Barack Obama said the United States is caught in a “tug of war” between two competing visions of the future, criticising both populists and complacent progressives. Speaking in London on Wednesday, the former president warned that the country faces a clash between democratic change and a conservative worldview.
Obama described one side as progressives who believe in democratic change, while the other, led by populists including Donald Trump, seeks a return to older, hierarchical systems. “My successor has not been particularly shy about it. That desire is to go back to a very particular way of thinking about America, where ‘we, the people’, is just some people, not all people. And where there are some pretty clear hierarchies in terms of status and who ranks where,” he said.
He also criticised progressives for becoming “complacent” and “smug” in the 1990s and 2000s, saying they “postured that we believe in all these values because they were never tested. Now they’re being tested.”
The former president’s remarks come amid ongoing political debates in the US, including Trump’s recent controversial claims linking paracetamol to autism in infants. Obama described such claims as “violence against the truth,” highlighting his concern about misinformation and its impact on public discourse.
Obama’s speech emphasised the importance of confronting both political complacency and populist rhetoric, suggesting that Americans must actively defend democratic principles while addressing inequality and social divisions.
