Barack Obama: “I ran for President to keep the American Dream alive in our time.”

It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say.

The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president.

Because if this becomes the new normal, there’s no reason to believe it will stop with her — or that future presidents, in either party, won’t do the same.

If I had a blame pie for why politics is so polarised and why we're seeing a rise of populism in many places, it's because of that information that is going into our brains every day.