Thread by @JohnJHarwood

ripping 2019 Dems for exalting “them” not “us”, Stephens writes:

“Obama’s political genius was to emphasize ‘common-humanity identity politics’ - made you feel comfortable no matter the color of your skin”

did i miss recognition of this genius back then? nytimes.com/2019/06/28/opi…

because what i remember was conversatives similarly lamenting that Obama was an identity-politics leftist who couldn’t/wouldn’t appeal to all Americans the way centrist Bill Clinton did

Bret on Obama 2015:

“pre­pared to em­brace Muslim Brother as pres­i­dent of Egypt but arm’s-length w/pro-Amer­i­can suc­cessor. no prob­lem keep­ing com­pany w/Al Sharp­ton & tag­ging Amer­i­can po­lice de­pt as racist but adamant that Islamic & ter­ror­ism never be con­joined”

from Bret’s same column in WSJ:

“To adapt George Or­well’s motto for Ocea­nia: Un­der Mr. Obama, friends are en­e­mies, de­nial is wis­dom, ca­pit­u­la­tion is vic­tory.”

headline: “The Orwellian Obama Presidency”