title:  President Obama Calls Out Fox News For Creating A “Fictional” Obama To Make People Hate Him
text: Fox News worked for eight years to vilify President Obama in any way they could, and now Obama is calling them out because he has zero f*cks left.During an interview with The Atlantic, President Obama talked to Ta-Nehisi Coates about how right-wing media invented a  fictional  version of him with the purpose of scaring and enraging white people. In 2008 I was never subjected to the kind of concentrated vilification of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the whole conservative-media ecosystem, and so as a consequence, even for my first two years as a senator I was polling at 70 percent,  Obama said.They weren t seeing some image of me as trying to take away their stuff and give it to black people, and coddle criminals, and all the stereotypes of not just African American politicians but liberal politicians. You started to see that kind of prism being established towards the end of the 2008 race, particularly once Sarah Palin was the nominee. And obviously almost immediately after I was elected, it was deployed in full force. And it had an impact in terms of how a large portion of white voters would see me. And so when people criticize or respond negatively to me, usually they re responding to this character that they re seeing on TV called Barack Obama, or to the office of the presidency and the White House and what that represents. And so you don t take it personally. You understand that if people are angry that somehow the government is failing, then they are going to look to the guy who represents government. And that applies, by the way, even to some of the folks who are now Trump supporters. They re responding to a fictional character named Barack Obama who they see on Fox News or who they hear about through Rush Limbaugh.Indeed, conservatives websites and political shows constantly twisted President Obama s words and turned him into a monster who was going to take away everyone s guns any second and declare himself king. Every time more jobs were added to the economy or the stock market rose, or unemployment dropped or anything good happened in this country, conservatives ignored it or accused Obama of cooking the books or made it sound like a bad thing in order to make people hate President Obama.They were wrong, of course. But conservatives went on hating President Obama anyway because they refused to listen to anything outside the conservative echo chamber. As a result, conservatives reject facts and think the truth is whatever Fox News tells them it is.And now the same conservative echo chamber that vilified President Obama is now praising Trump like he s a gift from God who has never done anything wrong and doesn t lie. Any person with a brain knows that s bullshit, but conservatives are eating it up like the gullible fools they are.Featured Image: Win McNamee/Getty Images