In his latest jet-setting travels, this time to Canada, President Obama warned of "authoritarianism" taking hold, in what his media ally, CNN, helpfully revealed was a veiled attack on President Trump.  Politics, for Obama, doesn't seem to stop at the water's edge.  In his frustrated ex-presidency, it appears he really is determined to be the Backseat Driver in Chief, and he is about as useful.

Obama said that everyday people who felt left behind by government and a changing world could find authoritarians alluring. He said people who felt at a loss with the democratic process could "try anything," but that liberal values would win out over time.

"I am convinced that the future does not belong to strongmen," Obama said.

He can take a look in the mirror on that one.

Obama's sudden, newfound claim to be a champion of liberty rings hollow, given that he spent most of his presidency issuing executive orders instead of working democratically with Congress to enact actual laws.  He preferred to follow the Hugo Chávez model and rule by decree, justifying it with "I won."  His Obamacare "legacy" came about by strong-arming his own party base with thuggish Chicago-style tactics and garnered not a single Republican vote, rendering it a house of cards with the inevitable reaction.  Like Chávez, he politicized the state and made it a one-party operation now known as the swamp.  He targeted political dissidents through the good offices of the Internal Revenue Service and spied on reporters and world leaders.  And the damage he did to homeland security, the military, and intelligence services pretty well assured that the U.S. had neither borders nor secrets, given his administration's hiring of the likes of Ed Snowden; Bradley Manning; Reality Winner; and, come to think of it, Hillary Clinton with her illegal, unsecured private server.  All of these Obama hires were leftists who used their state offices to advance their politics, not safeguard the state – and on his watch, all of them got away with it.

So spare us when he puts his claims in as a champion of democracy with newfound great concerns about authoritarianism.  He never cared about that when he was in power.

Obama gave a laundry list of all the beliefs and acts he had, all of which drove U.S. voters to elect President Trump.

He said low-civic engagement and a lack of belief in the average person's ability to affect change in government weaken democratic institutions and are responsible for the advance of "reactionary" politicians.

As if such "lack of belief" is baseless for people whose coal jobs and industry were something he vowed to destroy and did a good deal of damage to.  Any talk of "average persons" from his storied jet-set bubble come off as pathetic, too – both out of touch and dripping with contempt – and voters know it.

Obama called on people, in the face of uncertainty, to stand by some of the very post-World War II economic and political institutions Trump has repeatedly called into question.

Notice that he doesn't seem to think anything is wrong with these institutions – unelected eurotrash bureaucrats calling the shots in the United Nations, at the World Bank, in the European Union, at the World Court and other international institutions, ruling over peoples' lives, living high on the hog, often tax-free, with zero accountability.  He just defends them for the sake of defending them, because they share his left-elitist views.  It's all about the rice bowl; it's all about the Chicago Way writ large.

"In periods like this, people looking for control and certainty – it's inevitable," Obama told the Canadian audience. "But it is important to remember that the world has gone through similar moments. ... Our history also shows there is a better way."

Aside from the Olde Marxist View of progress and inevitability, maybe he should just roll with it instead of resist it.  No insight from him as to why people don't prefer chaos and "change" in the name of whatever progressive social engineering idea is on the menu for the day.

He said people should overcome fear and not listen to those who "call for isolation or nationalism" and those who "suggest rolling back the rights of others."

Fear?  How about loathing from knowing these places all too well?  And maybe he can specify these people more clearly?  Deplorables?  Seems he never has criticism for the ruling institutions he's so attached to – just the people who don't share his starry-eyed view of them or benefit from them in any way.

Naturally, he loves these multilateral institutions:

"We're also bound by the institutions that we built to keep the peace," Obama said, referring to the UN, NATO and NAFTA.

Laughable.  The U.N. has kept absolutely no peace – it's best known for sending perverts out on peacekeeping missions to rape the locals.  And NATO?  Those people who don't pay their dues or allow us to use their airspace?  Useless group.  Didn't seem to do much for Georgia or Ukraine, either.  NAFTA?  Not a war and peace issue, or, for that matter, a border issue.  (Hint: If you enforce the laws, you might have a border, NAFTA or no NAFTA.)  Arguments about jobs and trade aren't a keep-the-peace issue.

"We're going to have to summon the same capacity to adapt to new circumstances that we saw after World War II," Obama said. "We're going to have to replace fear with hope. That's the spirit that we need right now."

Says the man who ran on a vague platform of "hope" and then showed us eight years of what he means by "hope."  Want more Trump?  Mouth that hoary old blather, and that's how you get more Trump.

He's trying to appear an elder statesman while jetting around in private planes to expand his carbon footprint.  Anything new out of him is nothing but new packaging, not reflective thinking, not new ideas.  Just more boring "narrative."  He's still the same old manipulative authoritarian leftist Alinskyite he's always been.  What's obvious now is that he's just out of ideas.