Barack Obama’s been keeping pretty quiet since leaving the White House in 2017. Aside from popping up here and there, he hasn’t really been in the spotlight.
But now, he’s got some serious worries about where the country might be heading under Donald Trump’s leadership. He’s spoken out before about things like funding cuts and tariffs, but this time, his warning felt a lot more serious.
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Obama said he thinks the direction things are going isn’t really matching what American democracy is supposed to be.
Obama warns that America is nearing autocracy
At an event in Hartford, Connecticut, on June 17, Obama didn’t sugarcoat it. He said the US was getting “dangerously close” to turning into an autocracy.
And he even pointed out a few countries that he feels the US might start to resemble politically if we keep heading this way.
What autocracy actually means
An autocracy is basically when one person has total control.
It’s been around forever, from emperors to kings. These days, it shows up as dictatorships or absolute monarchies.
In this kind of setup, no one really checks the leader. Courts, advisors, the press, even the people don’t have much say. People living under that kind of rule can’t decide the laws or how they’re enforced.
Signs of democracy falling apart, according to Obama
Obama made it clear he thinks the US is slowly drifting toward something more autocratic.
At the event, he said: “If you follow regularly what is said by those who are in charge of the federal government right now, there is a weak commitment to what we understood — and not just my generation, at least since World War II — our understanding of how a liberal democracy is supposed to work.
“What we’re seeing right now … is not consistent with American democracy.
“It is consistent with autocracies. It is consistent with Hungary under Orbán. It’s consistent with places that hold elections but do not otherwise observe what we think of [as] a fair system in which everybody’s voice matters, and people have a seat at the table, and there are checks and balances, and nobody’s above the law.
“We’re not there yet completely, but I think that we are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like that.”
Thousands of Americans are already protesting
Just a few days earlier, on June 14, people started showing up at protests all over the country.
They called them “No King” rallies, and they were happening in every single state — over 2,000 of them, according to CNN.
The message? People said they wanted to stand against authoritarianism, protect democracy, and speak out against what they called “billionaire-first politics” and the growing use of military force at home.
There were also protests in places like LA, focused on Trump’s support of ICE and the way they were operating there. Some people were also upset that he had called in the National Guard to handle unrest.
Obama applauds public action but says elected leaders need to step up too
Obama said he appreciated how people were standing up and protesting.
Still, he pointed out that real change also needs people inside the system to step in.
He said: “There also has to be people in government in both parties who say, ‘Well, no, you can’t do that.’”
He still feels hopeful, even with all the problems
Even with all his criticism, Obama hasn’t totally lost hope.
He said he still believes in the power of change and that we’re not beyond saving.
What Obama wants young people to know right now
He said: “I’m still optimistic — I’m still the ‘hope’ guy. … I guess the thing when I’m talking to these young people, though, [what] they need to hear the most is: It is important to be impatient with injustice and cruelty, and there’s a healthy outrage that we should be exhibiting in terms of what’s currently happening both here and around the world.
“But if you want to deliver on change, then it’s a game of addition, not subtraction, which means you have to find ways to make common ground with people who don’t agree with you on everything but agree with you on some things.”
Unity, he says, is the only way forward
Obama said: “When people actually meet and they get to know each other and then they work on a common endeavor, then what Lincoln called those ‘better angels’ come out.
“People start recognizing themselves in each other and they start trusting each other, and that’s not just the basis for democracy, but that’s the basis for our long-term salvation.”