Former adviser says Obama bears zero responsibility for America’s bitter partisan climate; it’s because he’s black

BS BULLETIN:

Former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes was asked whether the Obama administration bears any responsibility for the bitter partisan climate that followed.
Rhodes rejected that premise and said he believes the backlash was fundamentally driven by Obama being Black.
He argued that if electing a Black president helped propel voters toward Donald Trump, the lesson should not be to avoid political change.

Former Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes was handed a blunt question about one of the enduring arguments over Barack Obama’s presidency:

Did the administration itself bear any responsibility for the political polarization that followed?

Rhodes’ answer was remarkably direct. He said he believes “in my bones” that the reaction to Obama was driven by the fact that he was black.

Rhodes made the remarks during a recent appearance on “Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso,” where the conversation turned to Obama’s presidency, race and the rise of Donald Trump.

Rhodes did not frame Trump’s emergence primarily as a backlash against Obamacare, foreign policy, executive actions, cultural fights, or Obama’s governing approach. He put race at the center of it.

“I truly believe in my bones that … it was because he was black,” Rhodes said in the portion of the interview circulated this week.

Obama operative Ben Rhodes is asked if that administration should bear any responsibility for the more polarized and partisan political climate post-Obama.

Short answer: No. It’s because of racism.

“I truly believe in my bones that…it was because he was black.”

“I make no… pic.twitter.com/CyHpeh9eil

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) October 1, 2026

Rhodes then went further.

“I make no apologies for working for a black man who became president,” he said, adding that if Obama’s election “broke the brains of enough people that they nominated Donald Trump,” the answer cannot be to stop trying to change the country.

Asked to consider whether the Obama years themselves contributed to the country’s political breakdown, Rhodes instead located the central problem in the reaction to America’s first black president. It is also not a new argument for him.

In an extensive University of Virginia Miller Center oral history published before this interview, Rhodes similarly argued that race was essential to understanding the intensity of opposition to Obama and the political environment that eventually produced Trump.

But that longer interview contained an important qualification missing from the viral clip.

“It wasn’t all racism,” Rhodes said there, acknowledging that some opposition reflected straightforward partisanship, political disagreement, and other grievances.

He nevertheless concluded that Obama’s race added something distinct to the hostility surrounding his presidency. Rhodes’ latest answer leaves little mystery about where he comes down.

When offered a chance to assign some responsibility to the administration he served, he put the decisive weight somewhere else: On the country that reacted to it.