If anyone's been unshackled in the last several days, it's President Obama. Here's a glimpse of his Thursday night rally in Ohio from Sahil Kapur:
“The problem is not that all Republicans think the way this guy does. The problem is that they’ve been riding this tiger for a long time. They’ve been feeding their base all kinds of crazy for years, primarily for political expedience.”
Obama's new take on the Republican “swamp of crazy” that has led to Donald Trump's ascension may seem obvious to most progressives, who have watched the GOP dumb down its voters for decades. But it signifies a new phase of this campaign. The president’s widely praised convention speech made the purposeful case that Trump was a three-headed freak show with little relation to conservatism. But that was when Democrats were trolling for votes in a sea of squeamish, if not repulsed, conservative voters.
Now that a clearer path to a Democratic White House has emerged, the president has taken more of "let me tell how I really feel" approach to the campaign trail.
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Greg Sargent writes:
Obama accused Republicans of relentlessly feeding a “swamp of crazy,” adding that they looked the other way while many base voters descended into delusions about Obama himself (birtherism) and about his presidency (claiming he founded ISIS and wanted to take away everyone’s guns).
Obama noted that GOP lawmakers had a choice — they could have differed with him on the issues while simultaneously telling their voters a more balanced story about the Obama years. Instead, Obama suggested, they decided it was their interests to keep the base as riled up as possible, so they looked the other way while the conspiracy-mongering took deep root.
He’s also admonishing GOP candidates like Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, currently leading his Senate race against Ted Strickland, who "stood by" while this toxic brew percolated. The implicit message to voters: It's not good enough to split your ticket. If you can't vote for Trump, you can't vote for the people who made Trump possible. They are one in the same.
Obama pounded home the point again at another Ohio rally Friday.