AWKWARD! Remember All Those Times Obama Blasted Our ‘Rigged’ System

For several weeks, Donald Trump has been warning that the 2016 presidential elections could be “rigged.” Despite significant criticism from some Republicans and many Democrats, he continued that line of attack in his first major ad release of the general election.

The “rigged” claim is common on both sides of the aisle — and sometimes it’s even accurate, like the e-mail scandal that proved the Democratic National Committee intentionally set up the Democratic presidential primary for Hillary Clinton. Likewise, President Barack Obama may have won re-election in 2012 thanks to his IRS’ targeting of Tea Party activists.

Democrats used similar terms language quite judiciously after the 2000 election, and apparently in the mind of Secretary of State John Kerry, he lost the 2004 election thanks to voter fraud.

Whether Trump is serious about his rigging claim or not, it’s certainly a valid concern in light his opponent’s e-mail scandals and Clinton Foundation donor questions. Most people would be in jail but Clinton is well on her way to victory in November, helped by Obama himself.

Indeed, according to Obama, on August 4 that Trump’s claims about a “rigged” 2016 election, especially in Pennsylvania, are “ridiculous.”

“If Mr Trump is suggesting a conspiracy theory that is being propagated across the country … that’s ridiculous,” the president said. “It doesn’t make sense and I don’t think anyone would take that seriously.”

The New York Times apparently agrees, as does a prominent Vanity Fair writer and several other leading voices. They’ve all declared cries of rigged elections to be outside the bounds of decent speech.

But that wasn’t the case when it was convenient for the current resident of the White House. As highlighted in a neat montage by Grabien, the same man who describes rigging of an election to be “ridiculous” once decried advantages given to a special few with regards to income and power in politics. Obama also decried “massive campaign checks,” people being “pushed away from participating in our system,” and more.

Perhaps the greatest example of Obama’s hypocrisy is his attack on the U.S. Supreme Court at the 2010 State of the Union address. Obama warned that “foreign enemies” might be able to buy domestic influence — ironically some of the same concerns conservatives have today as Saudi Arabia and other nations have contributed millions to the Clinton Foundation.

Six-and-a-half years ago, Obama was concerned about corruption in politics caused by money. Yet today, he considers such concerns to be inappropriate. To quote his former adviser David Axelrod in the Grabien clip, “the delegitimization of our institutions” by Trump is “dangerous.”

But sometimes institutions need to be attacked. Axelrod said “it is a very irresponsible thing to” delegitimize “the investigative justice system,” but what are self-serving candidates and actual patriots supposed to do when the FBI allows Clinton to skate free, possibly right into the White House?

In reality, the solution to concerns by Trump today and 2010’s Obama is the same: Reduce the power of politics and politicians.

As Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas (A, 97%) pointed out two years ago, so-called “campaign finance reform” is a big weapon that both parties use to help their allies and to keep themselves in power. And right now, that’s what our system of politics incentivizes — politicians getting re-elected, and corporations, unions, and others using re-election to grease the proverbial skids.

If both parties were serious about really reducing the rigging of power, they would keep the U.S. federal government within the limits of the U.S. Constitution.

Once this happens, what incentive is there to buy an election? The politicians cannot help the special interests, and the politicians themselves would find far less value in elected office.

Is the system rigged against the non-rich? Yup. But that’s mostly thanks to bipartisan liberal policies like bank bailouts, auto bailouts, tax loopholes, corporate subsidies, and special interests like the pre-2015 Donald Trump. (For more from the author of “AWKWARD! Remember All Those Times Obama Blasted Our ‘Rigged’ System” please click HERE)

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