Barack Obama’s charmed life as the Democrat Party’s most beloved figure is crashing down around him.
His lecture circuit isn’t going as planned.
And Barack Obama just tried to scold Hispanic Trump voters with this condescending claim that should have every American fuming.
Obama lectures Hispanic voters for caring about inflation
Former President Barack Obama went on podcaster Marc Maron’s show to deliver a scolding to Hispanic voters who backed President Donald Trump in 2024 because they were fed up with crushing inflation.¹
Obama said America and progressives were being "tested" right now.¹
The former President admitted that for his generation of progressives, taking left-wing positions was easy because "it didn’t really cost us anything."¹
"We could take positions on things that we thought were correct, but they were never really tested," Obama stated.¹
Then Obama got to the heart of his grievance with Hispanic Trump voters.
"We’re being tested right now," Obama declared.¹ "If you are a Hispanic man, and you’re frustrated about inflation and so you decided, eh, you know what, all that rhetoric about Trump doesn’t matter, I’m just mad about inflation. And now, your sons are being stopped in LA because they look Latino. That’s a test."¹
Obama made similar comments during a June conversation with historian Heather Cox Richardson.²
The former President said liberals "felt comfortable in their righteousness" during his presidency because it wasn’t challenged.²
"You could be as progressive and socially conscious as you wanted, and you did not have to pay a price," Obama explained.²
"You could still make a lot of money. You could still hang out in Aspen and Milan and travel and have a house in the Hamptons and still think of yourself as a progressive," Obama added.²
Obama’s history of condescending to Hispanic voters
This isn’t the first time Obama has lectured Hispanic voters for rejecting Democrat candidates.
Back in 2020, Obama suggested evangelical Hispanics didn’t care enough about immigration or racism to vote against Trump.³
He claimed these religiously conservative Hispanics prioritized their opposition to LGBT rights and abortion above all else.³
Conservative Hispanics fired back, noting that Obama’s characterization ignored the economic factors that drove working-class voters to Trump.³
They also pointed out the hypocrisy – Obama built the cages for detained immigrants that he later blamed on Trump, and was called the "deporter in chief" by his critics.³
The truth is that Hispanic voters in 2024 were drowning under Biden’s inflation crisis.
Trump won 48% of the Hispanic vote – nearly doubling his 2020 performance and coming within striking distance of a historic majority.⁴
Inflation topped the list of Hispanic voter concerns, with 42% of Hispanic voters citing it as a top three issue, and among young Hispanic men specifically, 39% listed inflation as their top concern.⁴
Hispanic families felt the pain of Biden’s economy more acutely than most Americans.
A 2022 Federal Reserve Bank of New York analysis found that Hispanic and Black families felt inflation’s impact more severely than other demographic groups.⁵
California’s Hispanic population represents 40% of residents but accounts for more than half of those living in poverty.⁵
Between fall 2021 and fall 2023, Latino poverty jumped from 13.5% to 16.9%.⁵
The hypocrisy Obama can’t escape
The irony of Obama’s appearance couldn’t be more stark.
He went on Marc Maron’s podcast – where Maron famously joked that liberals "annoyed the average American into fascism" – to acknowledge that progressives can’t just be scolds "all the time."⁶
Obama referenced Maron’s viral observation about liberals being so irritating they drove people to Trump.⁶
He agreed that progressives couldn’t just act like scolds constantly.⁶
Then he immediately proceeded to scold Hispanic voters for prioritizing their ability to feed their families over progressive talking points about Trump.
This is exactly the problem Maron identified in his comedy special – progressives lecture people without acknowledging their own blind spots.⁷
Obama sat there nodding along about not being condescending, then turned around and told Hispanic voters they made the wrong choice by caring more about inflation than Democrat rhetoric.
For working-class Hispanic families watching their grocery bills double and their savings evaporate, Obama’s lecture from his mansion sounds exactly like what Maron warned against.
These families don’t have houses in the Hamptons.
They’re not hopping between Aspen and Milan.
They’re struggling painters in Los Banos who haven’t been able to save money since the pandemic.⁵
They’re insurance agents in Merced frustrated with state regulations driving up costs.⁵
They’re families who remember life was more affordable when Trump was President.
And now Obama is telling them they failed some kind of progressive purity test by voting for the candidate who promised to fix the economy.
The condescension is breathtaking.
Hispanic voters sent Democrats a clear message in 2024 – fix the economy or lose our votes.
Trump won a majority of Hispanic men for the first time in modern history.⁴
He made historic gains in heavily Hispanic border counties that had voted Democrat for a century.⁴
These weren’t voters who suddenly forgot about immigration or social issues.
They were voters who couldn’t afford to wait for Democrats to care about their economic struggles.
Obama’s response to this historic shift?
Obama’s telling them they failed some progressive purity test because they voted for cheaper groceries instead of Democrat talking points.
Democrats are headed for a bloodbath in 2026 if this keeps up.
Hispanic voters just handed them the biggest rejection in modern history, and Obama’s response is to lecture them about making the wrong choice.
Instead of asking why families picked Trump, he’s explaining why they shouldn’t have.
They’re suggesting that kitchen table economics shouldn’t matter as much as what the party tells them to care about.
Hispanic voters aren’t stupid.
Hispanic voters looked at their bank accounts, their grocery bills, and their ability to provide for their families.
They remembered when things were more affordable under Trump.
And they voted accordingly.
That’s not a failure of values – that’s exactly how democracy is supposed to work.
¹ Hanna Panreck, "Obama scolds Hispanic Trump supporters who worried about inflation, says nation being ‘tested’ under Trump," Fox News, October 13, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Hannah Natanson, "Obama’s take on evangelical Hispanics could reinforce Democrats’ challenges," The Washington Post, November 26, 2020.
⁴ Suzanne Gamboa and Stef W. Kight, "Trump came close to winning Latino vote in ’24 — Pew analysis," Axios, June 27, 2025.
⁵ Alexei Koseff and Larry Valenzuela, "Why many Latino voters chose Trump in California election," CalMatters, November 18, 2024.
⁶ Hanna Panreck, "Obama scolds Hispanic Trump supporters who worried about inflation, says nation being ‘tested’ under Trump," Fox News, October 13, 2025.
⁷ Michael Sebastian, "The Dire Warning for Progressives Buried in Marc Maron’s ‘Panicked,’" Esquire, August 4, 2025.
