Did Barack Obama just open a presidential library because he was the president of the United States? Or was he merely an illegitimate occupant of stolen land?

In her remarks at the grand opening of the $850 million Obama Presidential Center, which requires Illinois residents to present a valid photo ID to prove residency, former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett made a land acknowledgment. “We’d also like to take a moment to recognize the original inhabitants of the land upon which we are gathered today,” she solemnly declared. “We honor the Anishinaabe, the Council of Three Fires, the Ojibwe, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi Nations.”

As our Douglas Andrews observed earlier this week, Barack Obama hasn’t even paid all of his contractors for building the monstrosity on Chicago’s South Side. I don’t think for a moment that the land acknowledgment means he’s going to come to a logical conclusion and give the land back.

Heck, no one from any of those tribes was even invited to the ceremony.

The Left’s insane fixation with these empty land acknowledgment virtue signals might elicit an eye-roll, and deservedly so, but as I alluded to in my first sentence, this belief that modern Americans merely occupy stolen land undermines the sovereignty of the nation Obama was elected to lead for eight years. Why did he build his library there? How can we as a nation possibly continue anything legitimate if we’re illegal occupiers?

It is utterly disgraceful and reprehensible that he and his party so thoroughly loathe America, particularly as our 250th birthday approaches.

Maybe that’s why Obama’s presidential building is more reminiscent of Soviet brutalism than Western beauty.

As for the former president, he took a not-so-veiled swipe at his successor, the only living president not invited or in attendance, Donald Trump. The values “that make democracy possible” are the focus of his center, Obama claimed:

A belief in the intrinsic dignity and worth of all people, and that no one is above the law or beneath its protection. A belief in checks and balances in our government, and an accountability that comes with it. An independent judiciary and a robust free press. A belief that our military and law enforcement owe allegiance not to any president or political party, but to the people and our Constitution.

A belief in the peaceful transfer of power after the people have spoken in fair and free elections, recognizing that in a large, complicated society like ours, no group or faction gets its way 100% of the time. And it believes that qualities of character, honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion, sense of duty, and honor, those things matter in our public dealings, just as they do in our private lives.

Of course, under the regime of the current Nazi and fascist, the GOP’s previous Nazis and fascists are worthy of honor and respect. “Every president here today,” Obama added, “as different as we are, has tried our best to uphold values that John McCain and Mitt Romney believed in, no less than I did.”

When running against them, he ripped apart McCain and Romney specifically for their values, all while harping on his obnoxious refrain about being “on the right side of history.”

Now, for that “no one is above the law” comment. Obama went on to give accolades to people for undermining the law in Minneapolis, which is also a tacit celebration of the millions of people who flooded across the border in violation of our laws. He praised “those ordinary people in the Twin Cities who braved frigid temperatures, risked their own safety, standing shoulder to shoulder to look out for their neighbors and sometimes look out for strangers because they knew that was the right thing to do.”

I should probably pause to mention that one of the illegal aliens to whom Obama awarded amnesty via DACA was the ringleader of the plot to attack the White House at this past weekend’s UFC match. I’m not impugning all DACA recipients, but Obama is a total hypocrite for talking about upholding the law.

His wife was guilty, too. Illegals are “the beating heart of this country,” Michelle Obama explained. “They are us, and we are them, and to ignore the simple truth, to refuse to respect the contributions and experiences of people who aren’t exactly like us, it puts us all at risk.”

What puts us all at risk is allowing violent criminals, including drug and human traffickers, to flood across an open border.

It wouldn’t be an Obama event without class warfare, either. Even as he spoke to a crowd full of elites, while the hoi polloi had to wait for today to buy a high-priced ticket into the center, he decried those “who see some groups and some people as more equal than others, and see government as nothing more than a way to divvy up the spoils,” adding, “I do not believe that is the story of America that prevails in the end.”

The Left’s DEI policies do exactly what he laments. And Democrat tax policies are the definition of divvying up the spoils — confiscating money from the productive and giving it to the unproductive, while patting themselves on the back for their incredible “generosity.”

Obama asserted that his center “reminds us of what we can be,” implying that we’re still not living up to his expectations. He does have a habit of expressing disappointment in America while turning a phrase to hide his meaning.

So I’ll conclude by noting something else that hasn’t lived up to expectations: ObamaCare. To be clear, I mean the expectations of Americans who didn’t understand that it was always a scam. But Obama’s legacy is largely summed up in his terribly destructive and, the Supreme Court notwithstanding, unconstitutional legislation. Where do things stand today? According to a new Gallup poll, “Fewer than half of Americans can consistently afford healthcare.” What that means is being able to “afford access to quality care and have been able to pay for visits and prescriptions in recent months.”

Your humble Patriot Post team is among those overpaying for lousy health insurance because it’s practically the only choice available. Thanks, Obama.

Alas, if more Americans actually understood who Barack Obama really is, what he stands for, and what he unleashed on the country, he wouldn’t be nearly as popular as he is.

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