2018: Obama Says Trump Is 'a Symptom, Not the Cause' of Political Unrest

[George II]

Former President Barack Obama went after his successor by the name for the first time since leaving office, according to Business Insider, calling President Donald Trump “a symptom, not the cause” of today’s political climate.

“It did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause,” Obama told students at the University of Illinois on Friday. “He’s just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years.”

Obama has historically avoided naming Trump directly, instead criticizing his tactics. While giving the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in Johannesburg earlier this year, Obama attacked the “politics of fear and resentment,” but never named Trump directly. “Strongman politics are ascendant, suddenly,” said Obama at the time.

Throughout his speech on Friday, Obama continued his critique of today’s political environment, but maintained hope for change. He emphasized the need for the students to get out and vote in November, saying “stakes really are higher” in this year’s midterms.

http://fortune.com/2018/09/07/obama-trump-speech/

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This bears re-posting and repeating as much as possible. Obama had it right, and he said it a number of times.

[SaintLouisBlues]

1. AOC really rattles your pots and pans.

Get over it.

[JHB]

4. ?

[riverine]

5. I believe - although I am new here, that AOC was lauded for saying the same thing this weekend

when Obama originated it.

[JHB]

17. Welcome to DU

Last edited Mon Mar 25, 2019, 05:11 PM - Edit history (1)

I simply don't get the point of the post I was replying to. This is something that needs to be said and resaid constantly, so it's good to laud the people who do say it.

I will disagree with the idea that Obama "originated" it just because he made the same point last year. This was something that was evident even before he (Obama) was elected, and people who tried to point it out were brushed off and dismissed.

There is no point to sniping and one-upping over who said it first. It simply needs to be said, every single day, by as many voices as possible.

[George II]

7. Earthquakes rattle my pots and pans. Nothing else.

[George II]

15. No one lives "rent free" in my head. Space there is WAY too valuable, I charge....

...premium rates to reside there.

[Farmer-Rick]

2. When you allow a handful of infinitely evil and greedy people to own over 50% of a nation's wealth

They are going to f*ck up your democracy and turn it into a cesspool. It is the excessive concentration of wealth that brings us Trump.

Simple, direct and the real reason you are seeing an obvious traitor and Nazi as president.

[riverine]

3. Democrats are wealthier than Republicans

Just look at the zip codes of the wealthiest towns like Upper East Side, Boulder, La Jolla, San Fran, Fairfax Country and so on.

Nope - the overriding philosophy of the Trump Klan is anti-immigrant.

[lapfog_1]

6. overall this might be true

but you are looking waay beyond the handful of billionaires that own almost everything.

When you look at just the top 100 wealthiest families in the US... they lean to the very right wing extreme or sit on the sidelines (apolitical).

[riverine]

8. Perhaps "families" lean extreme right wing but the Forbes 100 wealthiest individuals are

overwhelmingly liberal

Off the top of my head Buffett, Bezos, Gates, the two Google guys, Soros, and most of the top 20 are liberal.

(notice I said "liberal" and not progressive.)

[lapfog_1]

12. Buffet and Gates are not liberal in the sense

that Thiel, Murdock, Kock, the Walton family.. and numerous others are conservative.

Gates and Buffet donate huge amounts of money to charities... but are not pushing a liberal agenda here in the US...

The closest you can come is Gates supporting MSNBC but my understanding is the M$ is now out of the jointly formed corporation (but the network kept the "MS" part of the name).

[riverine]

13. Buffett avidly supports Democrats (not sure about "pushing an agenda")

and Gates is a classic liberal on raising taxes, science, climate change and many other causes.

Are they crispy-fried crazy like their conservative fellow multi-billionaires (Adelson and the Kochs come to mind)? No.

I would call them left of center liberals (but not progressive like I first said).

I consider Michael Bloomberg to the left, by the way. I don't care what he calls himself.

[lapfog_1]

16. left of center

in what is now the "center" of the nation (which in a few generations has migrated to the right).

I doubt seriously that Gates and Buffet (and especially Bloomberg) are anything close to "new deal Democrats" or even "new green deal" Democrats.

Yes, Gates is science based, believes in climate change... but that is not the same as what the Kock and Adelson and the rest are doing to push the ultra conservative agenda.

The closest we have is George Soros... and he is really more of a boogey man used by the right to try to discredit the left or at least for them to say "see, the left has their money people too".

I shouldn't neglect to mention Tom Steyer... so we have 2 who;e billionaires pushing a leftist agenda... they have how many pushing the ultra conservative agenda?

[Farmer-Rick]

9. Yeah, because those infinitely greedy and evil men are using immigration to get

them the dictator of their choosing....Trump. Gates, the Waltons, The Koch Brothers, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison and Larry Page all are perfectly happy to have Trump as their chosen president. If they weren't, they could very easily use their money to stop him.....but they don't.

I never said Democrats were NOT rich. They just don't have as much and, they don't use it against the evil ones. By the way, just because you live in a high end zip code doesn't mean you are rich. The common idea is to buy the cheapest house in the most expensive neighborhood. My daughter, who barely makes above minimum wage, lives in one of the most ritzy neighborhoods in LA. She rents from a very rich friend.

Buffett, Bezos, Gates, the two Google guys, Soros, they are NOT lefty liberals. They are very, very conservative liberals and 50 years ago they would be considered RepubliCONS. A few of them talk a good game and they rarely use their money to manipulate politics like the evil ones do. If they didn't want Traitor Trump and Putin running the US, they would not be doing it. They have the money they could stop them right now. But they don't because they more or less approve of what the Nazi in the white house is doing.

[riverine]

14. Oh come on. Do they approve of the Nazi in the White House?

Or are they so fucking rich they don't have to worry about anything?


The latter is certainly truer.

[coti]

11. Yes. Fox News is the cause. nt