It’s always problematic when a relativist claims to be the sole source of truth. ChatGPT defines relativism as: “Relativism is a philosophical stance suggesting that truths, values, or knowledge are not absolute but are instead relative to a specific cultural framework, historical context, or individual perspective.” Trust me, no one makes it clearer that his “truth” is based on a particular, secular, cultural framework, distorted historical context, and above all a twisted individual perspective on life than the current cultural pontificator, Barack Obama.
After Charlie Kirk’s brutal assassination, Barry hung up his paddleboard to post this on X:
We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.
Touching, albeit still clearly unaware that a constitutional federal republic is not a “democracy,” Obama knew and still knows exactly what motivated the shooter to orchestrate a live-streamed execution in front of 3,000 spectators. Tyler Robinson’s trans-defensive murder was the kind of suggestive hostility that the former president and his party have been inciting for decades.
Kirk was publicly executed, and on cue, the left has responded by using tragedy as a platform to promote progressive ideas.
After witnessing a 31-year-old husband and father of two small children have his jugular vein sliced by a bullet, malicious individuals chose to exploit the horror for entertainment on social media, partisan editorials, and late-night jokes.
In response, respectable business owners and many corporations have stated that such poor character may not be the qualities they want in their workforce.
Based on his habit of dominating the content of every discussion, ironically, rhetorically coercive Obama is now making it his patriotic duty to falsely accuse the Trump administration of strong-arming private businesses and corporations with threats.
Isn’t it interesting how the defenders of “choice” have no problem denying the “right to choose” if it’s an employer of a private institution or corporation choosing to abort a person bereft of human kindness from their payroll?
Nevertheless, the former president is speaking out in defense of those who mock others; those who base comedic monologues on a violent tragedy, and those who cite First Amendment rights to justify lies and participation in what Obama would otherwise deem “misinformation.”
Which must be why the former president reared his head again to stir up trouble on X …
When the country's atmosphere is so politically volatile, does Mr. Hope and Change really believe it’s in the nation’s best interest to stir the pot further? This, after he said nothing during COVID when half the country was fired, ostracized, maligned, and branded with a scarlet letter? Only now, when the champion of everything Obama opposes is assassinated, the former president feels it's his duty to speak out against “cancel culture.”
Barack Obama shouldn’t be lecturing anyone about what the First Amendment was designed to do.
Isn’t he the one who called on the government to regulate speech, citing his belief that “We want diversity of opinion; we don’t want diversity of facts. Evidently, that point of view holds as long as diverse opinions look to him for the facts. Does government control over speech only apply when Barry and his cohorts are in power and cease if Donald Trump is in charge?
Essentially, Obama is defending the right to make false accusations.
Why? Because “misinformation” has become an effective tool to take political shots at a sitting president whom Obama also wants to “shut down.”
When journalists and late-night comedians write articles and stream videos online based on “misinformation” that he claims to decry, Barack Obama is perfectly fine with defining the distribution of pink slips as “cancel culture.”
Unless, of course, this is a clever way for Obama to tell us that he alone should decide what is fact and what is fiction. As a committed relativist, perhaps the former president believes that everything said should be judged by his own truth, values, and knowledge, and assessed within his unique cultural framework, warped historical context, and personally biased perspective.
In a December 2015 interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, Obama warned that Democratic activists, inspired by BLM, should not “try to shut up [detractors]” because of not liking “what they stand for.” In the interview, Obama said this:
My concern is not whether there is campus activism. That's a good thing. But let kids ask questions and let universities respond. What I don't want is a situation in which particular points of view that are presented respectfully and reasonably are shut down; we have seen that sometimes happen.
Yes, that’s precisely what Charlie Kirk tried to do when he respectfully invited skeptics to share their views on college campuses.
Charlie was not only “shut down” by activists, but his detractors murdered him.
Now, just a week later, when liberal comedians, journalists, and Democratic voters online — who probably admire the former president — mock the killing of a person Obama claimed had a right to express his viewpoint, instead of agreeing that there should be consequences for circulating “fake news” concerning the character, words, and intent of the murdered individual, Obama defends Charlie’s detractors' right to ridicule, calling “misinformation,” “free speech.”
As soon as Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, instead of retiring into obscurity, Obama, a former community organizer, immediately began to voice his concerns that “fake news” had confused the nation. This opinion implied that Hillary lost the election because, without Obama’s guidance, the electorate could no longer distinguish between fact and fiction. Thus, Donald Trump fooled everyone, which Obama claimed put democracy at risk.
In 2020, during an interview with The Atlantic, former President Barack Obama identified “misinformation” as the “single biggest threat to our democracy.” As an aside, if someone implies that they alone can determine what is and what is not “misinformation,” does that mean they believe they are the truth’s sole authority?
In 2022, during his ‘Presenting Truth as Propaganda’ tour, when speaking at Stanford University, Obama delivered a keynote speech warning about the “threat disinformation poses to democracy.” During his dissertation, Obama accused tech platforms of “tilting us in the wrong direction.”
One month before Charlie Kirk was murdered, during a June 2025 appearance at the Connecticut Forum’s “An Evening with President Barack Obama,” the former president extended healing to the current state of political discourse when he suggested that those he disagrees with have an increasing indifference to facts.
He pointed out that disregarding the facts undermines “trust in society.”
In other words, according to Barack Obama, he is the ultimate source of all facts. Apparently, the former president must believe that if Americans could only understand that simple truth, societal trust would stay strong, his allies could never lose their jobs and claiming that Charlie Kirk deserved to be politically silenced could potentially become a requirement for advancement.
Presenting his audience with an analogy to support this point of view, Obama had this to say:
You and I can have an opinion about this little side table. You know, you might not like the design. You might not like the color or how it’s finished, but we can have that discussion. If I say to you this is a lawnmower, you’ll think I’m crazy, and if I really believe it, I’ll think you’re crazy. And we’re now in a situation in which we are having these basic factual arguments. And that further undermines trust.
And there it is, proof that the keeper of the trust, Barack Obama, is a relativist who believes that personal perceptions, even if often incorrect, are still factual. Excluding himself, of course, that dilemma brings us back to the question of whether what Barack Obama labeled “misinformation” in the past — to suppress free speech — is now considered acceptable by him if it’s being used to smear a political enemy.
Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannieology.us
Image: White House, via Wikimedia Commons // public domain