Trump is fond of complaining that no politician in history has been treated worse or more unfairly than he has. Yet, a quick review of the attacks on Obama tell a completely different story.
“No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.” ~ Trump presenting the commencement speech at the Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut, May 17, 2017
“I love Donald Trump. He’s become a victim. And he’s being bullied.” ~ GOP megadonor and philanthropist, Foster Friess, speaking to CNBC, August 18, 2017
Trump, his administration, family, and supporters like to paint him as the most picked on politician in the history of the world. However, as the data below shows, Obama is the United States President in history who has had the most false and malicious rumors spread about him.
As ABC News reported last year at the height of the 2016 campaign, Trump himself perpetuated the “birther” movement for years.
As Timothy Egan of The New York Times reported in a 2015 Op/Ed piece,
From the day he took office, his legitimacy has been challenged, his American birth has been suspect, and he’s been personally insulted, lectured, yelled at and disrespected in public, by public figures, in a way that few if any American presidents have ever faced.
Liberals Unite has collected a few examples of the hostility directed against Obama over the years.
Newt Gingrich
Back in September 2010, Newt Gingrich told National Review that President Obama may follow a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview, asking:
What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh has made numerous racially offensive remarks about the President to include stating that Obama is “able to turn on that Negro dialect whenever he wants to.” Referring to a 2007 video of Obama talking about race relations, Limbaugh also stated:
And we got the trumped up black accent like down in Selma. And we’re gonna go back and relive all that. Hillary, “I ain’t no ways tired.” Gonna go back and relive all of it. That southern-fried accent that Obama put on before the black ministers, was he raised in the southern part of Hawaii? Where did he pick that accent up? I’ve been to Hawaii. I’ve never heard that accent over there. I’ve been to Hawaii a lot, in fact. His accent got so strong, I half expected him to tell the audience that he wasn’t no ways tired when he was going on and on about this. But I guess that’s what happens when you’ve been born somewhere close to Selma.
Group Attacks
There are also examples of times that more than one person came together to attack Obama, such as the time that Sarah Palin, Senator Ted Cruz, and Senator Mike Lee joined a couple hundred protestors in Washington, DC to protest President Obama’s closing down the WWII Memorial (while pretending they had nothing to do with the government shutdown). These protestors then marched to the White House, where they carried a Confederate flag and demanded “the President leave town, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to come out with his hands up.”
Something is going down at the White House today… pic.twitter.com/ThxvQBJa9Y
— Aaron Takahashi (@TakaHashtag) October 13, 2013
State Officials
Examples of racism directed at Obama flourished during campaign cycles; and, as Slate reported in 2012,
“[V]ery often you’ll have local, state, and sometimes national officials exposed for explicit racism. It seems like it has become a monthly occurrence that an elected Republican either forwards some horrible racist chain email about President Obama or makes some horrible racist off-the-cuff remark. (For a few examples of this from the past year, see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)
In a stunning example, Jennifer Olsen, chairwoman of the Yellowstone County Republicans and a prominent tea party organizer in Montana, published the following photo on her Facebook page in February of 2013 according to MontanaFesto.
False Allegations Regarding Obama Records Being Sealed
Several false allegations/myths have plagued Obama for years regarding his college records, Selective Service registration, his medical records, Senate records, and records from his law practice.
Below are a couple of examples of the reality behind those false allegations:
Myth: Obama’s thesis paper is sealed
Reality: Obama did not actually write the kind of ‘thesis’ that some universities require for graduation, and, accordingly, there are none on file. Obama did write a ‘thesis’ about nuclear disarmament for an honors course his senior year, but reporters have already been told that Obama did not keep a copy; and, as reported by Snopes back in 2008, Columbia had not retained a copy either. NBC News contacted Professor Michael Baron, his former professor back in 2008, but he advised he thought it had been tossed out during a move he made back in 2000.
Myth: Obama’s Selective Service Registration is sealed
Reality: This myth is actually pretty moot since there has not been a draft in the United States since 1972, the year Obama turned 11. Nevertheless, Obama’s Selective Service registration is public. His registration number is 61-1125539-1 and was registered by Obama on September 4, 1980 as confirmed by the Selective Service Administration and has been posted publicly.
Public Defense of Obama
Things got so bad that several public figures came to Obama’s defense during his presidency.
We can talk about baseball. Talk about politics. Sure, this country has a black president, but when you look at a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from all of the Republicans with the way he’s treated.
We have moved in the right direction, and there have been improvements, but we still have a long ways to go in the country.
The bigger difference is that back then they had hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts.
It’s really almost criminal what they do with our President. There seems to be no shame or anything. They call him all kinds of names all day long, saying he’s doing certain things that he’s not. It’s just a big old political game that I don’t want to be part of. There are people spending their lives putting him down. I’m sure some of it’s true and some of it’s not. I was very surprised to find the man very humble and he had a nice handshake. His wife was very cordial to the guests and especially me. They made a special effort to make me feel welcome. It was not at all the way the media described him to be.
It got so bad, even some Republicans spoke out on Obama’s behalf, such as Colin Powell:
There’s also a dark — a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the [Republican] party. What do I mean by that? I mean by that that they still sort of look down on minorities. How can I evidence that?
When I see a former governor say that the President is “shuckin’ and jivin’,” that’s racial era slave term. When I see another former governor, after the president’s first debate where he didn’t do very well, says that the president was lazy. He didn’t say he was slow. He was tired. He didn’t do well. He said he was lazy. Now, it may not mean anything to most Americans, but to those of us who are African Americans, the second word is shiftless and then there’s a third word that goes along with that. The birther, the whole birther movement. Why do senior Republican leaders tolerate this kind of discussion within the party?
So no, say what you want, Trumpsters – Trump is not the most picked on president in history – that place is being held by Barack Obama.
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