 "U.S. former President Barack Obama looks on during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 8, 2021. Source: Reuters")
Former US president Barack Obama on Tuesday (June 19) warned about democratic backsliding in the country, saying the USA was “dangerously close” to normalising behaviour “consistent with autocracies.”
Obama was speaking in Hartford, Connecticut, when he raised questions on the Donald Trump administration’s commitment to democracy.
“If 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 — and not just my generation, at least since World War II — our understanding of how a liberal democracy is supposed to work,” Obama said.
“What we’re seeing right now … is not consistent with American democracy,” he said.
“It is consistent with autocracies. It is consistent with Hungary under Orbán. It’s consistent with places that hold elections but do not otherwise observe what we think of [as] a fair system in which everybody’s voice matters and people have a seat at the table, and there are checks and balances, and nobody’s above the law. We’re not there yet completely, but I think that we are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like that,” the former president stressed.
‘No kings’ protest
Obama’s criticism came days after thousands of demonstrators took to streets against the Trump administration in the so-called ‘No Kings’ protests.
Obama said there has to be people in both parties who can ‘say no’.
“There also has to be people in government in both parties who say, ‘Well, no, you can’t do that,’” the former president said.
It is rare for Obama to hit out at his political rivals as he’s been away from the spotlight after leaving office in 2017. He has also faced criticism for that. The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich last week hit out, saying, “The most effective communicator in the Democratic Party continues to opt for minimal communication.”
Obama concluded by saying he remained hopeful that American democracy would survive.
“I’m still optimistic — I’m still the ‘hope’ guy. … I guess the thing when I’m talking to these young people, though, [what] they need to hear the most is: It is important to be impatient with injustice and cruelty, and there’s a healthy outrage that we should be exhibiting in terms of what’s currently happening both here and around the world. But if you want to deliver on change, then it’s a game of addition, not subtraction, which means you have to find ways to make common ground with people who don’t agree with you on everything but agree with you on some things.”