On Thursday, Barack Obama gave a speech at the 2024 Obama Foundation Democracy Forum, which was nothing short of laughable — full of self-righteous hypocrisy and dripping with irony — as he accused Republicans of doing things he and his party commit repeatedly.
“What happens when the other side has repeatedly and abundantly made clear they’re not interested in playing by the rules?” he asked.
Now, that’s rich. Democrats have consistently shown a disregard for rules and traditions, often to their own detriment. After they exploited the judicial filibuster to block President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees, Republicans reciprocated when Obama was in office. Suddenly, the filibuster, once a cherished tool of the left, became anathema at best, and of course, racist. In 2013, Senate Democrats, led by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, eliminated the filibuster for lower-court judicial nominees, which prevented the Republican minority from using it in the same way they had just a few years earlier. Ironically, his “nuclear” option paved the way for Donald Trump to get a record number of judicial nominees confirmed, something Obama’s party had unwittingly set in motion.
Then Obama dropped this gem: “There are going to be times, potentially, when one side tries to stack the deck and lock in a permanent grip on power, either by actively suppressing votes, or politicizing the armed forces, or using the judiciary or criminal justice system to go after their opponents.”
This is literally the Democratic Party playbook. He’s accusing others of stacking the deck, when his own party has been pushing for all kinds of shady tactics, like expanding voting by mail, eliminating voter ID laws, and even packing the Supreme Court. These aren’t just “potential” problems; they’re the very tactics the left has employed to gain and hold power.
Just last year, liberal groups launched a multi-state effort to remove Trump from primary ballots, using Section Three of the 14th Amendment as a pretext. Given that Trump has never been tried or convicted of sedition or insurrection, these efforts should never have been taken seriously or succeeded. For the most part, they didn’t. Most state courts rejected them, but as you may recall, Colorado and Maine did not. The Supreme Court had to step in. In light of Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, which party is really trying to stack the deck to hold onto power?
We should not forget that Obama repeatedly undermined democracy by weaponizing the government against his political enemies, even spying on the Trump campaign in 2016 because it served his political interests. Obama’s speech is yet another example of the left accusing Republicans of what Democrats have been guilty of for years.
Obama claims, “In those circumstances, pluralism does not call for us to just stand back and say ‘well, I’m not sure, that’s okay.’” But he only speaks out when the Democratic Party’s power is at risk. When his own party undermines democracy — whether through manipulating election laws, packing the courts, or silencing dissent — and nobody on the left cares, because, in those cases, the ends justify the means.
NEW: Obama says Republicans are the ones who rig elections and weaponize the justice system while speaking at a "Democracy Forum."
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 6, 2024
The comment was so outrageous that Obama could barely get the words out of his mouth.
"One side tries to stack the deck and lock in [very long… pic.twitter.com/LoKM5d7rjr
Obama’s speech is a textbook case of hypocrisy. It’s Obama and his allies who have been exploiting the system for their own gain. Maybe it’s time Obama took his own advice and stood firm against the very tactics he once used to help the Democratic Party maintain power.
