Viewers of former President Barack Obama’s speech on Thursday at the Obama Foundation’s 2024 Democracy Forum caught him during a “telling” moment as he made a series of claims about Republicans that are actually more aligned with his own Democratic Party.
Some observers even claimed that things the 44th president said would be considered wild conspiracy theories and ‘false claims’ of ‘election fraud’ were they uttered by a GOP figure.
Others ripped the former president for what they saw as blatant hypocrisy as he accused members of the Republican Party of doing things that Democrats have done when they are in power, such as “weaponizing” the Justice Department and “politicizing” the military.
“Pluralism depends on everyone following a certain set of rules,” Obama said during the speech. “What happens when the other side has repeatedly and abundantly made clear they are not interested in playing by the rules?”
“There are going to be times potentially when one side tries to stack the deck and lock in [pause] a permanent grip on power,” Obama said at one point, as he appeared to realize in mid-sentence that he was treading closely to exposing himself and his party’s future political plans.
“Either by actively suppressing votes, or politicizing the Armed Forces, or using the judiciary, criminal justice system to go after opponents,” he continued. “And pluralism does not call for us to just stand back and say, ‘well, I’m not sure that’s OK,’” he continued. “In those circumstances, a line has been crossed, and we have to stand firm and speak out and organize.”
