Oba­ma, in 1st remarks since elec­tion, says ‘a line has been crossed’ if ‘one side’ makes cer­tain moves

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.

‘DEPORTER-IN-CHIEF’ OBAMA SURPASSED DEPORTATIONS UNDER TRUMP’S FIRST TERM

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.

‘OBAMA BROS’ TRASH BIDEN FOR MAKING DEFENDERS LOOK ‘STUPID’ WITH HUNTER PARDON: ‘TYPICAL, LYING POLITICIAN’

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. 

OBAMA RELEASES ELECTION DAY VIDEO SAYING ‘THIS IS GOING TO BE CLOSE’

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.