Former President Barack Obama has issued one of his most direct and serious warnings to date about the direction of the United States, expressing grave concerns about the ongoing leadership of Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Connecticut Forum on June 17, Obama reflected on what he sees as a weakening commitment to the democratic norms that have defined American governance since World War II.
\nHis remarks \u2013 which touched on the erosion of institutional safeguards \u2013 drew comparisons between current U.S. political behavior and authoritarian regimes abroad.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not consistent with American democracy\u201d
\n\u201cIf you follow regularly what is said by those who are in charge of the federal government right now, there is a weak commitment to what we understood \u2014 and not just my generation, at least since World War II \u2014 our understanding of how a liberal democracy is supposed to work,\u201d Obama said at the Hartford event, per LBC.<\/p>\n
What we\u2019re seeing right now \u2026 is not consistent with American democracy,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt is consistent with autocracies.\u201d<\/p>\n
What is \u2018Autocracy\u2019?
\nThe term \u201cautocracy\u201d has not only been used more and more in online reports in the last few weeks, but online searches for the term have skyrocketed.<\/p>\n
Put simply, \u201cautocracy\u201d is a system of government by which one person has all control and absolute power.<\/p>\n
Per National Geographic: \u201cAn autocratic ruler is accountable to no one; there is no system of checks and balances, no constitutional limit on the ruler\u2019s power, and the ruler is not held accountable by a cabinet of advisors, a system of courts, the people, or the press.\u201d<\/p>\n
Obama said: \u201cIt is consistent with Hungary under Orb\u00e1n. It\u2019s consistent with places that hold elections but do not otherwise observe what we think of [as] a fair system in which everybody\u2019s voice matters, and people have a seat at the table, and there are checks and balances, and nobody\u2019s above the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not there yet completely,\u201d he added, \u201cbut I think that we are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Concerns Over Trump\u2019s Federal Actions and Protests
\nObama\u2019s comments come amid the rising wave of protests across the country in response to federal immigration actions and concerns over government overreach.<\/p>\n
One recent incident involved a significant deployment of federal agents in Los Angeles after ICE detained dozens of people, sparking unrest. In response, Trump ordered 4,000 National Guard officers into the city.<\/p>\n
The protests, including over 2,000 \u201cNo King\u201d rallies in all 50 states, aimed to denounce \u201cauthoritarianism, billionaire-first politics, and the militarization of our democracy,\u201d according to CNN. Obama referenced these efforts, praising civil society\u2019s pushback but emphasizing that institutional actors must also take a stand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has to be a response and pushback from civil society, from various institutions and individuals outside of government,\u201d he said. \u201cBut there also have to be people in government in both parties who say, \u2018No, you can\u2019t do that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s not go over that cliff\u201d
\nObama also warned of the long-term consequences of failing to resist the drift toward autocratic practices.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt requires [government workers] to take that oath seriously, and when that isn\u2019t happening, we start drifting into something that is not consistent with American democracy,\u201d the former POTUS said. \u201cWe need people both outside government and inside government saying, \u2018Let\u2019s not go over that cliff because it\u2019s hard to recover.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Obama continued: \u201cWe now have a situation in which all of us are going to be tested in some way, and we are going to have to decide what our commitments will be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Critique of Progressives and Call for Common Ground
\nObama also reflected critically on the political left, saying that many progressives during his presidency were able to maintain their values without personal sacrifice. \u201cYou could be as progressive and socially conscious as you wanted and you did not have to pay a price,\u201d he said. \u201cYou 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
He warned that those days may be over. \u201cNow things are a little different,\u201d Obama theorized. \u201cYou might lose some of your donors if you\u2019re a university and if you\u2019re a law firm, your billings might drop a little bit, which means you cannot remodel that kitchen in your house in the Hamptons this summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite his criticisms, Obama\u2019s tone was not without hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still optimistic \u2014 I\u2019m still the \u2018hope\u2019 guy,\u201d he said. Addressing young people in particular, he urged them to hold onto their outrage but also to build coalitions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is important to be impatient with injustice and cruelty, and there\u2019s a healthy outrage that we should be exhibiting in terms of what\u2019s currently happening both here and around the world,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if you want to deliver on change, then it\u2019s a game of addition, not subtraction, which means you have to find ways to make common ground with people who don\u2019t agree with you on everything but agree with you on some things.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe better angels\u201d and the future of democracy
\nObama closed by calling for Americans to connect with one another in shared efforts and mutual understanding: \u201cWhen people actually meet and they get to know each other and then they work on a common endeavor, then what Lincoln called those \u2018better angels\u2019 come out.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople start recognizing themselves in each other and they start trusting each other, and that\u2019s not just the basis for democracy, but that\u2019s the basis for our long-term salvation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former President Barack Obama has issued one of his most direct and serious warnings to date about the direction of the United States, expressing grave concerns about the ongoing leadership of Donald Trump. Speaking...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/originaltastex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/originaltastex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/originaltastex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/originaltastex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/originaltastex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/originaltastex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3986,"href":"https:\/\/originaltastex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3984\/revisions\/3986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/originaltastex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/originaltastex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/originaltastex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/originaltastex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}