draws a line from Peracles’ funeral oration, delivered over 400 years BCE, to the Gettysburg Address 157 years ago, noting they are the “greatest defenses ever” of the “ethos of a democratic society.”

Peracles spoke to Athenians enduring unexpected suffering during the Peloponnesian War, and Abraham Lincoln spoke to Civil War-battered northerners. But both speeches “praise their country’s founders as well as the dead,” and both “praise the polity and society for which they died.”

Above all, as Ryan recounts, both speeches sought to ignite in their listeners the conviction that they live under “a unique polity” whose “way of life should survive.”

The core of Obama’s scathing indictment of Trump is that in this regard, the current president is utterly devoid of any concern for, or recognition of, the value of our polity and way of life.

Obama’s indictment of Trump

As Obama noted, Trump does not harbor any sense of obligation to act in the interests of all the American people, and doesn’t feel “reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.”

This, Obama added, has led Trump to unleash law enforcement on peaceful protesters, attack the media as the “enemy” rather than respecting its institutional role, and cast aside science and empiricism in favor of treating the presidency as “one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.”

“Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t,” Obama said, citing consequences: Over 170,000 dead from coronavirus, and an economic catastrophe on top of already-soaring inequality due to Trump’s continued embrace of GOP plutocracy.

But beyond those immediate consequences, allowing Trump to triumph threatens the very underpinnings of our democratic system:

Any chance of success depends entirely on the outcome of this election. This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes to win.

Obama’s reading of American history has long been a familiar one: That despite our unspeakable sins and atrocities, our country has continued to show itself as fundamentally redeemable, through ordinary people’s perpetual struggle to realize the founding ideals, which established a “north star” to guide that struggle in the face of extraordinary odds. In his speech, Obama again offered this reading.

But in some ways the speech represented a departure. While Obama’s reading allows that periods of progress are often followed by backlash and reaction, the overall continued direction hasn’t been in doubt. Until now: As Jonathan Chait notes, Obama depicts Trump as potentially lying outside this cycle, by “warning that American democracy may not survive his immediate successor.”

This is a fear that Obama has privately harbored since 2016, Ryan Lizza reports. Now it’s laid bare.

--

Continued next post...
 
More like when the former president is a classless, political hack and needs to keep attacking to deflect from his attempted coup of his successor.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...n-trump-contains-an-even-more-urgent-warning/

Obama’s scathing takedown of Trump contains an even more urgent warning

Continued from above...

A deeper wellspring of urgency

But the source of Obama’s urgency taps another wellspring as well: The fear that we ourselves will not sufficiently attend to the notion that our “unique polity” and “way of life” are worth preserving, and that this is the ultimate existential threat to them, because this is what leaves us vulnerable to Trump’s degradations.

In his speech, Obama addresses this, naturally enough, by saying people should vote because electing Joe Biden will bring immediate improvements. Biden won’t just respect our democracy and treat all Americans as worthy of respect, unlike Trump. He will also bring science to bear on the pandemic, continue expanding health care, and initiate robust government action to save the economy and make it more equitable.

But Obama knows this isn’t enough. Because as he put it, people have good reason for doubting that the system can actually deliver, from white factory workers who have seen jobs shipped overseas (a nod to those tempted by Trump’s critique of globalization) to black mothers who justifiably believe government isn’t working for them “at all” (a nod to deep systemic racism).

So Obama reminded Americans that some of our ancestors — particularly African Americans — faced far worse conditions, yet persevered anyway. And he cited all the energy of young people in fighting against climate change and police brutality, urged them to continue, and added this:

Earlier generations had to be persuaded that everyone has equal worth. For you, it’s a given — a conviction. And what I want you to know is that for all its messiness and frustrations, your system of self-government can be harnessed to help you realize those convictions.

You can give our democracy new meaning. You can take it to a better place. You’re the missing ingredient — the ones who will decide whether or not America becomes the country that fully lives up to its creed.

One might point out that all this doesn’t reckon with the role of the modern Democratic Party (not to mention the Obama presidency) and the failures of liberal democracy itself in feeding the conviction that the system can’t deliver and isn’t worth fighting to preserve. And the pressure is on Biden to demonstrate that his agenda and leadership are worthy grounds for resisting that conviction.

But the true nature of Obama’s warning runs as follows: The threat we face isn’t just the possibility of a Trump win; it’s that very conviction, which itself renders that outcome more alarmingly plausible.
 
Obama issues a dire warning about American democracy in stunning rebuke of Trump

BB18bg7v.img



A magnificent speech by former president Barack Obama. He correctly framed this election as a battle in which our democracy itself is at stake.

Mr. Obama did not pull any punches, directly blaming the COVID deaths of 170,000 Americans on Donald Trumps ineptness and apathy.

Related: [url=''https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/barack-obama-called-out-donald-trump-in-his-dnc-speech-and-the-current-president-was-not-happy/ar-BB18aTO6"]Barack Obama called out Donald Trump in his DNC speech[/url]

That speech was extraordinary. And this is coming from a guy who hates speeches.
 
In Trump's defense, Obama is a big reason why Trump is president.

Nah. I'm gonna put that on the myriad of racist, bigoted, narrow minded, uneducated dip****s that voted for him. There were plenty of other reasonable choices. You guys chose the spray tanned narcissist racist bigot. That's all on you.
 
When the current President acts like a cruel, wannabe, authoritarian dictator who puts his own political career ahead that of democracy, the health and welfare of his fellow citizens, the Rule of Law, and the Republic itself.
In our lifetimes we have never had a President who has been as craven, corrupt, and willing to use the power of office for personal gain. For those of us who are old enough, that includes Richard Nixon. Obama's was a call for sanity, patriotism, and the best aspects of our humanity. OF COURSE Trumplodytes don't understand. They don't possess those attributes.
 
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Yes, I do. The entire Russia collusion investigation was invented by the Obama administration to either hobble or remove Trump. Obama explicitly knew it was fake but did it anyway.

You obviously haven't read the Senate report released 2 days ago which was endorsed by Republicans:

A Republican-Backed Senate Report Shows Trump and His Backers Are Russian Dupes – Mother Jones

Press | Intelligence Committee

Five takeaways from final Senate Intel Russia report | TheHill

This idea you have, that they managed to brainwash you with, that the Russia investigation was some sort of attempt to "get" Trump is nothing but a lie, and like a fool, you believed it. Not even Senate Republicans agree with that crazy conspiracy theory you believe.
 
Obama is a self-unaware hypocrital loon. He had 8 years to get done what he now accuses Trump of not doing...

Trump was elected because of Obama's failures.

Trump was elected, to STOP the country looking like the man we just had as pres. Having such a dashing black man, front and center scared the RACIST half of our population. Having black folk always performing in public also scared them.
 
Yes, I do. The entire Russia collusion investigation was invented by the Obama administration to either hobble or remove Trump. Obama explicitly knew it was fake but did it anyway.

Not only is that false, it's ridiculously false. Had Trump been removed by impeachment or whatever Pence would have become President. Do you say Pence was fomenting a coup?
What a stupid concept. A coup.
Don't you know that Mueller was hired by Trumps A-G office? If you don't like that the investigation happened (which would mean you approve of Russian interference) then blame Trump. If his administration hadn't hired Mueller and told him what to do, it wouldn't have happened.
 
Not only is that false, it's ridiculously false. Had Trump been removed by impeachment or whatever Pence would have become President. Do you say Pence was fomenting a coup?
What a stupid concept. A coup.
Don't you know that Mueller was hired by Trumps A-G office? If you don't like that the investigation happened (which would mean you approve of Russian interference) then blame Trump. If his administration hadn't hired Mueller and told him what to do, it wouldn't have happened.

It's sadly true. Obama tried to hobble or remove a president-elect.
 
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