In March 2008, while still campaigning for his party’s nomination, Barack Obama said at a speech in, of all places, the City of Brotherly Love:
We have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division and conflict and cynicism…. That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, ‘Not this time.’
Ironically, he was addressing the controversy that had arisen over his black nationalist pastor and self-described “spiritual adviser” Jeremiah Wright, but the overall sentiment was one he expressed often. Earlier that year, Obama said after winning the Iowa caucus:
[T]he time has come to move beyond the bitterness and anger and pettiness that’s consumed Washington; to end the political strategy that’s been all about division.
Fast-forward to now and to an example of the type of leadership he had in mind:
Who will take home the title of #ChampionDenier? Vote now: http://t.co/hFWKz1uKEf pic.twitter.com/l8TGDshzIg
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 12, 2015
The topic in question is climate change, but you could substitute almost any other issue on which there is ideological division and you will find the same ridicule directed at the Republican caucus — the same “bitterness and anger and pettiness that’s consumed Washington.”
