In a neat dichotomy that reveals where future national elections are headed, former President Barack Obama has restated his formulaic commitment to globalism as a video clip of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis sniping at the World Economic Forum is making the rounds on social media.
Obama appeared on Comedy Central’s Daily Show on Nov. 17 to regurgitate a shopworn spiel in defense of “globalization” that attempts to express empathy with those who have suffered greatly from its harmful effects. Behind the unconvincing rhetoric lies his real message: globalism will go on.
Talking Down to the Proles
“What you’ve seen happen, I think, in a whole bunch of places, is essentially a pushback, a backlash to change that is happening too fast for their comfort,” Obama stated. “And when people are pushing back against change, then they’re vulnerable to politicians who say, ‘You know what? I can make things just like it was back then, when you were feeling more important.’”
Get that, peons? Your discomfort with things like runaway inflation and massive unchecked illegal immigration threatens to make you want to retreat to a now-defunct world of stable and sovereign nation-states. And we can’t have that.
“I think we have to also find a language and a story – a way of telling the story about how we can get together that does not threaten people who are aren’t as comfortable with change as much. And that’s gonna be different for different countries.”
Yawn. Obama is as condescending as always, even when he is spouting cliches.
But while it’s easy to dismiss Obama as a tired voice with nothing new to say to the American people, he cannot yet be relegated to the past with the likes of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush for one glaring reason. The Biden administration, primarily staffed with his people, is occupying the White House.
Globalism and GOP Presidential Hopefuls
Contrast Obama’s insipid party-line verbiage with DeSantis, whose clout as a future presidential candidate, has risen substantially after the Nov. 8 midterm elections. In recent days, a short video clip of the governor has gone semi-viral on Twitter and other social media sites. In it, DeSantis offers a crisp swipe at the globalist mentality embodied by Obama.
Ron DeSantis (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
“I want to have the values not of Davos imposed on us but of places like Destin and Dunedin, where I grew up,” he says. “Things like the World Economic Forum, those policies are dead on arrival in the state of Florida. We are not going to go down that road.”
The words were actually uttered in August, but there is reason for them to draw extra attention after Nov. 8. DeSantis is now an undeniably formidable hopeful for the Republican presidential nomination, whether that be in 2024, where he would have to square off with former President Donald Trump in a primary battle, or 2028.
DeSantis has done almost everything right in getting the grassroots America First Republicans who elevated Trump into the Oval Office in 2016 to love him. For understandable reasons, one thing he has not done as yet is flesh out his foreign policy beliefs. After all, a state governor does not have to offer an unambiguous stance on the billions of federal dollars being sent to Ukraine. But a presidential candidate must.
This is why conservatives excited by DeSantis are embracing his WEF comments. It is why they were made in the first place as the governor begins to slowly roll out his foreign affairs agenda.
It’s another unmistakable sign that no Republican with presidential ambitions in today’s political climate can offer even the kind of rote defense of globalization that Obama dutifully recited. To do so would serve as a “disqualifying moment” (to borrow the scolding words of RINOs) in the eyes of a vast majority of grassroots party backers.
Obama, on the other hand, reflects another process that solidifies all the more with each passing day. The Democrat Party is assuming the mantle as the party of the establishment in America. While the Uniparty is still very much in existence, there is meaningful opposition to globalism in the GOP. Despite the hollowness of would-be progressive upstarts such as The Squad, this third Obama term under Joe Biden makes it clear that there is no real and effective pushback whatsoever among Democrats.
Barack Obama (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Barack Obama was thrust into the White House in the 2008 election on a mantle of hope and change. It is now 14 years later, and only the blindest of early supporters can fail to see how wholly tethered the man now is to the ruling elites he once claimed to want to challenge.
A cursory glance at the Obama Foundation says it all.
A contributors page on the foundation website has 163 donors listed in the $1,000,000+ category as of this writing. Large multinational corporations and leading financial heavyweights in the world of globalism abound. AT&T, Bill Gates, Goldman Sachs, Google, Nike, George Soros and even Saks Fifth Avenue are all there.
Ron DeSantis wants Republican voters to know he is adamantly opposed to the “values of Davos.” He won’t have to travel across the Atlantic to find them. They are right here, in force, today.
