XPost: alt.politics.obama, talk.politics.guns, alt.tasteless.jokes   
   XPost: sac.politics, chi.general   
   From: nospam@comcast.net   
      
   In his first public remarks since last month’s election, former   
   President Barack Obama on Thursday largely avoided direct mention of   
   Donald Trump’s presidential victory and instead focused on the need for   
   bridge-building and accommodation among a public whose sharp divisions   
   have been sown in the Trump era.   
      
   “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,” Obama said as he keynoted the third   
   annual Obama Foundation Democracy Forum at a South Loop hotel.   
      
   “And at this moment in history, when core democratic principles seem to   
   be continuously under attack, when too many people around the world have   
   become cynical and disengaged, now is precisely the time to ask   
   ourselves tough questions about how we can build our democracies and   
   make them work in meaningful and practical ways for ordinary people,” he   
   said.   
      
   During his speech, Obama did not mention Trump by name, his Republican   
   successor in the 2016 election who retook the White House by defeating   
   Vice President Kamala Harris on Nov. 5. And Obama’s talk was a far cry   
   from the partisan attacks he leveled against Trump at the Democratic   
   National Convention, the last time Obama was in Chicago for a public   
   speaking engagement.   
      
   At the convention in August, Obama ridiculed Trump and warned that his   
   returning to the White House would lead to “four more years of bluster   
   and bumbling and chaos.”   
      
   But on Thursday, it was Obama the lecturer who spoke, echoing the   
   forum’s theme of “pluralism” and calling for people to engage with   
   others from differing viewpoints and backgrounds in order to help   
   maintain democracy.   
      
   During his speech, Obama acknowledged that in previewing to friends the   
   forum’s planned subject matter he “got more than a few groans and eye   
   rolls” since “as far as they were concerned, the election proved that   
   democracy is pretty far down on people’s priorities.”   
      
   “But as a citizen and part of a foundation that believes deeply in the   
   promise of democracy — not only to recognize the dignity and the worth   
   of every individual but to produce free and fair and more just societies   
   — I cannot think of a better time to talk about it,” he said.   
      
   “This idea that each of us has to show a level of forbearance toward   
   those who don’t look or think or pray like us, that’s at the heart of   
   democracy,” he said. “But it’s especially hard in big, multi-racial,   
   multi-ethnic, multi-religious countries like the United States.”   
      
   Obama noted that in America in the decades after World War II “democracy   
   seemed to run relatively smoothly with frequent cooperation across party   
   lines and what felt like a broad consensus about how interests were   
   shared (and) differences should be settled.”   
      
   “The biggest reason that American pluralism seemed to be working so well   
   may have to do with what was left out,” he said, noting that even in   
   2004 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate he was its only Black   
   member. “It’s fair to say that when everyone in Washington looked the   
   same and shared the same experiences … cutting deals and getting along   
   was a whole lot simpler.”   
      
   But starting with the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s,   
   “historically marginalized Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans,   
   women, gays and lesbians, disabled Americans demanded a seat at the   
   table,” Obama said. “Not only did they insist on a fair share of   
   government direct resources, but they brought with them new issues, more   
   than their unique experiences, that could not just be resolved by giving   
   them a bigger slice of the pie.”   
      
   “In other words,” he said, “politics was not just a fight about tax   
   rates or roads anymore. It was about more fundamental issues that went   
   to the core of our being — how we expected society to structure itself.”   
      
   Those issues, however, also opened the door to “politicians and party   
   leaders and interest groups (who) take a maximalist position on almost   
   every issue,” Obama said.   
      
   “Every election becomes an act of mortal combat, which political   
   opponents are enemies to be vanquished. Compromise is viewed as betrayal   
   and total victory is the only acceptable outcome,” he said. “But since   
   total victory is impossible in a country politically split down the   
   middle, the result is a doom loop — gridlock, greater polarization,   
   wilder rhetoric and a deepening conviction among partisans that the   
   other side is breaking the rules and has rigged the game to tip it in   
   their favor.”   
      
   Obama, a former senior lecturer of constitutional law at the University   
   of Chicago, has spoken frequently in his post-presidency of a need to   
   restore civility and the need for compromise despite the nation’s   
   political divisions.   
      
   His comments Thursday took on an added dimension in the post-election   
   climate given the history of Trump’s first term and the promises the   
   president-elect made throughout the campaign.   
      
   “I am convinced that if we want democracy, as we understand it, to   
   survive, then we’re all going to have to work toward a renewed   
   commitment to pluralist principles,” he said, adding that “it’s   
   important to look for allies in unlikely places,” not “assume that   
   people on the other side have monolithic views” and believe that they   
   “may share our beliefs about sticking to the rules, observing norms.”   
      
   The alternative is “an increasing willingness on the part of 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 in order   
   to gain and hold onto power,” he said.   
      
   “In those circumstances, pluralism does not call for us to just stand   
   back and save our breath,” Obama said. “In those circumstances, a line   
   has been crossed and we have to stand firm and speak out and organize   
   and mobilize as forcefully as we can.”   
      
   But, in nodding to the fact that such change can’t happen quickly, he   
   also called a restoration of “habits and practices that so often we’ve   
   lost, learning to trust each other,” is “a generational project.”   
      
   https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/12/05/in-chicago-barack-obam   
   -focuses-on-bridge-building-among-a-public-divided-by-president-   
   lect-donald-trump/   
      
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