Former President Barack Obama said the United States is “dangerously close to normalizing behavior” from government officials that is not compatible with liberal democracy, and “consistent with autocracies.”
He said Americans during his presidency and since the end of World War II have taken progress, development and the improvement of society for granted.
“Democracy is not self-executed. It requires people, judges, people in the Justice Department, people throughout the government who take an oath to uphold the Constitution, it requires them to take that oath seriously,” Obama said at a civics event in Connecticut with historian Heather Cox Richardson.
