Oba­ma scorns ‘doom loop’ of polit­i­cal extrem­ism after Democ­rats’ elec­tion defeat

Dur­ing his keynote address Thurs­day about the impor­tance of plu­ral­ism at the Oba­ma Foundation’s third Democ­ra­cy Forum in Chica­go, the for­mer pres­i­dent reit­er­at­ed his crit­i­cism of media com­pa­nies for “play­ing to the extremes” and politi­cians who adopt “a max­i­mal­ist posi­tion on almost every issue.”

Oba­ma went on to say that polar­iza­tion has made “every elec­tion becomes an act of mor­tal com­bat in which polit­i­cal oppo­nents are ene­mies to be van­quished, and com­pro­mise is viewed as betray­al, and total vic­to­ry is the only accept­able out­come.”

“Since total vic­to­ry is impos­si­ble in a coun­try polit­i­cal­ly split down the mid­dle, the result is a doom loop of gov­ern­ment grid­lock, even greater polar­iza­tion, wilder rhetoric, and a deep­en­ing con­vic­tion among par­ti­sans that the oth­er side is break­ing the rules and has rigged the game to tip it in their favor,” Oba­ma told the crowd Thurs­day.

But short­ly after, Oba­ma indi­rect­ly crit­i­cized Trump, con­tend­ing there is not “just more grid­lock” and “cyn­i­cism,” “but an increas­ing will­ing­ness on the part of 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 in order to gain and hold on to pow­er.”

To that end, Oba­ma under­scored that plu­ral­ism is “not about hold­ing hands and singing Kum­baya” but “about rec­og­niz­ing that any demo­c­ra­t­ic pow­er comes from forg­ing alliances and build­ing coali­tions and mak­ing room in those coali­tions, not only for the woke but also for the wak­ing.”

Oba­ma then referred to the Trump-led cam­paign against him based on false claims that he was not born in the Unit­ed States and there­fore Con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pro­hib­it­ed from being pres­i­dent.

“Build­ing bridges may require you to deal with peo­ple who not only dis­agree with you, but do not respect you,” he said. “When I was pres­i­dent, there were times where, many times where I was nego­ti­at­ing with peo­ple who made it pret­ty clear they didn’t think I should be pres­i­dent… legal­ly.”

In his open­ing remarks, Oba­ma acknowl­edged there had been “a few groans and eye rolls” when he spoke about the sig­nif­i­cance of democ­ra­cy before his foundation’s con­fer­ence, con­ced­ing that is “under­stand­able” after last month’s elec­tion.

“It’s fair to say that it did not turn out as they had hoped,” he said. “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 and, at this moment in his­to­ry when core demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples seem to be con­tin­u­ous­ly under attack, when too many peo­ple around the world have become cyn­i­cal and dis­en­gaged, now is pre­cise­ly the time to ask our­selves tough ques­tions about how we can build our democ­ra­cies and make them work in mean­ing­ful and prac­ti­cal ways for ordi­nary peo­ple. And that’s why we’re here.”

Oba­ma has been mak­ing more pub­lic appear­ances since the elec­tion, includ­ing an event this week with for­mer Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Angela Merkel to pro­mote her mem­oir, Free­dom.

While cam­paign­ing for Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris, Oba­ma repeat­ed­ly scru­ti­nized Trump not only for his pol­i­cy, but his per­son­al­i­ty, includ­ing his char­ac­ter and tem­pera­ment.

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“I’m here to tell you, Mil­wau­kee, we do not need anoth­er four years of Trump’s arro­gance and incom­pe­tence and divi­sion,” Oba­ma said the week­end before the elec­tion. “Amer­i­ca is bet­ter than that. Amer­i­ca is ready to turn the page. Amer­i­ca is ready for a new sto­ry, a bet­ter sto­ry. We are ready for a pres­i­dent, Kamala Har­ris.”

Despite the empha­sis placed on democ­ra­cy by Har­ris, Oba­ma, and Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, vot­ers were split on the issue, accord­ing to exit polls. Democ­ra­cy and abor­tion were pri­or­i­tized by Democ­rats, where­as Repub­li­cans pri­or­i­tized the econ­o­my and immi­gra­tion.