Former President Barack Obama has a clear vision of the ideal head of state.
“I’m absolutely confident that for two years if every nation on earth was run by women, you would see a significant improvement across the board on just about everything,” Obama said during a private event in Singapore on Monday, according to the BBC.
The former President argued that women in leadership positions are “indisputably better” than men, and that former political leaders, particularly old male ones, ought to step back and make room for new blood.
“If you look at the world and look at the problems, it’s usually old people, usually old men, not getting out of the way,” Obama told the audience.
“It is important for political leaders to try and remind themselves that you are there to do a job, but you are not there for life,” he continued. “You are not there in order to prop up your own sense of self importance or your own power.”
Though Obama made similar comments before the 2020 race began, the remarks strike an awkward note as his 77-year-old, male ex-vice president is out trying to win a ticket to the Oval Office by bear-hugging Obama’s legacy.
But despite Biden’s frequent mentions of his relationship with Obama on the campaign trail, the former President has notably abstained from weighing in on the 2020 Democratic primaries.
According to the Biden campaign, the former vice president asked Obama not to endorse him.
“He wants to make his own case,” Kate Bedingfield, the campaign’s deputy manager, said during a MSNBC interview in April.
He’s not wrong about that…there are plenty of example of old, white men in America propping up their own power at the cost of making the nation better for all people. Moscow Mitch springs to mind as the best example, as do many other Republicans, and even some Democrats. Sure, there are some old people who are doing good work, and who consider it their duty to train young people to take over and plan to step aside…there’s just not enough of them.
I don’t think Obama was making a suggestion about the primary though…this is more of a general statement of how things could be better.
Amen.
Let’s start with getting rid of the old men in the a White House and the Senate.
Umm, is he slagging on Biden?
Been saying this for a short while. I’d rather vote for a woman than for a man. Men have been in charge for generations. Time for a change.
Europe is leading the way on this; the US would do well to follow suit.