President Obama delivered a civics lesson Wednesday when he said he’s offended that Donald Trump’s rhetoric is being described as “populist,” and described his own view of what populism means.
“Maybe someone can pull up in a dictionary quickly the phrase populism, but I’m not prepared to concede the notion that some of the rhetoric that has been popping ” can be described as populism, he said. Obama said he sought the presidency in 2008 and 2012 “because I care about people, and I want to make sure everybody in America has the same opportunities that I have.”
But Obama said Trump is different.
“Somebody else who has never shown any regard for workers, has never fought on behalf of social justice issues … in fact have worked against economic opportunity for workers and ordinary people, they don’t suddenly become a populist because they say something controversial in order to win votes,” Obama said, swiping at Trump without naming him.
“That’s not the measure of populism. That’s nativism or xenophobia. Or worse,” he said. “Or it’s just cynicism.”
Obama was speaking at a press conference with Canadian Prime Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Nieto in Ottawa, Canada.
“This is one of the prerogatives of being at the end of your term; you can go on these occasional rants,” Obama said as he wound down, after interjecting right before the news conference was supposed to end.
“So I would just advise everyone to be careful about suddenly attributing to whoever pops up… that they’re ‘populist.’ Where have they been? Have they been on the front lines?” he asked.
Obama also backed up Nieto, who previously compared Trump’s speeches to those of Adolf Hitler and Italian autocrat Benito Mussolini.
“Enrique is right, sometimes there are simple solutions out there… but they’re rare,” Obama said. “There aren’t a lot of shortcuts.”
Nieto did not back away from the comparison when asked about it Wednesday.
He said the world saw in the last century the devastating effect when leaders resort to demagoguery to explain a tough or uncertain economy. The likes of Hitler and Mussolini “choose the easiest ways to solve the challenges of today’s world and things are not that simplistic as that,” Nieto said. “That was my message.”
