The Condescender-in-Chief is at it again. Just weeks after Barack Obama — the descendent of Africans and white people — dared to criticize Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) — the descendent of actual slaves and a son of the state where the Civil War started — for being optimistic about the state of race in America today, the former president weighed in on what he thinks spurs on “right-wing populism.”
In an interview with Christiane Amanpour on CNN, Obama said, “It’s very hard to sustain a democracy when you have such massive concentrations of wealth.” He went on to blather about “ladders of opportunity” and a “stronger safety net” before concluding that “if we don’t take care of that, that’s also going to fuel the kind of mostly far-right populism, but it can also potentially come from the left, that is undermining democracy because it makes people angry and resentful and scared.”
First off, with all due respect to the Condescender-in-Chief — which is none as far as I’m concerned — we’re a republic, not a democracy. Second, it’s an awfully Marxist argument to pin the problem and solution solely on economics.
But what I want to focus on is Obama’s utter lack of self-awareness. After all, if anybody should know about “massive concentrations of wealth,” it’s Barry. As Jim Geraghty points out at National Review:
Obama and his wife signed the largest book deal in history, $65 million, for their memoirs. The Obamas signed a separate production deal with Netflix worth an estimated $50 million. The Obamas’ production company, Higher Ground, signed a $25 million deal with Spotify that lasted three years. Barack Obama reportedly makes as much as $400,000 per speech, but reportedly made almost $600,000 for speaking at a conference in Colombia. Michelle Obama makes $200,000 per appearance.
The Obamas rent a mansion in Kalorama (a neighborhood in Washington, D.C.); bought a mansion and estate in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.; bought another house in Rancho Mirage, Calif.; and still have their old home in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago.
In April 2010, then-president Obama declared, “At a certain point, you’ve made enough money.” Apparently, Obama hasn’t reached that point yet.
Ouch. Barack might need some ointment for that burn.
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The other area where Obama is showing a painful lack of self-awareness is in his estimation of the roots of populism on the right. Naturally, as someone who sat at the feet of socialists for much of his formative years, Obama defaults to the economic reasons, with big government and the redistribution of wealth (someone else’s, not his own) as the solution, but what he either ignores or doesn’t realize is that one of the main catalysts for right-leaning populism is people’s belief that their government is against them. And we have Barack Obama to thank for laying that foundation.
President Gun-to-a-Knife-Fight is the Godfather of the division and weaponized government that Joe Biden turned into an ugly art form, and he did so without any pretense of being a man of the people like Lunchbucket Joe. This is the man who, in his first campaign for the White House, decried the peons who “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
This is the president who sicced the IRS and other federal agencies on conservatives with abandon. Joe Biden merely told his old boss, “Hold my, um, well, you know, the drink thing.” We mustn’t forget that this current strain of populism on the right came about largely as a result of Barack Obama and his policies. He lacks enough self-awareness to realize it himself.
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