If there’s one person on Team Obama who had trouble coping with the fact that the country decided to elect a man who is the diametric opposite of his boss, it’s Ben Rhodes. Rhodes, who served as Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting, was the Obama’s mouthpiece for his foreign policy agenda. From Syria to the shoddy Iran nuclear deal, there was Rhodes crafting the Obama White House’s narrative to be sold to the American public.
Since the 2016 election, Rhodes has taken to his Twitter account to criticize Trump’s foreign policy, mostly because the 45thpresident is everything that Obama is not in this field. Trump doesn’t dither. He doesn’t make promises and can’t back them up, which was an appalling aspect of Obama’s foreign policy—and I think the people of Syria would agree. Rhodes does not like the fact that Trump calls what some things are in the world, like “radical Islamic terrorism,” saying it alienates Muslim allies and emboldens our enemies. He said the more Trump taunts North Korea, the less of a chance there is for a diplomatic solution; North Korea agreed to denuclearization and a renewed peace agreement, though the proposed talks in Singapore next month have hit a bump with the president signaling our withdrawal from the summit. Yet, we’re still sending a diplomatic team to the city-state. He said Iran was complying with the nuclear agreement—wrong.
Ben Rhodes reacting to Hillary Clinton's hilarious defeat in 2016 is the funniest part of the new Obama Documentary on HBO.
— The Columbia Bugle ???? (@ColumbiaBugle) May 30, 2018
What makes it even better is throughout the documentary he brags how she is going to win. pic.twitter.com/MGBQNE5ATY
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In HBO’s latest documentary, The Final Year, which highlights the Obama administration final months in power, Rhodes is captured grappling with the 2016 results. He’s perplexed. For a man who was the president’s mouth on foreign policy, he’s at a loss for words. He cannot articulate any of his opinions. He’s totally awe-struck that Donald J. Trump has beaten Hillary Clinton. He tells the cameras he’s outside trying to process the end of the Obama era and the beginning of what will become the Trump presidency. It’s the encapsulation of how every liberal felt that night. It was a sledgehammer to the face, the delicious reminder that demography is not destiny, that working class voters matter, that rural America mattered, and that liberals do not have a monopoly on the reign of power in this country. Trump allowed the Right to deliver a devastating uppercut to liberal America, a much-needed humbling for a segment of the nation that is still insufferably condescending towards those who don’t live in cities, have college degrees, or think that being woke is some form of achievement. We win and you lose. That’s the end of the story—and his face represents that feeling. You lost, bro. Now pack up your stuff and get out.
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