Written with contribution from Sheriff David Clarke
Earlier this month, PEN America held its 2020 virtual Gala at which they crowned former U.S. President Barack Obama with the “America’s voice of influence” award. Obama spoke at the ceremony and during his comments, he delivered a rather unique perspective on his decreased popularity among conservative voters.
It had nothing to do with his resentment for our most sacred institutions, his radical progressive policies, his flagrant corruption, or the highly biased mainstream media complex that fawningly shrouded him in a protective shield of glowing, positive news coverage.
No, it had to do with those minority of news pundits who covered him honestly.
“I ended up getting enormous support in these pretty conservative, rural, largely white communities when I was a senator,” Obama said of his political career.
That was before anyone knew who he truly was as he continually voted “present” for most of his state legislative career refusing to define himself. It was when he defined marriage as being between one man and one woman for example.
He also observed that in past times media outlets were not as polarized politically, and even the partisan news outlets “adhered to journalistic norms,” by offering a more neutral assessment of his candidacy.
“By my second year in office,” he said, “I’m not sure if I could make that same connection, because now those same people are filtering me through Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and an entire right-wing or conservative media infrastructure.”
He concluded that, what conservatives saw in him, changed over time, and they looked at him, “with a different set of assumptions than they would today,” saying that conservative news outlets portray him as someone who “Looks down” on rural conservatives.
He also asserted that Republican voters carry a victim-type complex.
“What’s interesting to me,” he said, “is the degree to which you’ve seen created, in Republican politics, the sense that white males are victims.”
“They are the ones under attack, which obviously doesn’t jive with both history and data and economics.”
With his final thought, he advised that Americans need to look less at their phones and have more “face-to-face conversations” as a remedy for the partisan division in the United States.
A guy who is complaining that right-wing outlets and pundits exist is advising us on how to be more objective and balanced. This is the same guy who defined white rural folks as “bitter clingers”. That they go through life clinging to their guns and their Bibles.
Ha. This guy is truly delusional.
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