Democrats must ‘toughen up’ against Trump, Obama tells donors
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The former US president’s words were a critique of the party’s elites for having gone quiet when they were sorely needed to step up.
PHOTO: JAMIE KELTER DAVIS/NYTIMES
Reid J. Epstein
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WASHINGTON – Former US president Barack Obama has a stern critique for members of his party: Too many have been cowed into silence.
In private remarks to party donors on the night of July 11, Mr Obama scolded Democrats for failing to speak out against US President Donald Trump and his policies, suggesting they were shrinking from the challenge out of fear of retribution.
“It’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in foetal positions. And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up,” Mr Obama said at a fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee at the home of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy.
“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 are kind of cowed and intimidated and shrinking away from just asserting what they believe, or at least what they said they believe,” he added.
Locked out of power in Washington, Democrats have been largely arguing among themselves about how to confront a hostile Trump administration. Mr Obama’s remarks were circulated by his office on July 14.
He expressed particular disdain for law firms that he said had been willing to “set aside the law” in response to Mr Trump’s actions “not because, by the way, that they’re going to be thrown in jail, but because they might lose a few clients and might not be able to finish that kitchen rehab at their Hampton house. I’m not impressed”.
Mr Obama did not mention Columbia University, his alma mater, which is on the verge of paying hundreds of millions of dollars to settle
But the former president’s comments were interpreted by people in the room as a critique of the party’s elites for having gone quiet when they are sorely needed to step up, according to a person who attended.
The excerpts provided by Mr Obama’s office contained no evidence of physician-heal-thyself reflectiveness. Mr Obama, after all, has scarcely been at the tip of the Democratic spear in resisting Mr Trump.
He has issued few public statements opposing Trump administration actions and has yet to appear in 2025 at a rally, town hall or other public event staged by opponents of Mr Trump.
Mr Obama has spent much of his post-presidential life producing movies
In June, Mr Obama appeared in a conversation in Connecticut with celebrity historian Heather Cox Richardson during which he said the country was “dangerously close” to sliding into autocracy.
On July 11, not only did Mr Obama scold Democrats who have failed to speak out against Mr Trump and his administration, he also appeared to mock the level of sacrifice or risk-taking that doing so required.
He invoked the 9-foot-by-9-foot prison cell in which anti-apartheid icon and politician Nelson Mandela spent 27 years, saying, “Nobody’s asking for that kind of courage.”
Mr Obama warned that the country was in danger of backsliding on the steady social progress it has made since World War II – a period “in which everything kept getting better, more or less”, he said.
“For most of our lives, it was easy to stand for equality and justice, et cetera,” Mr Obama said.
“You didn’t really have to make a lot of sacrifices. That hasn’t been true for most of human history or American history. It’s still not true in most of the world. So these are moments where your values are tested and you have to stand up for them.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a Democrat, but you’re kind of disappointed right now, so you’re not doing anything,” Mr Obama added.
“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.”
During the fund-raiser, Mr Obama praised the Democratic nominees for governor of New Jersey, Representative Mikie Sherrill, and Virginia, former Representative Abigail Spanberger.
He also urged donors to contribute to the Democratic National Committee, which his own aides worked to diminish during his presidency.
Mr Obama also waded into a dispute between the party’s left and some moderates, telling the donors that, whatever their ideology, it was incumbent on Democrats to produce tangible results for voters if they hoped to win elections and regain power.
“You want to deliver for people and make their lives better? You got to figure out how to do it,” he said. “I don’t care how much you love working people. They can’t afford a house because all the rules in your state make it prohibitive to build.” NYTIMES
