Former president Barack Obama, speaking alongside Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz at a Harris campaign event in Madison, Wisconsin on Tuesday, wondered how American society “got so toxic and just so divided and so bitter.”

Despite a refusal to acknowledge any role he may have played, the source of much of the nation’s division and conflict can be traced directly to Executive Order (EO) 13583, which Obama signed, establishing a coordinated government-wide initiative to promote inclusion and diversity in the federal workforce.

🔥🚨BREAKING: President Obama is stressed out about the division in America and announced at Kamala Harris rally in Wisconsin that he wants to understand how America became so divided

Obama: “I don’t understand how we got so toxic and just so divided and so bitter.” pic.twitter.com/oSp74aNaTB

— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) October 22, 2024

The EO signed on August 18, 2011, stated a commitment to “equal opportunity, diversity, and inclusion,” and directed all federal agencies to “develop and implement a more comprehensive, integrated, and strategic focus on diversity and inclusion as a key component of their human resource strategies.”

Former GOP presidential hopeful Dr. Ben Carson notes that instead of creating true equality before the law, the EO required federal agencies to divide their employees on the basis of artificial categories based on race, age, income, gender, political affiliation and religion.

Obama doesn’t understand how “we got so toxic and just so divided and so bitter.”

Here! Dr Ben Carson explains it! It all started WITH OBAMA! pic.twitter.com/ix7CqfEPLY

— 🇺🇸ProudArmyBrat (@leslibless) October 22, 2024

Carson goes on to explain that this pattern of first dividing and then dumbing down the people is something that has happened in other countries that have embraced socialism or communism.

As federal guidelines on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have metastasized into other American institutions including academia, corporations and the media, the nation’s divisions have continued to deepen rather than heal.

During his two terms as president, Obama did a considerable amount of dividing on his own as he described his political opponents in the most extreme terms.

SUPERCUT!@BarackObama’s contributions to civility in Washington https://t.co/2V5n5MRqIY pic.twitter.com/GVL71RCpsQ

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 22, 2024

Obama’s fretting over how divided the nation has become while failing to have enough self-awareness to see his own role in that division may be a textbook example of chutzpah, which Leo Rosten defined as: “that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.”