Former President Barack Obama delivered a jarring jab to AOC, Rep. Ayanna Pressley and the rest of the Squad that served to further marginalize the far left as its growing battle with moderates tears apart the Democratic Party.
The new spat came after Obama criticized the “defund the police” backers for losing voters.
“I guess you can use a snappy slogan like defund the police but you know you’ve lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely you’re going to actually get the changes you want done,” Obama said on the “Good Luck America” Snapchat.
Is Obama objecting to defunding police or just that they were too upfront about it with a snappy slogan?
The former president’s decision to weigh in is likely to push the far left even further out of the mainstream of the party as self-styled moderate Joe Biden prepares to take office.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley and other squad members fired back Wednesday in a sign the split between liberals and moderates will continue when Biden takes over.
“Lives are at stake daily so I’m out of patience with critiques of the language of activists,” Pressley said. “Whatever a grieving family says is their truth. And I’ll never stop fighting for their justice and healing.”
“It’s not a slogan but a policy demand,” U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a member of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Squad” tweeted. “And centering the demand for equitable investments and budgets for communities across the country gets us progress and safety.”
We lose people in the hands of police. It’s not a slogan but a policy demand. And centering the demand for equitable investments and budgets for communities across the country gets us progress and safety. https://t.co/Vu6inw4ms7
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) December 2, 2020
Obama gets high bravery points for taking on the far left. It’s the sharpest criticism yet he’s delivered and shows how deep the divide is over the confrontational “defund the police” movement.
Even though Joe Biden won the election, a lot of moderate Democrat lawmakers lost, and that’s creating deep, post-election fissures within the party over how it should proceed in the Biden administration era.
Obama clearly signaled that the party needs to appeal to more mainstream Democrats to hold its advantage in the U.S. House.
But progressives and the Squad just as clearly signaled that they won’t cede the fight just because Obama is on the other side.
‘The thing that critics of activists don’t get is that they tried playing the ‘polite language’ policy game and all it did was make them easier to ignore,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. ‘It wasn’t until they made folks uncomfortable that there was traction to do ANYTHING even if it wasn’t their full demands.”
The murders of generations of unarmed Black folks by police have been horrific. Lives are at stake daily so I’m out of patience with critiques of the language of activists.
Whatever a grieving family says is their truth.
And I’ll never stop fighting for their justice & healing.
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) December 2, 2020
Sure, what does Obama know? He only won two presidential elections and became America’s first African American president.
Damn, Mr. President.
Didn’t you say “Trayvon could’ve been my son?”
In 2014, #BlackLivesMatter was too much.
In 2016, Kaepernick was too much.
Today, discussing police budgets is too much.
The problem is America's comfort with Black death — not discomfort with slogans. https://t.co/DJUSZebgW5
— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) December 2, 2020
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Does this mean they won’t support michell for VP when harris takes over the oval office?
Who knows. BUT IT IS nice, to see dems attack other dems.
The words of obama the magic Ne grow are a bit late. he should have thought about this when he was in office and prevent the racism he started.
The squad commenting on Obama,,,,sounds like the pots calling the kettle black.,,Literally. If Barak’s dark comments don’t matter to them, then maybe his black life does not either? Soon “Black Lives Matter” which soon socially got redistributed into “Only Blacks Lives Matter” will selectively become “Only Certain Lives matter and must be black and socialist”
Democrats remind me of inner core Hitler National Socialists in Germany who once he got elected to office, cut a deal with the military and the business establishment to kill off homosexual Ernst Rohm and the brown shirt leadership in a night of the long knives to blend in the brown shirts into the military for control,,,thereby defining them as useful idiots. Biden and the Democrat Establishment is now doing the same to the Bernie Crew who they won’t need again until 2024. In the mean time its back to Barak and back to business as usual protecting those in power to bleed and feed off the middle class back to the status of useful idiots themselves. When the local police get turned into useful idiots then it will be socialist mission accomplished.
True dat mike. HAD HE NOT STARTED ALL THIS anti cop animosity, i doubt we’d even BE HERE, where literally millions of brainwashed morons, are calling for cops to be defunded..
Obama is a hypocrite. Obama’s hate for the police was clearly evident, when I,I, I, me, me, me, was in the White House. There is no difference between Barack and the squad.
3 of the 4 horseman of the appocalyspe!
I wonder which each represents.. Omar – pestilence. Rashida – Famine. So which is death and which is war?
This joke of a president is still trying to make his legacy relevant. Enough already, we put up with you for eight plus years, just go away, to a galaxy far, far away.
Better yet, get swallowe by a black hole!
Jamaal Bowman sez: “The problem is America’s comfort with Black death — not discomfort with slogans.”
Wrong on two counts: (1) The problem is America’s comfort with Black on Black death. (2) When slogans lead to action that leads to increase in crime (see Seattle and Minneapolis) it should be obvious why the discomfort. To deny this truth is deranged stupidity.
Basically what Jug Ears is saying to the Squat is, Lie to the people like I did.
Yep, if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.
This has nothing to do with what obama thinks or wants, he IS for defunding the police, he is just smarter than the bimbo squad, he knows it is better to keep from telling people what you really want to do. Keep in mind, the bobble headed bimbo squad is there for a reason, WE ALL KNOW, that if the democrat party did not want them, they would be gone. Remember, they are in the middle of trying to pull off a coup on America as we speak, they bumped the old commie out of contention twice, if they did not want the bimbo squad, it would be gone. The bimbo squad serves a purpose, float the most radical intentions of the democrat leadership, see what flies and what doesn’t, or at the minimum, desensitize people to the ideas, ALL with “plausible deniability.” Quite useful for communists marxists and fascists, anyway you look at it.
Whatever Obama says; believe the opposite. He is a liar. His idea of “inclusiveness” is claiming to be both in favor of and opposed to ever issue.
Instead, look at what he actually did, which was to continuously work to weaken and humiliate America. He has zero attachment to reality or truth or honor or decency; a throughly evil man.
He was the one who made this nation, a laughing stock of the world. YET DARES say trump did it.