Former President Barack Obama wants Democrats to stop acting like babies.
Obama privately implored bigwigs in his own party to dispense with the handwringing, “toughen up” and begin taking actions to “stand up for the things that you think are right,” during a fundraiser in New Jersey on Friday.
“I think it’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up,” the 44th president said of the path ahead for Dems, according to excerpts of his speech obtained by CNN.
Since President Trump roared back to the White House in January, Democrats have seemingly been battered by a sharp blow to morale and struggled to find their footing. Trump has publicly gloated that Democrats are “in total disarray” and needled them for not having a clear leader.
Republicans, by contrast, have effectively been led by Trump since the 2016 election cycle. Obama, who has largely laid low since departing the White House in 2017, downplayed concerns about Democratic leadership and implied that the party just needs to become more confident in itself.
“Stop looking for the quick fix. Stop looking for the messiah. You have great candidates running races right now. Support those candidates,” Obama urged, according to excerpts of his remarks.
The former president argued that the upcoming off-year elections in New Jersey and Virginia, often seen as key bellwethers for midterm cycles, will be “a big jumpstart for where we need to go.”
“Make sure that the DNC [Democratic National Committee] has what it needs to compete in what will be a more data-driven, more social-media-driven cycle, which will cost some money and expertise and time,” Obama said.
His remarks came at a fundraiser held by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and his wife at their home. The event raked in an estimated $2.5 million, CNN said. Some of that haul will go to boost Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s gubernatorial bid in the Garden State.
The former president hailed Sherrill and Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger as “powerful spokespersons for a pragmatic, commonsense desire to help people and who both have remarkable track records of service.”
At the fundraiser, which was attended by party bigs such as DNC Chair Ken Martin, Obama also stressed that “we’ve got to start building up our coffers.” The Democratic Party apparatus has been forced to take out a line of credit because of dwindling finances.
The Democrats have been butting heads over which tactics to use to counter Republicans in recent months. The DNC, for example, had been plagued by controversy over former Vice Chair David Hogg’s push to meddle in party primaries to back more feisty candidates. Hogg has since left the DNC.
“You know, don’t tell me you’re a Democrat, but you’re kind of disappointed right now so you’re not doing anything. No, now is exactly the time that you get in there and do something,” Obama said.
“Don’t say that you care deeply about free speech and then you’re quiet. No, you stand up for free speech when it’s hard. When somebody says something that you don’t like, but you still say, ‘You know what, that person has the right to speak.’ … What’s needed now is courage.”
Obama also briefly took on some of the ideological rights in the party, such as the feud between its far-left faction and the moderates who focus on the so-called “abundance agenda,” which emphasizes deregulating the government from itself to produce more supply.
“There’s been, I gather, some argument between the left of the party and people who are promoting the quote-unquote abundance agenda. Listen, those things are not contradictory. You want to deliver for people and make their lives better? You got to figure out how to do it,” Obama stressed.
“I don’t want to know your ideology, because you can’t build anything. It does not matter.”
Obama also admitted that he’s not been “surprised by what Trump’s done” or that “there are no more guardrails within the Republican Party” and urged key institutions such as law firms to fight back.
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