Listeners and attendees took to social media saying Obama was denouncing tactics alike President Trump.
In a speech at The National Museum of African American History and Culture, Former President Barack Obama denounced fear-mongering tactics — tactics some are comparing to that of President Tump.
“Leaders who feed fear, typically, are also ones who avoid facts,” Obama said.
At the event to celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of famed South African leader Nelson Mandela, Obama widened his criticism from the previously interpreted direct hit on his predecessor.
Barack Obama: "Leaders who feed fear typically are also ones who avoid facts."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 28, 2019
Via The Hill pic.twitter.com/bCCvcg0v5Q
“There is always a struggle between hope and fear, between the world as it is, and how we’d like it to be,” Obama continued. “During times of tumult and disruption — whether it’s technological, economic, information, migration — the danger of us resorting to fear, to organize ourselves by falling back on tribe, race, ethnicity, sectarian lines, that always becomes stronger."
Obama also tied economic uncertainty to the rise of Trump and leaders like him.
“That’s been true in this country, you can actually track that when the economy is doing better, typically our politics is less divided. It gets more divided when people are feeling insecure and anxious.
It’s true in South Africa, it’s true everywhere," Obama said. "The good news is that fear is typically the province of the old. And hope is the province of the young.”
Barack Obama: "There is always a struggle between hope and fear, between the world as it is and how we'd like it to be... The good news is that fear is typically the province of the old. And hope is the province of the young."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 28, 2019
Via The Hill pic.twitter.com/Ivokw9BWlT
This is not the first time Obama has made statements taken to be criticisms of Trump and the factors that led to his rise to power.
"It did not start with Donald Trump, he is a symptom, not the cause,” Obama told a group of students in Illinois, leading up to the 2018 primaries, according to CNN. “He is just capitalizing on resentment that politicians have been fanning for years. A fear, an anger, that is rooted in our past but is also borne in our enormous upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes.”
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