Political memory is a curious thing. Parties spend years lecturing opponents about values they claim are sacred, only to discover those same values become mysteriously flexible when circumstances shift. This isn’t hypocrisy in the classical sense—where a person fails to live up to principles they genuinely hold. This is something different: the conversion of conviction into conviction. When you rewire your entire political identity around a moment of partisan advantage, you don’t have a consistency problem. You have an authenticity problem.
Case in point: in 2013, Barack Obama lectured Republicans like a school principal scolding unruly kids. He said, “If Republicans do not like the law, they can go through the regular channels and processes to try to change it. That’s why we have elections.” He warned them not to shut down the government just to get their way: “No Congress before this one has ever, ever in history been irresponsible enough to threaten an economic shutdown…. I will not negotiate on anything when it comes to the full faith and credit of the United States of America.” He claimed to stand for stability, responsibility, and the idea that Congress should “pay our bills on time” and stop “governing from crisis to crisis.”
BREAKING - A 2013 clip of Obama scolding Republicans on how irresponsible it is to shut down the government just to blackmail a President to get what they want is going viral.
— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) October 31, 2025
The No Kings crowd will be silent on this one.
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Fast forward to 2025, and Democrats are doing exactly what Obama once condemned—with a level of hypocrisy that would make a gilded mirror blush. They’re demanding $1.5 trillion in new spending, supposedly for “essential” programs, yet the list reads more like a United Nations wish list than a responsible budget: free health care for illegal immigrants, circumcisions and vasectomies in Zambia, electric buses in Rwanda, pastry classes and dance programs for male sex workers in Haiti, media groups supporting Palestinians, transgender programs in Nepal, a pride parade in Lesotho, social media mentorship in Serbia, and LGBTQI initiatives across the Western Balkans and Uganda.
So, they’re filibustering a clean Continuing Resolution (CR) and holding the country hostage just to score political points.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D) didn’t hold back on the Senate floor this week, blasting Democrats as “the party of chaos and hypocrisy” for blocking funding while pretending to be responsible adults. “They lecture us about governing responsibly,” Thune said, “but now they’re the ones walking out of negotiations, demanding political concessions, and threatening a shutdown.”
The hypocrisy is staggering. Democrats, who once echoed Obama’s insistence that Congress must “pay our bills on time” and end governing “from crisis to crisis,” are now doing the exact opposite. They are deliberately prolonging the government shutdown, using the American people as leverage to score political points against President Trump. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise laid it out clearly this week, calling out Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his party for openly admitting they are causing real suffering—but doing it anyway to appease their radical base and push a far-left agenda.
While Democrats continue to blame Republicans, the reality is stark: only their party is voting en masse against funding the government, turning the shutdown into a purely political stunt. Once champions of the full faith and credit of the United States, today they’re willing to throw it under the bus simply because they see an opportunity to attack Trump.
And where’s Obama in all of this?
If he were consistent, he’d be calling out his own party with the same fury he reserved for Republicans. Instead, hypocrisy reigns, exposing the truth about modern Democrats: when it comes to power, principle is optional, honesty is negotiable, and the American people are just collateral damage in their endless political games.
