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It is ironic isn't it? The man made a career dividing and using identity politics and now he cries that this is a problem in society. Does he know how it feels for so many who lost their job to China? Or to see entire cities hollowed out where they were once bustling factory towns?
He really was a disappointment. I can't say there weren't some great qualities that he brought when he was fair and patriotic, but it is clear he became arrogant and operated if not outside what was normal and expected by American citizens, certainly right on the edge...
Obama Speech in South Africa Slams Habits That Made His Career | National Review
And he took a shot at identity politics: “You can’t [change minds] if you insist that those who aren’t like you — because they’re white, or because they’re male — that somehow there’s no way they can understand what I’m feeling, that somehow they lack standing to speak on certain matters.”
Of course … this is the president who made Al Sharpton his “go-to man on race” and who said Latinos needed to “punish” their “enemies.” It’s great that Obama realizes that identity politics can be corrosive to civil society and that they can Balkanize a once-thriving, relatively harmonious society. It just would have been good to hear this wisdom from a president instead of an ex-president.
Obama offered a nostalgic look at the close of the Reagan-Bush era, when a wave of freedom and liberation swept the globe in the aftermath of the Cold War:
As a law student, I witnessed [Nelson Mandela] emerge from prison, just a few months, you’ll recall, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I felt the same wave of hope that washed through hearts all around the world.
Do you remember that feeling? It seemed as if the forces of progress were on the march, that they were inexorable. Each step he took, you felt this is the moment when the old structures of violence and repression and ancient hatreds that had so long stunted people’s lives and confined the human spirit — that all that was crumbling before our eyes.
For Americans and the rest of the world, life in the ’90s was better and safer than it was at the beginning of the 1980s — which is why it is unwise for adults who should know better to say things like, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country” in 2008. Some might even say comments like that are “strikingly ungracious.” Perhaps “Make America Great Again” and “American Carnage” are unduly dark and pessimistic assessments of the country — but they simply echoed the apocalyptic perspective of Democrats in the latter years of the Bush presidency.
He really was a disappointment. I can't say there weren't some great qualities that he brought when he was fair and patriotic, but it is clear he became arrogant and operated if not outside what was normal and expected by American citizens, certainly right on the edge...
Obama Speech in South Africa Slams Habits That Made His Career | National Review
And he took a shot at identity politics: “You can’t [change minds] if you insist that those who aren’t like you — because they’re white, or because they’re male — that somehow there’s no way they can understand what I’m feeling, that somehow they lack standing to speak on certain matters.”
Of course … this is the president who made Al Sharpton his “go-to man on race” and who said Latinos needed to “punish” their “enemies.” It’s great that Obama realizes that identity politics can be corrosive to civil society and that they can Balkanize a once-thriving, relatively harmonious society. It just would have been good to hear this wisdom from a president instead of an ex-president.
Obama offered a nostalgic look at the close of the Reagan-Bush era, when a wave of freedom and liberation swept the globe in the aftermath of the Cold War:
As a law student, I witnessed [Nelson Mandela] emerge from prison, just a few months, you’ll recall, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I felt the same wave of hope that washed through hearts all around the world.
Do you remember that feeling? It seemed as if the forces of progress were on the march, that they were inexorable. Each step he took, you felt this is the moment when the old structures of violence and repression and ancient hatreds that had so long stunted people’s lives and confined the human spirit — that all that was crumbling before our eyes.
For Americans and the rest of the world, life in the ’90s was better and safer than it was at the beginning of the 1980s — which is why it is unwise for adults who should know better to say things like, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country” in 2008. Some might even say comments like that are “strikingly ungracious.” Perhaps “Make America Great Again” and “American Carnage” are unduly dark and pessimistic assessments of the country — but they simply echoed the apocalyptic perspective of Democrats in the latter years of the Bush presidency.
