Politics

Obama conscripts Mandela to revive his fading progressive cause

Neil Munro White House Correspondent
Font Size:

President Barack Obama wrapped himself in Nelson’s Mandela’s mythical reputation today as he used the media-magnified memorial service to jab at the GOP and to praise his own progressive ideology.

“There are too many people who happily embrace [Mandela’s] legacy of racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality,” he said, without mentioning GOP House Speaker John Boehner by name.

Through his peroration, Obama declared that Mandela’s political choices are relevant to other countries, including the United States.

And he shielded his own progressive agenda with Mandela’s saint-like reputation.

“Regardless of our station or our circumstance, we must ask:  How well have I applied his lessons in my own life?  It’s a question I ask myself, as a man and as a President,” Obama told the rain-soaked crowd in Johannesburg.

“In America… our work is not yet done,” he said.

“We still see children suffering from hunger and disease.  We still see run-down schools.  We still see young people without prospects for the future,” according to Obama, who has presided over a slow-growing economy in which nearly all the gains have gone to his political allies in the top 1 percent income-bracket.

“Around the world today, men and women are… still persecuted for what they look like, and how they worship, and who they love, “ he said.

Obama frequently used the informal name, “Madiba,” for Mandela, and portrayed him as a post-religious saint whose life should be taught to children.

“It’s tempting I think to remember Nelson Mandela as an icon, smiling and serene, detached from the tawdry affairs of lesser men… ‘I am not a saint,’ he said, ‘unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying,’” Obama pronounced.

“Let me say to the young people of Africa and the young people around the world — you, too, can make his life’s work your own,” he pleaded in his speech, which will likely be shown to millions of students at American schools.

“Over 30 years ago, while still a student, I learned of Nelson Mandela and the struggles taking place in this beautiful land… [They] woke me up to my responsibilities to others and to myself, and it set me on an improbable journey that finds me here today.”

Obama’s support among young people has recently crashed, partly because of the stalled economy, but also because of his “you can keep your plan” lie about Obamacare.

The speech included slightly-cloaked jabs at the GOP, whose discordant coalition of social-conservatives, libertarians and business lobbyists has stymied Obama’s congressional agenda after 2010.

He even hinted that the American people are somehow culpable for not supporting his failing agenda or for not boosting his dropping poll ratings.

“There are too many of us on the sidelines, comfortable in complacency or cynicism when our voices must be heard,” he said.

“Let us search for his largeness of spirit somewhere inside of ourselves,” he lectured his listeners.

“ And when the night grows dark, when injustice weighs heavy on our hearts, when our best-laid plans seem beyond our reach, let us think of Madiba and the words that brought him comfort within the four walls of his cell:  ‘It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.’”

Follow Neil on Twitter

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel