Dr. Keith Ablow appeared on Fox News to explain that he thinks it’s all Obama’s fault that some American youths have attempted to join ISIS, reported Crooks and Liars.
Speaking to Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Ablow discussed exactly how he thinks Obama is pushing young people to join ISIS. Ablow suggested that Obama makes young people lose their “sense of self” and they are “look for something to fill them up.”
Listen, Elisabeth, when we debranded America – and don’t forget this president took away the American brand – when we took away the notion of what it meant to be American, for some number of people, we took away part of them: a sense of patriotism, forward momentum. And they are going to find it elsewhere. Our brand is being diluted systematically, methodically, I would say, by this president.
Ablow’s statement is just another reiteration of the same, tired GOP sentiments that Obama is the devil, he hates America, he wants to destroy freedom, and all that other nonsense. Now, Ablow and Hasselbeck want to blame Obama for making young people run away to join terrorist groups. Conservatives become more bizarre by the minute.
All of this bombast sets up the main point: this wouldn’t have happened if Obama was like Ronald Reagan, the GOP’s patron saint.
What did Ronald Reagan do? He rebranded America as itself. It was genius! Right? We know who we are. We need to remind ourselves. And we need to have an answer as to what is it that we’re going to offer people as the their national identity so they can grasp that, and not feel like they need to go elsewhere. That’s part of this equation. The other is you can case-find these people because they are lost.
Republicans love to bring up Ronald Reagan any chance they get. No disrespect to a dead man, but Reagan never did anything revolutionary except become the prototype for the modern conservative. And Obama’s “rebranding” has nothing to do with young people joining ISIS.