Former President Barack Obama Campaigns for Kamala Harris: Making the Case for Freedom (Part 2 of 2)
Former President Barack Obama returned to Madison on October 22nd, the first day of early voting, to urge people to vote early for Kamala Harris.
On October 22nd, former President Barack Obama and Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, appeared at the Dane County Coliseum in support of the Harris-Walz ticket as well as U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin and Congressman Mark Pocan.
No one can fire up a crowd like Obama and so his appearance marked the final stretch of the campaign when human efforts to get out the vote will be paramount through volunteer power. While the crowd was well-primed by the previous speakers, it took its applause up to another level with Obama’s speech. Although it has been almost four months since Obama appeared and Donald Trump is now the U.S. President, some of Obama’s speech is almost prophetic on the state of America under Trump.
Obama spoke about Trump’s strategy of divide and conquer, redefining who “they” and “us” are according to whom he is speaking at the time.
“He sees power, he sees you as a means to his ends,” Obama observed. “He wants the middle class to pay the price for another huge tax cut. It would mostly help him and his country club buddies. He doesn’t care if he costs more women their reproductive freedoms because apparently it doesn’t affect his life. Most of all, Donald Trump wants us to think that this country is hopelessly divided between “us” and “them.” Now, for him, “us” means the “real Americans” who support him. Anybody who doesn’t, they’re “them.” And he employs this strategy, like politicians have for millennia, because having people divided and angry boosts his chances of being elected.”
As Trump took office, he immediately fired the inspector generals in many agencies. Without these watchdogs, Trump could tgake actions with impunity and no one would know.
“Let’s talk about freedom for a second,” Obama said. “I don’t think we’ve ever had an election where candidates understand the concept, the idea, and the reality of freedom so differently. Because for Donald Trump and his cronies, freedom basically means getting away with stuff. It means, well, you know, if I want to bust a union, I can get away with that. His attitude is, well, that’s freedom. ‘I want to pollute this close-by river because it’ll save me some bucks. I can go ahead and do that.’ So to them, freedom is letting powerful people do whatever the heck they want with no consequences. Like you said, in the middle of a pandemic, when people were dying, hospitals were overrun, Donald Trump actually uttered the words, ‘I do not take any responsibility at all. I am not sure any American president has ever said those words before. But that’s his idea of freedom. I do what I want, and I’m not held accountable, and I’m not responsible for anything. We have a broader idea of freedom.’”
Obama knew what the election of Trump would mean for the U.S. immigration policy and the lives of millions of people.
“Now, I want to talk about this,” Oibama said. “This is serious. We have a real issue at the borders. We’re a nation of immigrants, and we are a nation of laws. We’ve got to make sure the system works the way it’s supposed to, in an orderly fashion. So, there’s work to be done there. But, when I keep on hearing from these guys, I scratch my head. Because they like to talk about Kamala being vice president for four years. Well, wasn’t he president for four years? I know it’s shocking. I know there’s some PTSD going on and people are blocking it out. He was. So, if this concept of a plan of rounding up and deporting millions of desperate people, many of them women and children, was the answer to everything, well, why is it that the number of undocumented immigrants is basically the same when he left office as when he took office? And I’ll tell you why. Because he did not have a real plan. He had a concept of a plan, and it was a mean and ugly concept.”
Part of the reason why Trump won last November was that some people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 didn’t come out to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024. Perhaps they felt that voting didn’t matter.
“We have family members who are just like, ‘Ah, you know, it’s all a circus out there.’ I get that. But elections really do matter. Who you vote for matters. Not because it’s going to change every problem we got. No president, no vice president, no senator, no governor is going to solve every problem. We’re not going to eliminate poverty overnight. We’re not going to change race relations right away. You know, we’re born into history, and change takes time. And so sometimes I think we expect so much, and then we’re disappointed when everything’s not immediately solved. And we start thinking politics doesn’t matter.”
Obama talked about the impact of a president who cares chiefly about imself versus a president who cares for the people of the country that they govern within the context of the federal government’s initial response to COVID-19..
“Businesses were going to shut down for a while,” Obama said. “Travel was going to be restricted. It was something we hadn’t seen since 1918. Right? So it was going to be a challenge. But if you look at a country like Canada, their per capita death rate was 60 percent lower than the United States. Now, I want you to do the math. Let’s say we lost more than a million people from COVID in the United States.”
“Sixty percent difference. That’s 600,000 people. People’s grandparents, people’s parents, cousins, brothers, friends, co-workers. Most of you know somebody whose lives was touched.
Sixty percent. Might be a lot if we had a capable, competent government that was paying attention. So if somebody tells you it does not make a difference whether you elect someone who’s competent, somebody who cares about you, somebody who listens to experts and listens to ordinary people and knows what their lives are like and what they’re going through, it makes a difference. It’s going to make a difference to them.”
With Trump’s suspending USAID grants and programs that work to meet the most vulnerable populations across the globe. Thousands, perhaps millions could die of disease or starvation. This isn’t a concern to Trump.
“So a few weeks ago, we had one of the deadliest hurricanes in American history. And Biden and Harris, they’re down there in North Carolina. They’re meeting with local officials. They’re accompanying families. And in the midst of that, Donald Trump and his running mate are making up stories about how the Biden administration is withholding aid and giving it to undocumented workers and not giving it to Republican areas. Just making stuff up. And even the MAGA Republicans down in those areas on the ground said it was a bald-faced lie. It is shameful. When did something like that become OK? No matter where you stand on the issues, how could you go along with something like that? These are people at their most vulnerable. They’re in desperate situations. And you’re going to make stuff up and suddenly you’ve got FEMA workers being threatened, people not applying for aid because they got told by a former president who’s running for president that FEMA’s not doing the right thing?”
Obama talked about personal values and character and the lack of values that Trump exhibited.
“I had grandparents, teachers, coaches, most of all my mom, who tried to teach me the difference between right and wrong, who showed me what it meant to be honest and to work hard and to be responsible and to treat people the way I wanted to be treated,” Obama said. “I tried to live up to them. And most of you grew up the same way. And one of the disturbing things about this election, about Trump’s rise in politics, is how we seem to have set aside the values that we were taught. If you had a family member who acted like that, you might still love them, but you wouldn’t put them in charge of nothing. And yet, hold up, hold up, and yet when Donald Trump lies or cheats or bullies somebody or shows utter disregard for our Constitution, when he calls service members who died in battle “losers,” when he calls our fellow citizens “vermin,” people make excuses for it. “He’s making a joke.” “He doesn’t mean it.” It’s OK. The attitude is it’s OK as long as their side wins. And I’ve noticed this especially with some men who think Trump’s behavior is somehow a sign of strength. You never apologize for anything, you’re not accountable for anything. I’m here to tell you that’s not what real strength is. It never has been.”
Truer words were never said.