Obama the Cop Hater

Obama is responsible for a war on cops. This popular red herring from right-wingers to distract from any conversation about criminal justice reform is another one of my favorite idiotic talking points to dismantle. Of course it isn't  true and I love watching people squirm when you ask for any type of evidence or justification for this lie. At best they will defer to a quote from William Johnson, the executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, who went on Fox News to facilitate this smear without any substantive reasoning whatsoever. He claimed Obama "appeased violent criminals" and "actively called for the death of police officers" via BLM. He also said that unlike previous presidents, Obama did not condemn violence against police. I shit you not. This turd literally said this with a straight face on the most popular cable news network (even though any fucking idiot can Google that is explicitly and emphatically false) but to the surprise of absolutely no one, a ton of Fox News loving knobs actually believe it. If you're one of them, please cite everything Obama said and did to perpetuate a war on cops. Be prepared to argue that calls for reform is the equivalent of war. You know like how calls to reform social security is a war on social security... right? Isn't that how it works? I'm not sure but you fine people are going to explain it to me. Thank you in advance! 

Any update on cop hating by Obama? I've heard the claim that Obama is responsible for the war on cops so many times, and I've seen people here blame him for riots and the disenfranchisement of law enforcement. Surely someone can justify this claim. People wouldn't just make things up. 

I happen to concur with you on this. A few family members of mine like to put the blame on Obama for "not doing anything" to reduce police abuse while also saying that he perpetrated the eponymous war. I think people overestimate the power of the bully pulpit to begin with, but I distinct remember the president repudiating violence three days following the Ferguson incident. For what it's worth, he did say in an interview that he regretted some aspects of his response to Ferguson. I still find that some in the current administration reacted worse to the ongoing police-citizen crises. 

Another gem. It's amazing to me how comfortable people are spewing nonsense without having the wherewithal to do basic fact checks. I would be so embarrassed (!) yet I catch people doing this constantly. People have no shame and no common sense. It's easy to look up and compare the last 3 years of Obama's term - the most racially charged ones of his presidency post Treyvon Martin and Ferguson - with the numbers from Trump's first three years: 

In 2014, (51) cops were feloniously killed and 48,315  (7.71%) were assaulted on duty - 626,949 LEOs 

In 2015,  (41) cops were feloniously killed and 50,212 (7.9%) were assaulted on duty - 635,781 LEOs

In 2016, (66) cops were feloniously killed and  57,180 were (8.99%) assaulted on duty - 652,936 LEOs

In 2017, (46) cops were feloniously killed and 60,211 (8.98%) were assaulted on duty - 670,279 LEOs

In 2018, (55) cops were feloniously killed and  58,866 (8.57%) were assaulted on duty - 686,665 LEOs

In 2019,  (48) cops were feloniously killed and 56,034 (8.16%) were assaulted on duty - 697,195 LEOs

On balance, more cops were assaulted under Trump than Obama. Furthermore the false narrative being perpetuated by the right is that "nobody wants to be a cop anymore" because of the alleged war on cops. Meanwhile the number of cops has consistently gone up since the Ferguson riots and existence of BLM. People are honestly way too comfortable speaking assertively on topics they know nothing about or can't be bothered to look up.