Richardcyoung.com

The Online Home of Author and Investor, Dick Young

  • Home
  • How We Are Different
  • Debbie Young
  • About Us
    • Foundation Principles
    • Contributors
  • Investing
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
  • Your Survival Guy
  • The Great Reset
  • The Swiss Way
  • My Rifles
  • Dividends and Compounding
  • Your Security
  • COVID-19
  • Dick Young
  • Key West
  • Paris
  • Dick’s R&B Top 100
  • Liberty & Freedom Map
  • Bank Credit & Money
  • Your Survival Guy’s Super States
  • NNT & Cholesterol
  • Work to Make Money/Invest to Save Money
  • Your Health
  • Ron Paul
  • US Treasury Yield Curve: My Favorite Investor Tool

President Obama Critiques Identity Politics

August 29, 2018 By Debbie Young

President Barack Obama signs the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans Executive Order in the Oval Office, July 26, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Originally posted on July 26, 2018.

It’s hard not to notice that Democrats are sounding like foreign-policy hawks when it comes to Russia and like states’ rights activists when it comes to shielding illegal aliens from deportation.

So it’s interesting to consider, do Democrats really believe voters want U.S. international borders erased rather than fixed? Is doing away with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – the agency that tracks down human traffickers, drug smugglers, and other people who are in the country illegally – really what Democrats think is best for our country?

To mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Nelson Mandela, President Obama traveled to Johannesburg last week. In his speech honoring Mr. Mandela, Mr. Obama’s choicest passages “sounded like gentle digs at his fellow leftists back home.” As Jason L. Riley notes in the WSJ, Mr. Obama didn’t mention the current president by name. But the controversies he did weigh in on, including immigration, sounded more like President Trump than Elizabeth Warren or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

It’s not wrong to insist that national borders matter, [that] whether you’re a citizen or not is going to matter to a government, that laws need to be followed. … newcomers should make an effort to adapt to the language and customs of their new home. Those are legitimate things, and we have to be able to engage people who do feel as if things are not orderly.

But wait, Mr. Riley point out, there’s more.

Since leaving office, Mr. Obama has become not only a stickler for border enforcement and cultural assimilation but also a critic of identity politics. To make democracy work, he told the crowd, we have to “engage with people not only who look different but who hold different views.” We should endeavor to “get inside the reality of people who are different than us,” he said. “And you can’t do this if you just out of hand disregard what your opponents have to say from the start. And you can’t do it if you insist that those who aren’t like you—because they’re white or because they’re male—that somehow there’s no way they can understand what I’m feeling, that somehow they lack standing to speak on certain matters.”

Mr. Obama can take the high road now because he’s done running for elective office, but he shares as much blame as anyone for the political rancor and racial division we see today. In a sense, Donald Trump stole Barack Obama’s playbook and reminded the left that Democrats aren’t the only ones capable of successfully playing resentment politics.

Read more here.

If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for the Richardcyoung.com free weekly email.

Related Posts

  • Captain Obama
  • Identity Politics Poisoning America
  • Dear President Obama
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Debbie Young
Debbie, editor-in-chief of Richardcyoung.com, has been associate editor of Dick Young’s investment strategy reports for over five decades. When not in Key West, Debbie spends her free time researching and writing in and about Paris and Burgundy, France, cooking on her AGA Cooker, driving her Porsche Boxter S through Vermont and Maine, and practicing yoga.
Latest posts by Debbie Young (see all)
  • The Forgotten America - March 28, 2023
  • What’s John Kerry Doing in Mexico? - March 28, 2023
  • The PRC Aims to Make Taiwan a Pariah Nation - March 27, 2023

Dick Young’s Must Reads

  • My Battle-Hardened Stock Market Strategy for the Worst of Times
  • Who’d be Nuts Enough to Have Put Money into SVB?
  • The Four Most Important Words in Investing
  • Gold/Silver Coins No Longer Allowed in Safe Deposit Boxes
  • Globalism Has Made America Dependent on Foreign Countries
  • Rich Grandchild, Poor Grandchild
  • What’s John Kerry Doing in Mexico?
  • How Can You Maximize Natural Immunity to Viruses?
  • Florida: Enjoy Certain Freedoms and Individual Liberties
  • Democracy & Diversity: Not In the Constitution

Our Most Popular Posts

  • Pushing Back at ESG
  • Are You Fairly Wealthy? I’m Listening
  • Who'd be Nuts Enough to Have Put Money into SVB?
  • Your Survival Guy’s BEST Insider’s Guide to Key West
  • Freefalling at Stanford
  • Cheap Reliable Heating – a Life Saver
  • The Kings of Onlywood, Key West, Florida
  • Biden's Fake Democracy Summit: Hungary and Turkey Snubbed
  • For the Health of the Planet
  • Get Well Soon Taki

Disclosure

RSS Youngresearch.com

  • “You Just Have to Be Willing to Move Defensively”
  • Americans Are Fleeing Bank Deposits
  • If You’re a Highly Effective Person, We Should Talk
  • Trouble Now Brewing at Deutsche Bank
  • Is Vanguard Voting Against Your Political Beliefs?
  • Are 0DTE Options a Threat to Markets?
  • “I Need Preservation of Principal and Growth”
  • Are You Fairly Wealthy? I’m Listening
  • Treasury Studying How to Increase Deposit Insurance
  • Your Survival Guy’s BEST Insider’s Guide to Key West

RSS Yoursurvivalguy.com

  • “You Just Have to Be Willing to Move Defensively”
  • Did SVB Fail Because of Climate Change?
  • If You’re a Highly Effective Person, We Should Talk
  • What’s Happening to Charles Schwab?
  • Prepare for the Predictable
  • Is Vanguard Voting Against Your Political Beliefs?
  • Call It the Difference between Normal and Crazy
  • “I Need Preservation of Principal and Growth”
  • DEMOCRATIC SENATOR: Biden’s ESG Veto “Absolutely Infuriating”
  • Are You Fairly Wealthy? I’m Listening

The Forgotten America

What’s John Kerry Doing in Mexico?

The PRC Aims to Make Taiwan a Pariah Nation

“You Just Have to Be Willing to Move Defensively”

Donna: The Queen of Louie’s Backyard, Key West

Biden’s Fake Democracy Summit: Hungary and Turkey Snubbed

Copyright © 2023 | Terms & Conditions | About Us | Dick Young | Archives