Right now, we all really miss Barack Obama. Just the thought of a leader who cared about, you know, other human beings is nice. For most of us who feel basic human compassion and respect for life, we miss Obama because he was a leader with wisdom and kindness who could inspire hope. Republicans like Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump, on the other hand, miss Obama because they miss having someone to blame for literally everything.
Donald Trump defined his brand and built his political career on going after Barack Obama, usually in ways that were not-so-subtly racist. Trump also stole an election thanks to Russian interference which was in part founded on a misinformation campaign about imagined corruption involving Hillary Clinton. His whole career is founded on lies and attacks, with support for more competent villains.
Now, faced with a crumbling economy and catastrophic failures of leadership on his part during the coronavirus crisis, Trump’s mind (and I do use that term loosely) has combined all of those things, peppered in some conspiracy theories and come up with “OBAMAGATE!” What is Obamagate? No one is quite sure, not even Donald Trump. When asked yesterday what Obamagate meant, Trump had no answer except that it was bad. When pressed on the “controversy,” Trump had nothing.
From what we can tell, Obamagate seems to be the vague idea that Obama … used his powers as president to investigate Donald Trump? Possibly the very real corruption and treason that Donald Trump was getting involved in to win the 2016 election. I think? If that’s the case the only controversy is that Obama didn’t investigate more or do it faster and save us from this entire mess.
Amazingly a great takedown of the ridiculous concept of “Obamagate” came from Fox News of all places:
This… All of this pic.twitter.com/y4V0rQJuN4
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) May 12, 2020
Another sign that “Obamagate” won’t go anywhere? Senate Republicans have rebuked any suggestion that they might investigate Obama for doing his job as President. As seen above, the idea of investigating Obama for things that Trump does all the time is perhaps a level of hypocrisy that even these jerks can’t take, and would focus back in on the current President’s failures. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t done being terrible.
It’s not a coincidence that Obama is back in the conversation and again living rent-free in Trump’s brainpan. On Friday, Obama broke his characteristic silence on the constant failures of Trump and in a call with people who worked for him in his administration, accurately described Trump’s response to the coronavirus crisis as “an absolute chaotic disaster.”
Obama’s comments on Trump’s failures clearly triggered the current occupant of the Oval Opposite into a new spiral of conspiracy, racism, nonsense, and hate that he’s still deep in today. But it also reminded other, more insidiously evil and disingenuous Republicans to comment. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell crawled out of his shell to say: “I think President Obama should’ve kept his mouth shut.”
On a call with supporters and speaking to the President’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, McConnell reached a new level of horrible and hypocritical by saying: “I think it’s a little bit classless, frankly, to critique an administration that comes after you … You had your shot. You were there for eight years.” Yeah … no. The only disgustingly classless one here is you, Mitch.
McConnell is also either buying into or propping up the same sort of lies and misinformation that Trump is addicted to. He’s not going as far as diving into the Obamagate hole, but he did say on the same call that the Obama administration is the one to blame for the Trump admin’s preparedness and that they didn’t leave them a game plan for a pandemic. This is completely false.
What we have here is pretty clear: two leaders panicking and trying to divert attention on their own massive failings and heartless evil on to the man they’ve so frequently made a target in the past. It’s not enough for them to have destroyed nearly every bit of progress the country made under Obama. They’ve carelessly thrown away human lives and often the very rule of law, and are now passing their time spiting a former President who has more dignity in his little finger than they do in their entire bodies combined.
Trump and McConnell remain two different aspects of the worst tendencies of America and American politics. They value hate and fear over facts, they spread lies and defy the law and the will of the people when the truth and consequences don’t suit them. But history will not be any kinder to them than the present, where we already know that these men are full of two different flavors of the same kind of crap.
(via: HuffPost, image: Pete Souza)
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