Both George W. Bush and Obama has spoken out against Trump in recent speeches: https://s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/?e=a3Muc3dlZWxleUBnbWFpbC5jb20=&s=59e9e2a8fe1ff6159ed370bd
George W. Bush has stayed out of the political fray for nine years now, and Barack Obama has kept his head down for the past nine months. On Thursday, both former presidents used major speeches to repudiate President Trumps brand of politics and approach to the world.
Neither mentioned Trump by name. They didnt need to. Instead, they preached patriotic sermons that appealed to Americas better angels.
Obama appeared here last night for his first campaign rally since leaving office, stumping for Democrat Ralph Northam ahead of next months Virginia governors race.
Youll notice I havent been commenting on politics a lot lately, but heres one thing I know: If you have to win a campaign by dividing people, youre not going to be able to govern. You wont be able to unite them later if thats how you start, he [Obama] told 7,500 people at the Richmond convention center. Weve got folks who are deliberately trying to make folks angry, to demonize people who have different ideas, to get the base all riled up because it provides a short-term tactical advantage.
At a George W. Bush Institute event in New York earlier in the day, the former Republican president lamented that discontent has deepened and partisan conflict has sharpened. Bigotry seems emboldened, Bush said. Our politics seem more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication.
Weve seen nationalism distorted into nativism forgetting the dynamism that immigration has always brought to America, the 43rd president added. We see a fading confidence in the value of free markets and international trade forgetting that conflict, instability, and poverty follow in the wake of protectionism. We have seen the return of isolationist sentiments forgetting that American security is directly threatened by the chaos and despair of distant places, where threats such as terrorism, infectious disease, criminal gangs and drug trafficking tend to emerge. In all these ways, we need to recall and recover our own identity.
Bush spoke for 15 minutes; Obama spoke for 34. Their speeches are especially potent when read together as a bipartisan rebuke of the man who sits in the Oval Office they occupied, together, for the past 16 years. Trump relentlessly attacked Bush during last years GOP primaries blaming him for the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq war and a principal goal of his presidency thus far has been eviscerating Obamas legacy wherever possible, from health care to the environment and foreign policy.
Bush, who declined to vote for Trump last November, has alluded to many of these points before but never gone as far at least in public as he did yesterday. Obama, likewise, has mostly confided his criticism of Trump to tweets or statements sent by spokespeople.
-- Notably, both men chose the word CRUEL to describe the state of our politics.
Obama: Why are we deliberately trying to misunderstand each other and be cruel to each other and put each other down? Thats not who we are!
Bush: We have seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty. At times, it can seem like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together. Argument turns too easily into animosity. Disagreement escalates into dehumanization.
-- Each nodded to the violence in Charlottesville this summer.
Bush: Bigotry or white supremacy in any form is blasphemy against the American creed.
Obama: We saw what happened in Charlottesville. But we also saw what happened after Charlottesville, when the biggest gatherings of all rejected fear and hate.
-- Both drew a line back to the countrys founding and discussed the lessons they take from the Civil War.
Obama spoke to a heavily African American audience in what was once the capital of the Confederacy, near a street still lined with monuments to Confederate generals, a few blocks from the Museum of the Confederacy and not far from the Confederate White House where Jefferson Davis lived when he was the president of the states in rebellion. Last night, though, the streets of downtown were packed with winding lines of people trying to get a glimpse of our first black president.
Were all flawed, but we still try to presume some baseline measure of goodness and decency and patriotism. We look for the good in people, not the worst, Obama told the crowd. My father was from Kenya but my mother, you trace her lineage and Im an eighth or ninth or tenth or something cousin removed from Jefferson Davis Ill bet hes spinning in his grave!
Bush alluded to the conflict as a reason not to lose patience with fledgling democracies across the globe that have seen setbacks and retrenchments in recent years. He warned his audience to not underestimate the historical obstacles to the development of democratic institutions and a democratic culture. Such problems nearly destroyed our country and that should encourage a spirit of humility and a patience with others, he said.
-- Both presidents invoked Thomas Jefferson to make the case that America can do better:
Our identity as a nation unlike many other nations is not determined by geography or ethnicity, by soil or blood, said Bush. Being an American involves the embrace of high ideals and civic responsibility. We become the heirs of Thomas Jefferson by accepting the ideal of human dignity found in the Declaration of Independence.
We claim all of our history: the good and the bad, said Obama. We can acknowledge the fact that Thomas Jefferson owned and sold slaves, while also acknowledging that he wrote the words, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal We can recognize that, even if our past is not perfect, we can still honor the constitutional ideals that have allowed us to come this far and to keep moving toward a more perfect union.
-- Both former presidents closed their speeches by making the case against losing faith in democracy.
Bush called self-correction the secret strength of freedom: It is the great advantage of free societies that we creatively adapt to challenges, without the direction of some central authority. We are a nation with a history of resilience and a genius for renewal. The American spirit does not say, We shall manage, or We shall make the best of it. It says, We shall overcome. And that is exactly what we will do, with the help of God and one another.
Obama said that America zigs and zags, and that setbacks have often followed progress. Thats what our founders, for all their flaws, understood, he said. Our fate is in our own hands. That was the radical idea of America. That we decide our direction. Not some king. Not some despot. But us: the citizens. Our progress does not always go in a straight line. Sometimes we take two steps forward, and we might take a step back. (The founders) understood that too. But the idea of America is not about going backwards. Its about pushing forward.
Raising the stakes dramatically in what has been a sleepy gubernatorial contest, Obama sought to frame the Virginia election in 18 days as a referendum on the direction of the country. We need you to take this seriously because our democracy is at stake, and its at stake right here in Virginia, he said. You cant sit this one out. You are going to send a message all across this great country and all around the world of just what it is that America stands for.
