In a recent address in Hartford, former President Barack Obama expressed grave concerns about the state of American democracy, suggesting that current government actions echo those seen in autocratic regimes. He highlighted the erosion of foundational democratic principles including the rule of law and judicial independence. During a discussion with historian Heather Cox Richardson, Obama emphasized that it is essential for government officials to adhere strictly to their constitutional oaths, cautioning that failure to do so threatens to redefine American governance towards a more autocratic nature. He called for vigilance to prevent crossing critical thresholds.
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...how a liberal democracy is supposed to work.
It requires them to take that oath seriously, and when that isn't happening we start drifting into something that is not consistent with American democracy.
We're not there yet completely, but I think that we are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like that. And we need people...saying, 'Let's not go over that cliff because it's hard to recover.'
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