Obama on International Relations: 'Even the Folks Who Badmouth Us Look to Us'

Congress has recessed to prepare for November’s midterm elections, and President Obama warned the DNC Women’s Leadership Forum today that “in the coming weeks, the American people will see two very different visions of this country.”

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One is the top-down economy and the other “says that our economy grows best from the middle out… and in case you didn’t figure it out, the second vision is better.”

“We do better when we embrace an economic patriotism that says we’re all in this together,” Obama said.

The president said his pitch for “getting rid of policies that belong in the Mad Men era” isn’t political.

“It’s not politics in the narrow, cramped sense, but, yes, it’s politics in the big sense of us organizing ourselves to try to move our country forward,” Obama continued. “The work we do is bigger than partisan politics. And I believe that for all that is wrong with our politics right now, there’s so much that’s right with America that if we could just create a government and a politics that spoke to common sense and what was important for ordinary Americans, we’d do great.”

“…America isn’t the party we belong to — we’re not born Democrats or Republicans.  America is the values we share:  hard work and responsibility, and sacrifice, and looking out for one another.”

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He called one brand of politics “mean and nasty and polarizing” and another sense of the word “having a common vision for the future.”

Obama asked the Democrats to “choose hope,” because “hope is what gave soldiers courage to storm a beach.”

The president also touched on foreign policy, stressing that with all of the challenges “America remains the one indispensable nation in the world.”

“Even the folks who badmouth us look to us,” Obama said. “America is leading the effort to rally the world against Russian aggression. America is leading the fight to contain and combat an Ebola epidemic in Africa. America is leading the coalition that will degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL. And as Americans, we welcome these responsibilities; we don’t shy away from them.”

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