Obama denounces Trump-style politics
Ending months of selfimposed restraint, former president Barack Obama delivered a blistering critique of President Trump and Republican politics Friday, one that prompted a backhanded dismissal by the man who now occupies the Oval Office.
Over the course of an hourlong address, Obama left little doubt about the severity of his concerns over Trump’s approach, which he referred to obliquely as “this political darkness.” He compared Trump to foreign demagogues who exploit “a politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment,” appeal to racial nationalism and then plunder their countries while promising to fight corruption.
“This is not normal. These are extraordinary times and they are dangerous times,” Obama said during the speech at the University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign. “But here is the good news: In two months we have the chance — not the certainty but the chance — to restore some semblance of sanity to our politics.”
Minutes after his predecessor unleashed his strongest repudiation yet, Trump responded jocularly.
“I’m sorry I watched it, but I fell asleep,” he said. “I found he’s very good. Very good for sleeping.”
Later, Trump returned to the sentiment during an event in Fargo, North Dakota.
“Isn’t this much more exciting than listening to President Obama speak?” he asked the crowd.
The back and forth between the two titular figures of American politics — each with an unparalleled capacity to both attract his party’s voters and energize the opposition — signaled a dramatic escalation ahead of November elections for the House, Senate and other seats. Former President Barack Obama said Friday that the conditions that gave rise to President Donald Trump’s election “did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause.”
Obama, kicking off weeks of voter turnout efforts, argued that his aim was not to get into a presidential spitting match, but to convince voters across the ideological spectrum that the conditions that gave rise to Trump’s election were a pressing threat and must be battled directly with increased citizen participation in politics. “It did not start with Donald Trump,” Obama said. “He is a symptom, not the cause.”
That did not stop him from denouncing what he saw as actions Trump had taken to undermine American progress, from the ban on travelers from certain Muslim countries to the failure to take action beyond sending “thoughts and prayers” after recent school mass shootings. He criticized Trump’s attacks on the press, his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accords, and his government’s response to the 2017 hurricane in Puerto Rico.
“I know there are Republicans President Donald Trump told a crowd in North Dakota on Friday that he fell asleep watching a speech by exPresident Barack Obama.
who believe government should only perform a few minimal functions, but that one of those functions should be making sure nearly 3,000 Americans don’t die in a hurricane,” Obama said. He acidly rebuked Trump for his public equivocation about white supremacists involved in a violent confrontation last year in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“How hard can that be? Saying that Nazis are bad?” Obama asked.