Piscataway, NJ – President Barack Obama on Sunday urged college graduates to shun those who want to confront a rapidly changing world by building walls around the United States or by embracing ignorance, as he delivered a sharp and barely concealed critique of Donald Trump.
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Obama used his commencement speech at Rutgers University to illustrate a world view antithetical to the ideas espoused by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Looking out at a sea of red and black gowns, Obama told the roughly 12,000 graduating students that the pace of change on the planet is accelerating, not subsiding, and that recent history had proved that the toughest challenges cannot be solved in isolation.
“A wall won’t stop that,” Obama said, bringing to mind Trump’s call for building a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. “The point is, to help ourselves, we’ve got to help others — not pull up the drawbridge and try to keep the world out.”
The president never mentioned Trump by name, but his intended target seemed clear. Repeatedly, Obama referred to disparaging comments about Muslims and immigrants, and opposition to free trade deals. But he appeared most incensed by what he described as a rejection of facts, science and intellectualism that he said was pervading politics.
“In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue,” Obama said. “It’s not cool to not know what you’re talking about. That’s not keeping it real or telling it like it is. That’s not challenging political correctness. That’s just not knowing what you’re talking about,” the president said.
“And yet, we’ve become confused about this,” he continued, warning that the rejection of facts and science would lead the U.S. on a path of decline.
Obama’s rebuke came as Trump is close to clinching the GOP nomination, raising the prospect that November’s election could portend a reversal of Obama’s policies and approach to governing. In recent days, Trump has started focusing on the general election while working to unite a fractured Republican Party around his candidacy. Democrats are readying for a fight against a reality TV host they never anticipated would make it this far.
Obama has mostly steered clear as Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders compete for the nomination. But he has used speeches such the Rutgers address to lay out themes that Democrats may ultimately use as they work to deny Trump the White House.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who ran against Trump for the GOP nomination, has since endorsed him and become one of his most vocal surrogates. Christie didn’t attend the president’s speech at Rutgers, instead spending the day at nearby Princeton University for his son’s baseball game in the Ivy League championship.
In his speech, Obama told graduates that when they hear people wax nostalgic about the “good old days” in America, they should “take it with a grain of salt.”
“Guess what? It ain’t so,” the president said, rattling off a list of measures by which life is better in the U.S. than in decades past.
Some 50,000 students and their families packed High Point Solution Stadium for the ceremony, the first at Rutgers to involve a sitting president. The public university’s leaders lobbied the president for years to come to campus for the school’s 250th anniversary.
Sunday’s address was the second of three commencement speeches that Obama will deliver during his final graduation season as president. Earlier in May, Obama echoed similar themes about progress in the U.S. when he spoke at historically black Howard University in Washington. The president will also speak on June 2 at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The university also bestowed an honorary law degree on the president, adding to the half-dozen or so other honorary degrees that the Columbia and Harvard Law School graduate has received.
Obama is the best !
So, the King says, “The point is, to help ourselves, we’ve got to help others — not pull up the drawbridge and try to keep the world out.” – I’m waiting for him to give away everything he owns “to help others” so that “he helps himself”-Foolish Stupidity! Obama and Bernie could have a “Dumb and Dumber” discussion!
Let’s see, so for example, to lower health insurance costs, we should “help others” by giving it away, and that would lower overall costs and “help ourselves”..Yup, that worked really well.
And we should ‘open the borders’, and be ‘helping others’, and then we will be ‘helping ourselves’… And there’s a bridge in Brooklyn!
Amazing, the stupidity that emanates from his majesty’s mouth!
the wall won’t solve all problems, but it helped cut down terrorist infiltration in Israel and it will help cut down on Mexican drugs and illegals infiltration from Mexico. (However the Mexicans like people in Gaza are becoming adept at building tunnels)
Ah ferd blabt ah ferd!
How many days are left of the Obama presidency? When will this traitor and America-hater will finally go away?
You are a brilliant person she can use you!
Walls may not solve the world’s ills. But Democrats won’t either. Thus far, I fear even the Republicans, because the damage inflicted by Obama, Hillary and Kerry, as well as many other members of the administrations from both terms is so serious that I am skeptical whether repair is even possible. I wish only yisurim of the worst kind on all those that have done this damage.
What a nerve this bloated egomaniac has, after nearly sinking America with the worst presidency in history, having been elected mostly because of the color of his skin (much like Hilary’s only claim to fame is her gender; she certainly has accomplished nothing during her time as senator and sect of state), he dares rebuke Trump?! He’s terrified of Trump who will have much work to do to fix all the damage his predecessor will have left behind!
Obama’s just trying to get the last laugh as his walls of “progression” that destroyed America for the past eight years are being torn down. Pathetic.
We desperately need a CHANGE. Build the wall.