Former President Barack Obama recently criticized the Republican Party for using "toxic" and "dangerous rhetoric" when talking about immigration and border security.
"Right now, the biggest fuel behind the Republican agenda is related to immigration and the fear that somehow America's character is going to be changed if, people of darker shades, there are too many of them here," Obama said during the L'Attitude conference in San Diego, California, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
"I wish I could be more euphemistic about it except [they're] not that subtle about it — they're just kind of saying it," he continued. "You hear it on hard-right media, you hear it from candidates and politicians, you hear things like 'great replacement theory' — I mean, this is not subtle. Unless we're able to return to a more inclusive vision inside the Republican Party, it's going to be hard to get a bill done."
Obama said that this kind of language is "dangerous," saying, "A lot of toxic rhetoric in the atmosphere that characterizes 'those people' as 'different' and wanting to 'tear down America' as opposed to build it up."
He added: "When you have that kind of rhetoric floating around out there, we've seen in history that is dangerous rhetoric.
"It's dangerous wherever it appears and it's dangerous here in the United States. It's not part of what's best in us; it's not part of what makes this country exceptional."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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