Barack Obama recently offered some blunt advice to Democrats: the party needs to ditch “navel-gazing” and “toughen up” in the fight against Donald Trump.
According to the New York Times, while speaking to donors at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser, Obama called out how other Democrats have acted since Trump took office.
“It’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions,” Obama said. “And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up.”
He continued: “What I have been surprised by is the degree to which I’ve seen people who, when I was president, or progressives, liberals, stood for all kinds of stuff, who seem like they’re kind of cowed and intimidated and shrinking away from just asserting what they believe, or at least what they said they believe.”
The latest in Trump’s questionable choices in his first six months of his second term include activating California’s National Guard to assist his ICE deportation agenda in Los Angeles. The move led to mass protests not only in California but across the country for No King’s Day. The president has also made moves to defund and downsize the State Department and institutions like NPR and PBS – including threats to Republicans who defy him in doing so.
Obama warned the Democratic donors over the weekend that the country was “dangerously close” to slipping into an autocracy.
“Don’t tell me you’re a Democrat, but you’re kind of disappointed right now, so you’re not doing anything,” he said. “Don’t say that you care deeply about free speech and then you’re quiet. No, you stand up for free speech when it’s hard. When somebody says something that you don’t like, but you still say, you know what, that person has the right to speak. It is, you know, what’s needed now is courage.”
