(RightWing.org) – As the Biden administration stumbles on, even some Republicans are probably looking back at Barack Obama’s presidency with nostalgia. A conservative thinker says positive views of Obama are misplaced, though. In fact, he says, Obama’s legacy is crumbling as we watch.
On August 9, The Federalist published a piece by journalist Mark Hemingway who’s written for publications including USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. In it, he argued that while Obama was and is a charismatic public speaker, in the past, he didn’t actually say very much worth listening to. In fact, he argues, Obama spoke like a marketing executive; his speeches were mostly full of “campaign pabulum,” and when they did include something significant, it was usually something Obama would prefer not to have revealed.
According to Hemingway, all Obama’s speeches really left us with were soundbites like “hope and change” — they didn’t really tell us much about his politics, which were “far more radical than he ever let on.” He says Obama used marketing jargon and manipulative words like “permission structure” that reshaped our politics. The former president structured discussions so there was “no need to address honorable disagreement” about what he was doing; instead, he twisted things to make his way of thinking the only acceptable one.
Since leaving office, Obama has criticized the increasing polarization of American politics — but Hemingway seems to be hinting that, in fact, he caused a lot of it himself. There’s no doubt the Obama administration saw the gap between Democrats and Republicans widen alarmingly; during his second term, polls showed an increasing divide where the political center used to be.
Hemingway closed his article by discussing a comparison of Obama and Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. While he said the comparison was unfair in some ways, he also believes Obama “invited this comparison upon himself” by borrowing King’s words. Instead of King, he says, Obama should be compared to rabble-rouser Louis Farrakhan.
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