There are just so many reasons why millions want to defeat Donald Trump this election. And now former President Barack Obama, who was back on the campaign trail last week in support of his former Vice President Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris, has served up one more.
In his speeches, Obama highlighted an array of issues that merit dumping Trump, including Trump’s incompetent response to the deadly pandemic and the questions about his business empire. Obama used humor to drive the point home: “Listen, can you imagine, if I had had a secret Chinese bank account when I was running for reelection? You think Fox News might have been a little concerned about that?” Obama quipped, “They would have called me ‘Beijing Barry,'” eliciting a wave of car horns beeping in approval at his drive-in rally.
But the moment that deeply resonated with me — and I’m betting with so many others — was when the former President told the crowd that with Biden in the White House, “It won’t be so exhausting.” With Biden and Harris at the helm, said Obama, “you’re not going to have to think about the crazy things they said every day.”
While none of us actually need examples of Trump’s outrageous conduct, Obama flagged a few for the audience: “You’ll be able to go about your lives, knowing that the President is not going to suggest injecting bleach, or retweet conspiracy theories about secret cabals running the world. Or claiming, or retweeting the claim, the Navy SEALS didn’t actually kill bin Laden.”
(And yes, just weeks ago Trump retweeted a baseless conspiracy theory that the Navy SEALs did not actually kill bin laden but instead killed a body double, prompting one of the Navy Seals on that famous mission to tweet at Trump, “Very brave men said [goodbye] to their kids to go kill Osama bin Laden…It was not a body double.”)
Obama is right. Trump’s daily antics are exhausting. We went from “No Drama Obama” to “Drama King Donald.” Not sure about you, but Trump is aging me. The four years of his presidency have probably taken eight years off my life! My blood pressure is higher than Trump’s now and ironically Trump is to blame for it. (Or at least partly!)
How many friends do you not speak to now because of fights prompted by Trump’s behavior? How many times has a conversation over the past four years began with the words, “You are not going to believe what he just tweeted?” with no need to explain who the “he” is in that sentence.
This isn’t because Trump is a Republican. During President George W. Bush’s presidency, I can recall numerous policy disputes with friends on issues — yet they are still friends. But with Trump, it’s far different. With Trump it feels personal — and in many cases it is.
Trump has caused real pain to countless communities — from his comments calling Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate” in the midst of people demanding justice for George Floyd, to his horrific family separation policy at the border that resulted in children being ripped from the hands of their parents. The list goes on and on.
Trump has also, apparently by design, continually pitted Americans against each other. For example, at Thursday’s presidential debate, Trump even justified his criticism of the stimulus bill passed by the House Democrats to help Americans in need by saying it’s a “bailout of badly run, high-crime, Democrat… cities and states.” In response, Biden slammed Trump saying, “I don’t see red states and blue states. What I see is American, United States.” It comes as zero surprise that a recent CNN poll found that on the issue of which of the two candidates can best unite the country, 61% of likely voters said Biden while only 33% said Trump.
Obama’s criticism of Trump on policy was spot on. And there’s something soothing about the former President’s comment that electing Biden would mean ending the Trump drama and “just having a normal president.” While “normal” isn’t always exciting, after what we’ve been through with Trump over the past four years, “normal” is exactly what our nation needs now.
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