Obama's Blistering New Takedown of Trump Gives Dems a Way Forward

[red dog 1]

The New Republic
April 4, 2025


For months now, Democrats have been eating themselves alive with an internal argument over how aggressively to criticize Trump's destruction of the rule of law and constitutional order.
Some Democrats think raising this is mostly a waste of time, and if raised, it must feature a quick pivot to prices.
By this account, Democrats face a choice: "Either" attack Trump's lawlessness "or" indict his degradation of people's everyday material conditions.
Do the former, and you're distracting from the latter -- the only real lifeblood of politics.

Barack Obama just made some remarks that are starting to get attention for their stirring indictment of Trump's lawless abuses of power.
That a former president is expressing deep alarm about the precariousness of the rule of law under one of his successors is certainly big news.

But looked at another way, Obama's comments also offer Democrats a way out of the "either"- prices-"or"-democracy cul-de-sac that has flummoxed the party.
What they underscore is this: Trump's destruction of the rule of law and his imminent wreckage of the economy are actually the same story.

Obama prefaced his remarks -- delivered in a question-and-answer session at Hamilton College -- by declaring that he has "deep differences of opinion with my most immediate successor, who's now president once again."

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https://newrepublic.com/article/193641/obama-speech-trump-takedown-democrats-fight