“When I hear not just our current president, but his aides, who have a history of calling political opponents ‘vermin,’ enemies who need to be ‘targeted,’ that speaks to a broader problem that we have right now, and something that we’re going to have to grapple with—all of us,” Obama said at a Jefferson Educational Society event.
While stating that Kirk’s killing was “horrific and a tragedy,” Obama also said that he disagreed with the right-wing demagogue’s beliefs. In the wake of the murder, Republicans have been clamoring to get their fellow Americans fired for not praising Kirk enough or for simply repeating verbatim any of the countless hateful things that he said.
“Whether we’re Democrats, Republicans, independents, we have to recognize that on both sides, undoubtedly, there are people who are extremists and who say things that are contrary to what I believe are America’s core values,” Obama stated.
He went on to say that he as well as previous Republican presidents believed in working to unite the country, a sharp contrast to Trump who seeks to constantly divide for political gain.
“I think George W. Bush believed that. I believe that people who I ran against—I know John McCain believed it,” said Obama. “I know Mitt Romney believed it. What I’m describing is not a Democratic value or Republican value. It is an American value. And I think at moments like this, when tensions are high, then part of the job of the president is to pull people together.”
In the wake of Kirk’s death, Trump rushed to blame the “radical left” before a suspect was even in custody. He had his preferred narrative set immediately and refused to acknowledge any details that might disrupt that narrative. Rather than extinguish the raging partisan fires, he poured gasoline on the problem. The reason why is no mystery. Donald Trump is deeply unpopular with most Americans and knows that he has little chance of ever uniting us all behind his racist, fascist, kleptocratic agenda. By ensuring that we’re divided, he keeps his base energized and loyal. It’s the only thing propping him up politically at this point.
Drawing on his own time in office, Obama discussed how he avoided inflaming the country along partisan lines after white supremacist Dylan Roof carried out a mass shooting inside a Black church in 2015.
“As president of the United States, my response was not: Who may have influenced this troubled young man to engage in that kind of violence? And now let me go after my political opponents and use that,” said Obama.
Now, more than ever we need clear-eyed, patriotic leadership like the kind that Obama displayed during his time in office. Instead, we’re stuck with an incompetent, cognitively declining fascist who is also a likely pedophile. We have fallen so far.
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