“Imagine if I had done any of this,” the two-term former president said.
Summary
Barack Obama sharply criticized Donald Trump’s presidency during a speech at Hamilton College, condemning attacks on the press, immigration crackdowns, and threats to civil liberties.
He called it “unimaginable” that Trump’s actions—such as barring the AP and threatening law firms—would have been tolerated under past presidents.
Obama warned that Trump’s behavior, though “goofy,” poses real danger, and he labeled Trump a “wannabe dictator.”
He also referenced former Trump aide John Kelly's “fascist” remark and urged Americans not to mistake chaos for leadership.
I don't see that as a fix. A third term for either would be a higher level constitutional crisis than all the many ones trump has already initiated. Many failed like with his first impeachment for misappropriating federal funds to bribe a foreign official.
The only reason we have a 22nd amendment is because the shitheels were mad they didn't get a turn. They could have stopped being shitheels, but that's just out of the question.
Became inevitable when democrats ran Biden the first time… anyone with two brain cells could tell a Biden that doesn’t deliver some absolutely insane legislation was done. He even ran on being a one term president. He needed to stay on that path hard and allow a real primary group to form so there were competing ideas out against Trump. Saying everything is great in the face of massive inflation isn’t really going to cut it.
Obama allowed the Republicans to viciously kick him around for eight years, yet he never stopped trying to appease them. He should have ruthlessly prosecuted the crimes of the illegitimate Bush administration, and showed the proto-Nazi Republican party that treason would not be tolerated. If he had, there never would have been the environment for MAGA to rise. But he failed us, like all those corporate, Republican-Lite Demopublicans.
Now he's still playing the same old game, like most of them, pretending that its business as usual, and letting HitlerPig get away with being Putin's muscle, as he actively, gleefully destroys America, right in front of our faces, ss he plays golf. Nero fiddling while Rome burns.
How long do we have to tolerate obvious TREASON before we stop it? Do we have to wait until the entire Democratic free world has collapsed, billions of people have died, and Sociopathic Oligarchs are sitting on top of the pile, smoking cigars and drinking expensive scotch, and gloating about their success, before we can finally admit what we already know right now, BEFORE the carnage - that the destruction of Democracy was their plan all along?
It's time for some coalition of respected leaders, including military, to step up and end this madness decisively. There are a lot of potential tipping points (a war against NATO allies, leaving NATO, an alliance with Russia/ China/ N Korea, attacking Canada/Mexico, giving away Alaska and/or Taiwan, a draft, disappearing American citizens without due process, designating citizens as terrorists for exercising free speech, etc), but the one bright red line that can NEVER be crossed, is elections. If HitlerPig suspends elections for ANY reason at all, it will become time to literally execute the entire MAGA leadership. That is precisely why the Founding Fathers created the 2nd Amendment, and we should honor them by applying it as they intended.
Oh my god shut the fuck up about it being “unimaginable”. They published the playbook online for anyone to see in 2020. They said they would follow the playbook. They are now following the playbook. They are completing sections of the playbook as written. They will continue to complete sections of the playbook as written, until they are either done executing the playbook, or removed from power somehow. None of this is a surprise. You are not allowed to be surprised by this.
This is a straw man. Obama was not saying that nobody knew what project 2025 was planning. He's saying that prior presidents could never have gotten away with behaving in ways that Trump behaves, and doing things that Trump does.
I stopped speaking with my parents a couple of weeks after January 20, and let them know that the ball's in their court and if they want to have a relationship, all they need to do is acknowledge that they were wrong about Trump.
It fucking sucks. But I just can't abide that shit anymore. Without getting into details, I might not have a job this time next year (after a decade there) directly because of the actions of this Administration. And even still, they don't seem to care.
I've started wondering how they'd react if I was disappeared. They'd likely tell people that I probably did something to deserve it, before ever admitting that they support a fascist dictator.
Barrack gave us trump when he let home owners eat shit and the bankers walk free. Even Bush was going to give home owners some reprieve, and asked Obama if he wanted to proceed and Obama told him " there is only one president at a time". When he came in to power, he bailed out the banks.
We absolutely do, and it's why I just want to fucking leave now. Americans will gleefully flee into the arms of the neoliberal ghouls that got them into this mess, if there are continued elections, only to hand the country back to fascists immediately after once it's clear how feckless the neoliberals are.
Just call him for what he is, A russia agent, Krasnov Trump.
And stop calling them Presidents, they are public servant. re-label the term to "Head Public Servant".
So that everyone is reminded everyday who they are supposed to serve.
Larry Niven's scifi series had a species named Puppeteers where the leader was called the "Hindmost" because nobody wanted the gig. I think the leader's job was to draw off the predators or something like that.
That's because U.S. Presidents have p much all been warcrime committing bastards who have gleefully pillaged the global south to support their vile hegemony. Obama is a very nice warcrime committing bastard, an excellent orator, but it doesn't really excuse the shit he did.
Obama was "boring", that is exactly what you want in a president. Just sitting there doing his job, not trying to get on TV or the news every damn day.
Although if you did want to look closer, he was very engaging to listen to. So, not boring in that sense.
Yes, the boring drone-striker-in-chief who's crowning achievement was the half-measure ACA (notably a Republican plan). Were you folks just checked out during those 8 years or not alive yet?
No, that's exactly what I don't want in a President. Sitting there, doing their job and not trying to get onto the TV news every day is perfect for, say, an EPA grant administrator. But the drafters of the Constitution fucked up by making the President both the head of government, and the head of state. The former should be an administrator, and the latter needs to be a leader. It's not the framers' fault, the world just didn't have a lot of experience with huge democracies back then. The trouble is that "huge" is too much for the human mind, and abstract thinking doesn't come naturally to us. A worrying proportion of the population can't do it at all. Instead, we conceptualize our nation through a parasocial relationship with the leader. In that role, the President should be on TV, and in the news every day, influencing the citizens.
The UK has its own problems, but at least their system splits the job. They have a head of state, King Charles, whom everybody can relate to as the embodiment of the nation, more or less aside from political disagreements. (This role was far more effective when Queen Elizabeth was on the throne, to be sure.) They also have a head of government, the Prime Minister, who attends to making things run. Each can focus on their particular role. But we don't have that luxury in the US, and Obama needed to continue the energy of the campaign even after taking office.