OPINION:
The problem with the Republican Party, said former President Barack Obama, in The Atlantic, is “the attitudes of the base” — meaning, the conservatives who don’t live in and around the political bubbles of Washington, D.C., and who don’t travel in the liberal elitist circles of select spots in California and the East Coast.
In other words, Republicans who cave to Democrats — good. Conservatives who insist on the Constitution — problematic.
It’s Hillary Clinton’s baskets full of deplorables all over again.
Only this time, Obama completes the image of conservatives as stupid by explaining that it’s not so much the fault of the poor, ignorant people as it is the fault of the “right-wing media.”
As if conservatives are too stupid to think for themselves.
“I’ve said this before,” Obama told The Atlantic. “The problem facing the Republican Party, the conservative movement, whatever you want to call it, goes back to the attitudes of the base — attitudes that have been shaped by right-wing media. And so essentially what Republican elected officials have done is to say to themselves that in order to survive, we have to go along with conspiracy theorizing, false assertion, fantasies that Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh and others in that echo chamber have concocted, because people believe them.”
Hubris. No matter how you slice it, this is yet another example of snobbish leftism on display, the ugly attitude that says, “if you’re not with me, then it’s because you’re too stupid to see clearly.”
Thing is, the Barack Obama way of governing — the Democratic Party way of regarding America — is not the Founding Father way. It’s the conservatives of the country, and in particular, the conservatives who make up the Republican Party’s base, who see government as a tool to uphold the rights that are already granted the individuals from God. And that’s the attitude upon which this nation was formed.
It’s the “attitudes of the base” in the conservative movement who more than anyone else represent America, and the best that America has to offer.
That Obama dismisses this base as ignorant — as nonthinking sheep herded toward nonthinking policy by an equally nonthinking “right-wing media” — is not surprising. He’s part of the elitist circle of politicians who believe they’re the rightful rulers of Earth. But it is offensive. It is highly arrogant and patently condescending, and truth be told, those are the traits all the left’s political leaders share. They all have those characteristics in common. They’re blinded by arrogance, deafened by their own holier-than-thou proclamations, deceived by their own secular intelligence.
And that’s the problem facing the Democratic Party.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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