Former President Barack Obama declared that if “one side” attempts to cement “a permanent grip on power” through “suppressing votes,” “politicizing” the military or weaponizing the judiciary and criminal justice system to target opponents, “a line has been crossed.”
His comments came even as many Americans believe that President-elect Donald Trump has been unfairly targeted in unwarranted politically motivated cases.
Obama made the comments during a speech on Thursday during the Obama Foundation’s Democracy Forum. The speech marked his first public remarks following the 2024 election.
“You see, it’s easy to give democracy lip service when it delivers the outcomes we want. It’s when we don’t get what we want that our commitment to democracy is tested,” he said.
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During his first term in office, Trump was acquitted in the Senate after two separate but ultimately unsuccessful impeachment efforts, and in the wake of his White House tenure, he has been slapped with multiple indictments, which many viewed as lawfare against the Republican figure.
While some Republicans have advocated for Biden to be impeached, the GOP has not done so, even with control of the House chamber.
During the speech, Obama also advocated for “pluralism.”
“It means that in a democracy we all have to find a way to live alongside individuals and groups who are different than us,” he said.
Obama’s remarks came after Biden made a comment earlier this year that many perceived as him referring to Trump supporters as “garbage.” In a post on X, Biden distanced himself from the remarks and claimed he was referring to the “hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporters at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage” instead.
Democrats have consistently launched invective against Trump — including Biden, who said that the Republican was a “genuine danger to American security” — but it was Trump who was the target of several assassination attempts in the run-up to the 2024 election.
Obama, in his remarks, insisted that he is “convinced that if we want democracy as we understand it to survive,” people must work for a renewed dedication to pluralist principles.
“Because the alternative is what we’ve seen here in the United States and in many democracies around the globe: Not just more gridlock, not just public cynicism, but an increasing willingness” among “politicians and their followers to violate democratic norms, to do anything they can to get their way, to use the power of the state to target critics, and journalists, and political rivals, and to even resort to violence” to obtain and retain power.
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The former president added that bridge building represents the “best tool” to create “lasting change.”
“Pluralism is not about holding hands and singing Kumbaya. It is not about abandoning your convictions and folding when things get tough. It is about recognizing that in a democracy power comes from forging alliances and building coalitions and making room in those coalitions not only for the woke but also for the waking,” he said.
Obama served two consecutive terms spanning from early 2009 through early 2017, when he was succeeded by Trump.