Barack Obama has been a lot of things in his two terms as president, some of them unrepeatable in family blog. One thing he has decidedly not been despite his promise to heal the partisan divide in the country, is a uniter. If anything, he has been the most divisive leader in the history of the nation.
Today, he is set to prove once again that his way is the only way, voters who disagree be damned. Despite strong anti-Obama sentiment in the town right now over his politicization of mass killings a week ago, he is on his way to Roseburg, Ore.
As Howard Portnoy wrote earlier this week, it’s not as though the president didn’t receive advance warning that he was not welcome. And that sentiment has since been voiced by numerous residents. Michelle Finn, who grew up in Roseburg and attended Umpqua Community College, had this to say:
My family, my friends, everybody down here is not happy about him coming. He already says he’s going to politicize this — he’s already going to push his agenda. And if he knew Roseburg and Douglas County, he’d know these are the wrong people to be doing that with
According to local police there will be at least two protests. One even set up a Facebook page for the 8,100 who have committed to attending.
Another post about Friday’s protest explains:
To us, they are fellow Americans who deserve our love, our support, and our defense. To Obama, they are nothing but a quick stop and photo on the way to a party with Jamie Foxx, where attendance costs $10,000 per person. They are an easy poster child for his agenda of criminalizing gun owners and removing the one obstacle left between the federal government and their dream of total control. To Obama, their dead loved ones were an opportunity. To us, they were Americans.
Today, America says no in Roseburg. They will not be your pawn. Those who died were more than just members of Roseburg and the surrounding area. They were citizens of the greatest country on earth. They were men and women descended from a generation who once pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to ensure liberty. They were our countrymen, and we will not allow you to use them or their deaths for your own ends.
We are finished being shushed out of “respect for the families.” We will not be shamed into another silence. Americans are not subjects, they are not pawns. They are people who possess the inherent right to defend themselves against evil, against those who would harm them, against those who would exploit them and their families in a time of grief. We will stand with them—and if we have to, we will stand forthem.
The White House says Obama will meet privately with victims’ families. His official schedule shows no indication that he will appear in public and talk about gun control. But that doesn’t mean he won’t.
Whether he does or not, he should respect the wishes of those who don’t want him. Whether it is because they are grieving or angry over his comments or some combination of the two, he should shelve his ego at least this one time and stay home.
The video below is from a local news report about Friday’s protests:
Cross-posted at The Lid
