In a rare speech at the University of Illinois, former President Barack Obama did not hold back from criticizing the Trump administration, urging those in attendance to get out and vote in the midterm elections.
'Over the past few decades, the politics of division and resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican Party,' he said.
Obama further detailed the failings of the current administration, noting that it's responsible for unwinding campaign finance laws, attacking voting rights, taking away healthcare, rejecting facts surrounding climate change, embracing conspiracy theories, and pulling out of the Paris Agreement.
'None of this is conservative,' he continued. 'I don’t mean to pretend I’m channeling Abraham Lincoln, but that’s not what he had in mind, I think, when he helped form the Republican Party.'
He expressed that while there were Republicans 'who know better in Congress,' he felt they were 'still bending over backwards to shield this behaviour from scrutiny.'
Obama also brought up the now infamous anonymous op-ed published by the New York Times, in which a senior official in the Trump administration wrote that there's a 'resistance' inside of the White House.
'That’s not how our democracy’s supposed to work,' he said. 'These people aren’t elected. They’re not accountable. They’re not doing us a service by actively promoting 90 percent of the crazy stuff that’s coming out of this White House and then saying, 'Don’t worry, we’re preventing the other 10 percent.''
Touching on a number of issues, ranging from immigration to Hurricane Maria ('I know there are Republicans who believe government should only perform a few minimal functions but that one of those functions should be making sure nearly 3,000 Americans don't die in a hurricane and its aftermath'"), Obama summed up his point in three sentences: 'It’s not conservative. It sure isn’t normal. It’s radical.'
He also made sure to emphasize the importance of voting this November, saying that the consequences of anyone sitting out the midterm elections will be that 'more dire.'
According to Politico, this was the kickoff of Obama's midterm campaigning; he will attend a rally in California on Saturday for seven Democrats running to take Republican-held House seats. From there, he'll go to Cleveland to campaign for Democrats and will most likely be attending other campaign events this fall.
President Trump's response to Obama's speech? 'I’m sorry. I watched it, but I fell asleep.' Sounds like somebody needs a nap.
Madison is the digital deputy editor at ELLE, where she also covers news, politics, and culture. If she’s not online, she’s probably napping or trying not to fall while rock climbing.
