Former President Barack Obama sparked a wave of online criticism after saying he once “fantasized” about what would happen if women were placed in charge of every government for two years.
Obama made the remarks Monday during an interview with historian Doris Kearns Goodwin at Salem State University, according to the source report.
Obama: “They’d Be Better”
During the exchange, Obama described a hypothetical global experiment in female leadership.
“Even when I was president I sometimes fantasized about if you put women in charge of every government for like two years and then just kind of saw, all right, how are things going?” Obama said, as the audience laughed.
He added that he did not believe the result would be perfect.
“I have a strong belief that things would — they wouldn’t be perfect,” Obama said.
Goodwin interjected, “But they’d be better.”
“But they’d be better. I’m confident about that. I really do!” Obama replied.
Critics Bring Up Hillary Clinton
After footage of the comments circulated on social media, critics mocked Obama’s argument and pointed to his 2008 Democratic primary battle against Hillary Clinton.
One detractor cited in the source report wrote, “He took away the Presidential nomination from a woman.”
Another reply said, “Brother, do you not remember knocking Hillary Clinton out of the primary & thus lay-up Presidential Run of 2008? You prevented America having the first female President. It’s the only thing you & Trump have in common.”
Jeremy Carl, identified in the source as a fellow at the Claremont Institute, also criticized the sentiment, writing, “Ignore both the traditional teachings of [virtually] every religion, as well as all of the lessons from thousands of years of human experience.”
Republican Lisa Cusack was also quoted responding, “It’s like he was in a cave for the entire [Lindsay] Clancy trial.”
Obama Also Warns Against Division
Elsewhere in the interview, Obama argued that the United States remains divided but is not as fractured as politics and media make it appear.
“Today, we are rife with divisions, and our democracy seems broken in so many ways — and the tenor and tone of the times feel mean-spirited,” Obama said.
He added, “We’ve gone through times like this before. I believe we can get out of them. And when I travel around the country today, or I work with the young people I work with, what you discover is we aren’t as divided as we seem at the ground level.”
Obama also argued that progress on women’s rights, LGBTQ rights and civil rights has not been reversed, and said most people support those causes.
“We’re not as divided as our politics or our media would indicate,” he concluded.
