“It did not start with Donald Trump,” said the former president, “He is a symptom, not the cause.” Republicans, and many naïve journalists, liked to attribute the hysterical right-wing backlash against Barack Obama to a sudden upsurge in fiscal conservatism. All these terrified tea party activists, and the Republican leaders warning of …
Source: Obama finally speaks out on Trump – POLITICO
Barack Obama will launch his midterm campaigning this weekend, following a speech on Friday meant to lay out the case against what he’ll call President Donald Trump’s dangerous authoritarian politics. And he’ll start by emphasizing the battle for the House. Obama will be in Cleveland Sept. 13 to campaign for …
In the past, the party controlling the White House found itself with a lot more vulnerable House seats than expected late in the cycle. At the moment, conventional wisdom has it that the Democratic Party’s odds of reclaiming control of the House are on something of a knife’s edge. The Democratic …
As the ACLU has transformed itself from a nonpartisan protector of civil liberties into one of Donald Trump’s most bitter political foes, it’s been forced to grapple with fundamental questions about its role in American society. Last March, Anthony Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, stepped …
It slowly dawns on the right that the last president was not actually a race-baiting demagogue. This week, Barack Obama delivered a long and thoughtful defense of liberalism, pluralism, and democracy against strongman populism. The themes, which in nearly all respects tracked the ideas he promoted throughout his presidency, came in pointed …
Democrats need to hear a message of patience, moderation and tactical calm. To the annoyance of many Democrats, former President Barack Obama has largely floated above the political fray instead of actively leading the anti-Trump brigade. He’s told associates that he doesn’t want to aggravate political polarization and wants to preserve his …
Trump and his people told Iowans not to worry about Chinese retaliation against Iowa soybean exports. Now they’re worrying for real. When the president began his trade war with China, and the Chinese threatened to retaliate against U.S. products, including soybeans, Republicans in the major soybean-producing state chose to go …
The most popular American, whose legacy is the primary target of Donald Trump, has, for now, virtually disappeared from public life. arack Obama was six months into his post–White House life when Donald Trump found a new way to grab his attention. It was a Tuesday morning deep in the …
Trump stands athwart the GOP like a colossus right now. But like him, his party doesn’t like losers. A Democratic-wave election this November would create a narrow chance for political ramifications beyond the confiscation of Paul Ryan’s gavel. Former GOP strategic wizard and #NeverTrump ultra Mike Murphy suggested it at Politico in a piece entitled “How …
There’s one foil President Trump goes after time and again without much threat of a backlash: his predecessor. Barack Obama, and the four other living ex-presidents, abide by a tradition of not attacking each other even as the newest member of the so-called President’s Club-Trump-flouts custom. President Trump has taken …
To hear President Trump tell it, he is tougher than former president Barack Obama. He is smarter than Obama — more shrewd, more effective, more respected. The 45th president is, by his own accounting, superlative to the 44th in almost every way. In private and in public, while devising policies …
