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Barack Obama Quotes

Browse 59 quotes about Barack Obama.

Barack Obama Quotes

“Not to dampen any parade, but if one asks if there is a single thing about Mr. Obama's Senate record, or state legislature record, or current program, that could possibly justify his claim to the presidency one gets ... what? Not much. Similarly lightweight unqualified 'white' candidates have overcome this objection, to be sure, but what kind of standard is that?”

United StatesBarack Obama2008United States Elections 2008United States Senate
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“Many thought of the election of Barack Obama, not as the end of racism, but certainly as a turning point. And it was. But for many, President Obama's election was a turning point in a different direction. It spurred a backlash among white supremacists invested in maintaining the status quo. It can be no coincidence that the carnage of the Voting Rights Act so central to the Shelby decision occurred during the presidency of our first-ever Black president. It is no coincidence that in the decade since Obama's election, voter suppression has gained more momentum, velocity, and animosity than it had in the previous three elections combined. Since Shelby County v. Holder, voter suppression has taken on more pervasive and pernicious forms than ever before.”

VotingAfrican AmericansBlacksElectionsPresidentsBarack ObamaVoter Suppression
Book:Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
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“New Rule: Stop talking about "the gas prices under Obama." As if he's the guy out there changing the numbers on the sign with that long pole. And while they're at the gas station, Republicans who still think human activity doesn't affect air quality should poke their heads in the men's room.”

HumorOilGasObamaGas PricesBarack Obama
Book:The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody but Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass
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“The dismaying truth is that birtherism is part of a larger pattern of rejection of reality that has taken hold of intimidating segments of one of the two political parties that alternate in power in our governing institutions. It is akin to the view that global warming is a hoax, or that the budget can be balanced through spending cuts alone, or that contraception causes abortion, or that evolution is just another theory, on a par with the theory that the earth is six thousand years old.”

RealityPoliticsEvolutionAbortionGlobal WarmingBeliefsPolitical PartiesRepublicansContraceptionBarack ObamaTheoriesBudgetBirtherism
Author:Hendrik Hertzberg
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“Goddamn, so this is what it means to have a leader You despise, the racists said when the president Was black and I’ll be damned if I ain’t saying it too. Is this a mandate for whiteness, virility, sovereignty, Stupidity, an idiot’s threats & gangsta narcissisms threading Every shabby sentence his trumpet constructs?”

HateStupidityNarcissismMasculinityAfrican AmericansBlacksRace RelationsWhitesDonald TrumpBarack Obama
Book:American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
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“[W]hat possible purpose does this lashing-out serve? Will activists be shamed into recovering their previous enthusiasm? Will Republicans stop their vicious attacks because Obama is lashing out to his left? It was pure self-indulgence; even if he feels aggrieved, he has to judge his words by their usefulness, not by his desire to vent. This isn't about him.”

ActivismCompromiseLiberalismLeftismBarack Obama2010Republican Party United StatesBush Tax Cuts
Author:Paul Krugman
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