In 2007, Todd Starnes was working at Fox News and covering then-Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
“I just felt like that was going to be the historic campaign, and it turned out to be,” says Starnes, a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio host.
The political climate facing America right now is in part due to the “residual after-effects of the Barack Obama presidency,” according to Starnes. The former Democratic senator from Illinois was president from 2009 to 2017.
“First, Obama categorized all of the [2008 GOP opponent Sen.] John McCain supporters … [as] the folks that cling to their guns and their religion,” Starnes said. “He called them ‘bitter’ Americans. He made those remarks in a speech in San Francisco. And then you had Hillary Clinton coming out and talking about the irredeemable ‘deplorables.’”
Starnes says both Obama and Clinton “were trying to dehumanize their opponents, their political opponents.”
Second, Starnes points to Obama’s pledge to “fundamentally” transform America.
Asked on “The Daily Signal Podcast” whether Obama succeeded in his mission to “fundamentally” change the nation, Starnes said, “Absolutely, and again, it’s a brilliant strategy,” going on to explain how the “transformation” occurred:
Everybody thought all these white liberals were going out and voting for Obama, thinking they were, you know, a part of the new civil rights movement. And even Obama himself promised to usher in this post-racial America. And in fact, it actually further divided the country, because Obama knew that if he really wanted to be impactful, he was going to have to ride that divide. And he did.
And quite frankly, not only was it not the post-racial presidency, I think it really reverted us back to even before the civil rights movement itself. I mean, race relations, I think, are in a pretty rough spot right now. And it’s really because of the policies of the Democrat Party. They want to keep us divided.
In his new book, “Twilight’s Last Gleaming: Can America Be Saved?” Starnes explains how America arrived at the political division it finds itself in right now, and just how much time he thinks the nation has to right its course before it’s too late.
Starnes joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain more.
Listen to the podcast below:
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