Obama Calls Out ‘Comfortable’ Liberals During Ominous Trump Warning: ‘Things Are a Little Different’

Former President Barack Obama warned that the United States is “dangerously close” to becoming “consistent with autocracies” under President Donald Trump.

Obama joined writer Heather Cox Richardson on Tuesday for a civic group event in Hartford, Connecticut, where he offered rare commentary on current politics and the state of the country. The former president said there is a “weak commitment” and poor “understanding” in the current administration “of how a liberal democracy is supposed to work,” according to The New York Times.

“It requires them to take that oath seriously,” he said about the Judicial branch, “and when that isn’t happening we start drifting into something that is not consistent with American democracy. It is consistent with autocracies. It is consistent with Hungary under Orban.”

Obama argued we are “dangerously close” to behaving like an autocratic country.

“We’re not there yet completely, but I think that we are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like that. And we need people both outside government and inside government saying, ‘Let’s not go over that cliff because it’s hard to recover,'” he said.

He did not mention Trump by name, but did make specific reference to him at one point by saying, “In 2020, one person won the election and it wasn’t the guy complaining about it.” The former president also took aim at affluent liberals, arguing they became too “comfortable” during his presidency.

“You could be as progressive and socially conscious as you wanted, and you did not have to pay a price. You could still make a lot of money. You could still hang out in Aspen and Milan and travel and have a house in the Hamptons and still think of yourself as a progressive,” he said.

Liberals, according to Obama, were “comfortable in their righteousness” during his presidency, but they face a different reality today.

Things are “a little different” now, he added, claiming many will need to sacrifice to continue standing for their principles.

“Now things are a little different. You might lose some of your donors if you’re a university and if you’re a law firm, your billings might drop a little bit, which means you cannot remodel that kitchen in your house in the Hamptons this summer,” he said.