Remember in 2008 when Barack Obama was running for president, and many of his acolytes predicted he would usher in a “post-race” world in this country?
Yeah, well, not so much.
That didn’t happen as he constantly stirred up racial controversies, and eight years later left the nation far more divided than when he arrived. On Thursday, he was up to his same old tricks and obsessing over the Reconstruction Era, the post-Civil War timeframe when our war-torn republic worked to reintegrate Confederate states and establish a legal framework for newly freed slaves.
For those doing the math at home, it ended 149 years ago.
He wasn’t just talking history with author Malcolm Gladwell on the Obamas’ Higher Ground podcast Thursday, however (which he has every right to do), but he also went out of his way to trash Vice President JD Vance in unusually personal and patently obnoxious ways. Like a good Democrat, he managed to weave in some Nazi terminology to effectively paint the VP as a Gestapo sympathizer and a racist:
"We have a politics now that at least one of our major parties has been captured by politics that is not that subtle about suggesting that 'We the people' means a certain kind of people," Obama said. "When you have the vice president, current vice president, making a speech that is basically a blood and soil version of 'We the people,' that it matters who your parents were and how long they've been here despite him being married to a daughter of an immigrant himself."
He was referring to Vance’s 2025 speech at the Claremont Institute’s 2025 Statesmanship Award dinner where the VP said, “America is not just an idea. We’re a particular place, with a particular people, and a particular set of beliefs and way of life.”
Nowhere did he mention Adolf Hitler or the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, commonly referred to as "Nazis." Note the word "socialist" in the name next time someone tells you the Democratic Socialists of America [DSA] are harmless.)
Blood and soil (Blut und Boden in German), however, is a nationalist, racially defined ideology linking a person's “blood” (ancestry) to the “soil” (territory) of a nation and became a central point in Hitler’s hateful Third Reich racial purity theories. Not even pretending to be subtle there, are you, Barack? You're just fine with spitting out hateful rhetoric like that when nothing Vance said would justify it?
Of course, Obama sold it to the public as just a little ole history discussion:
The arguments we’re having today aren’t new. In fact, we were having many of the same ones more than 150 years ago during Reconstruction.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 16, 2026
I recently sat down with Malcolm Gladwell to reflect on this pivotal time in our nation’s history, and the work that remains. Check out our… pic.twitter.com/Or7n8GSNGe
The arguments we’re having today aren’t new. In fact, we were having many of the same ones more than 150 years ago during Reconstruction. I recently sat down with Malcolm Gladwell to reflect on this pivotal time in our nation’s history, and the work that remains. Check out our conversation: http://youtube.com/watch?v=kke-VEOBeEw
MORE: The Obamas and Hillary Clinton Show Just How Petty They Are With Remarks at Obama Center Ceremony
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Remember the name of Barack and Michelle’s production company, which put on the podcast: the desperately virtue-signaling titled “Higher Ground.” Is this the Higher Ground of which you speak, Mr. Obama?
Not satisfied with the incendiary rhetoric he’d dropped so far, the former president decided it was time to get personal, because that’s just how Mr. Higher Ground rolls.
Gladwell went on to accuse Vance of "hypocrisy" for attempting to make a "nativist argument" while being married to Usha Vance, the daughter of Indian immigrants. Obama agreed that Vance was a hypocrite but conceded that it was progress compared to a century prior.
"That is progress. Listen, hypocrisy is progress. It is, because it means that you feel guilty enough to either lie to yourself or others. And that is better than not even thinking about the idea that maybe you’re doing something wrong," Obama said.
As the husband of a legal immigrant, I find it deeply insulting that Obama thinks it’s hypocritical for Vance to believe in strong borders and tough illegal immigration policies because he is married to the daughter of immigrants. You, your spouse, or your ancestors may have immigrated here, but you can still believe in law and order.
I thought I was disgusted enough by those flamethrowing comments, but he had one more huge whopper to drop. A president’s pick for vice president can tell you a lot about him or her, he opined:
"When a presidential candidate chooses a running mate, it says a lot about who they are and what kind of president they'll be. Do they pick someone inexperienced and polarizing who will deepen our divisions?" Obama asked. "Or do they pick someone with the judgment to make tough decisions, and the character to believe that every voice counts and everyone deserves an equal chance?"
It was almost like a comedy routine. The man who unleashed forgotten old Joe Biden back into the political arena is lecturing us about vice presidents?! Biden was a gaffe machine during his eight years as VP and then went on to become the worst president in the modern era.
Thanks, Barry. You were not that "hope and change" so many bamboozled folks voted for.
Why won’t this guy just go away already?
