Judging from the all the whining at Fox, Republicans must be mighty worried about President Obama’s plan to stay active in politics during the Trump/Pence administration. So the all-conservative panel on Outnumbered did a little pre-smearing of President Obama’s post-presidency treatment of Donald Trump. Because, you know, Trump has been so respectful to Obama.
The segment started with a nasty introduction from Kennedy: “Future Recruiter-in-Chief?” she sneered, before explaining that Obama wants to help scout future talent for the Democratic Party. Kennedy added, “Finding those Elián Gonzálezes and all the other future commies. This has some asking if Mr. Obama will follow the example of former presidents and stay out of the limelight post-presidency. I think that’s a fantastic idea.”
Kennedy went on to praise George W. Bush for how he has handled himself post-presidency. She didn’t point out that Bush is quite unpopular whereas Obama is quite popular with the public.
Trumper cohost Lisa Boothe complained that Obama could cause “gridlock” for the Trump administration and not be “classy” like Bush. As if Republicans didn’t do their darnedest to cause gridlock for Obama.
Next up was Trump-defender Harris Faulkner: “It continues this popularity game. I don’t think the American public, they’ve already chosen. They don’t need to continue to choose between two people. It’s not about Mr. Obama anymore.”
Faulkner, supposedly an objective news anchor, lectured Democrats: “If the Democrats are really genuine about wanting to grow new talent, why did they shut down Representative Tim Ryan when he went against - how many terms has Nancy Pelosi had?”
“A million,” jeered Meghan McCain.
“She’s been a representative for most of our lives,” Faulkner continued.
“For 471 years,” Kennedy snarked.
But the worst was saved for last, when McCain began attacking Michelle Obama.
MCCAIN: We need to talk about first ladies being classy as well because Laura Bush, to my knowledge, has never said one thing negative in any context against the Obamas.
Michelle Obama isn’t even out of office and she’s doing interviews with Oprah taking about how hope is dead and hope isn’t alive. Obviously throwing a lot of shade at Donald Trump. He responded in what I thought was a very classy way.
It was ironic that McCain complained about someone else not being classy considering her own previous comments:
Well, I love Carly Fiorina … [she] has gone after Hillary the hardest. She rips out her jugular and serves it to me on a platter, which is what I want coming up in the election. (4/28/16)
I just love watching Hillary Clinton squirm like a worm on a hook, in a way that she’s doing. There’s nothing more entertaining. She looks like she’s in a prison jumpsuit which makes this even better. It’s all orange. (8/19/15)
I would go as far back as when Michelle Obama said that the only time she was proud of her country was when her husband was the nominee for president.
There’s many things. You wanna go take in, get in a little time machine and go back then, that was the first indication that I was like, these people do not view America in the way that I do.
The first time you are proud of America is when your husband is going to be president? That’s some weird thinking. (5/11/16)
McCain was still not done:
MCCAIN: I think they are not going to be able to help themselves. President Obama loved being a celebrity, I would suggest, more than actually being president, and he can’t handle the fact that Trump beat him at his own game, was a celebrity before to begin with and now is a much bigger celebrity that Obama ever will be. I just think he will be on The Tonight Show every other week complaining about Trump.
Of course, nobody challenged her.
Watch the whining below, from the December 26, 2016 Outnumbered.
That said, the playbook being used here is consistent with the warmup to The Year of the Bully. The Right Wing viciousness towards President Obama has been turned all the way up – if they could actually physically throw the Obamas out of the White House, they would do so. And yes, they will lie about the state of the White House when the Pence people move in to occupy it.
I find it interesting that the new normal on Fox News is to demand that President Obama and his people literally “SHUT UP!” while Pence gets ready to inflict his damage onto the country. Last night, Marc Thiessen literally said that while denigrating John Kerry’s still upcoming remarks about Israel and the UN. He opined happily that the Obama people should just be quiet and leave and that “nobody cares” what the current administration thinks. This is consistent with the vicious tone taken a month ago by John Sununu, when he happily dismissed the entire Obama presidency as a failure, and one that nobody cares about.
What Fox News and the Right are happily awaiting on January 21 is the opportunity to begin trumpeting this spin. They just need to wait for Trump to be inaugurated and sign all the Executive Orders on the 20th along with the reconciliation bill that destroys the ACA. (Between that and the immediate dropping of the appeal of the nonsensical right wing lawsuit over the insurance reimbursements, the ACA will be effectively obliterated by sundown on the 20th.) On January 21, the Right Wing gets to start a yearlong victory lap wherein they will refer to Barack Obama as the worst president of the modern era, and potentially in the entire history of the country.
Get ready for a pile of wildly jingoistic coverage where you will be told to get behind the Pence Administration or be considered a traitor or supporter of “radical Islamic terrorism”. Get ready for a series of dramatic and vicious cuts in the areas of government that actually help people (Education, Energy, EPA, Interior, Justice) and a series of dramatic and vicious actions designed more for theater than for actual effective governance (massive deportations and ICE raids around the country, blocking of federal money from “sanctuary cities” and the states that contain them, extremely aggressive “stop and frisk” expansions in minority communities by the Sessions Justice Dept, open persecution of Planned Parenthood and targeting of abortion providers in general, cancellation of both the Iran treaty and the Cuban diplomatic approach, deliberate opening of oil drilling in ANWAR and expansion of offshore rigs, radical expansion of the Dept of Defense, and of course the political theater of the upcoming prosecution of Bill and Hillary Clinton on anything Sessions can imply about them and their charity.
Eyes is correct that the tone of the Right in this country has morphed into something truly disturbing and dangerous. A friend of mine in Los Angeles is openly Right Wing and normally disdainful of government, even of Trump. But with the result of the election, he has now become increasingly unhinged and angry about anything that Obama or the California government does. His anger is not that he doesn’t like Trump. It’s that he wants Trump to succeed in everything he’s threatened and thinks Trump will just get bogged down and not do anything but appoint Supreme Court justices. He openly wants Trump to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg as soon as possible and says that’s going to make for a wonderful period of the Supreme Court as they completely undo all of the decisions he hates from the past 50 years, including Roe v Wade and every other decision with which he disagrees. Attempting to have a discussion with him has become impossible, as he suddenly lurches into red-faced spitting rage, to the point that I have become concerned he could actually have a coronary while expounding about this stuff. He truly hates anything that isn’t Hard Right and will now begin screaming almost incoherently at anything Obama does. The whole thing with Israel last Friday sent him into an even wilder rage than I have seen previously. The irony is that he keeps repeating how petty, little and angry he thinks Obama is – I don’t think he can actually see what he’s doing or saying in any objective sense.
As we get into The Year of the Bully, this kind of behavior is going to spread. My father already told me about going to a Thanksgiving dinner where he was physically stopped at the door by a guest who wanted to make sure there were “no damn liberals” coming into the house. There will be more of this – much more.
A white guy who did nothing taking credit from a black guy’s eight years of work. A black guy the white guy called lazy. The most Trump thing ever. Tip of the hat to DU.
Trump is classing up the joint already.
Listened to NPR “Morning Edition” this morning and retrospection on Obama’s stimulus package to avert a 2nd Great Depression. Goolsby, an administration economic advisor who participated in the development of those policies, mentioned 1/3 of that package was tax cuts targeting 95% of the American public. Yet a poll after the payroll tax cuts were in place indicated a clear majority of Americans were upset their taxes went up under Obama.
Frank Luntz was brought in and, surprisingly didn’t dispute the facts (no right-wing Fox News anchor to lead the discussion by distorting the record), he just attacked Obama’s messaging.
Maybe Frank’s right to some degree but the issue in my mind is nobody in the White House can shout over the right-wing noise machine screaming bullshit. They create an irresistible alternate reality bubble.
I had lunch with an old college buddy over the holidays I haven’t seen in years. He’s so intolerant, so closed-mined, so stuck in the right-wing information bubble it’s crazy. He literally thinks Democrats want to ‘abort’ 2-year-olds. No, I’m not kidding. He heard it on an extreme evangelical Christian radio station and Christians wouldn’t lie.
He hates Hillary Clinton so intensely it is impossible to rationally discuss her. I can’t begin to describe his level of hatred and anger and bile. He’s absolutely convinced that no source of information critical of his opinion is legitimate because it’s liberal propaganda.
The guy’s a very smart, reasonably successful professional I went to graduate school with. The Fox affect – a blanket description for conservatives going crazy over right-wing media propaganda telling them what they want to hear – is really taking control of American and I’m not sure how you can reverse it other than a massive failure of the Trump administration. And I’m not even sure that’ll do it because he’s no fan of Trump so if only abortion gets banded regardless of anything else he’ll probably reflexively Republican until the day he dies.
Any economic failures will be blamed on decades Democratic pro-unionism and big government to the point Foxies will build sympathy for any Donald failure. Poor Trump. Sure the economy collapsed and thousands of American soldiers are dying in the Middle East but it’s the Democrats fault because they put him in an impossible position. Fox News will never run out of bullshit agitprop.
And we can probably expect the MSM to do absolutely nothing about glaring lies directed at the Obamas. Not even to remind people that the same bullshit was hurled at the Clintons and none of it was true.