The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party’s pro­gres­sive insur­gents are turn­ing on Oba­ma

As for­mer Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma remains one of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party’s most pop­u­lar fig­ures, a grow­ing num­ber of insur­gent pro­gres­sive can­di­dates are increas­ing­ly will­ing to crit­i­cize his pres­i­den­cy and the pol­i­tics of the Oba­ma era, sig­nal­ing a broad­er reassess­ment tak­ing shape on parts of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Left.The ten­sion has sur­faced across sev­er­al 2026 races, where can­di­dates aligned with the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Social­ists of Amer­i­ca or broad­er pop­ulist move­ments have argued Obama’s pres­i­den­cy failed to deliv­er the trans­for­ma­tion­al eco­nom­ic change many vot­ers expect­ed after the 2008 finan­cial crisis.Michigan Sen­ate can­di­date Abdul el Sayed has emerged as one of the clear­est exam­ples of a pro­gres­sive Demo­c­rat open­ly revis­it­ing and crit­i­ciz­ing the Oba­ma era while run­ning for fed­er­al office. El Sayed spent years crit­i­ciz­ing Oba­ma, at var­i­ous points writ­ing that the coun­try …