Thanks, Obama!

 Obama's interview with Heather Cox Richardson this past June

Talking about LBJ in the Civil Rights Movement: "As flawed and tragic a figure as he was in a lot of ways, his capacity to overcome the constraints of his background and his politics as a Dixiecrat and then say, “You know what? At this moment in history, I’m going to help make this happen.” That was important, too."

Talking about how change comes both from inside the system and from pressure without: "That, I think, continues to be the recipe for change when our democracy is working. I do believe the most important office in a democracy is the office of citizen. That change happens because ordinary people get together and reimagine what their lives could be and push on the system, but I also think that you have to have people inside that system that can translate those impulses into laws and institutional practices. I’ve been on both sides of that equation, and there have been times once I was in office where I got pushed, and sometimes it was annoying to me, but it was necessary. It was sometimes necessary for me when I was on the outside and I pushed to hear that those who were working within government or in politics, it was important for them to be able to explain that you’re not the only interest group, you’re not the only constituency, there are other equities. We have to balance those equities. That’s part of our job.That I think is how a healthy democracy works."

When asked about the Trump administration: "But what we are also witnessing is that when the system is captured by those who, let’s say, have a weak attachment to democracy."

Talking about liberal democracy: "...understanding of how a liberal democracy is supposed to work. When I say liberal, I don’t mean left. I mean liberal in the sense of believing in rule of law and independent judiciary and freedom of the press and freedom of assembly, protest, compromise, and pluralism.

All those institutional norms and laws that were embodied in the Constitution imperfectly and then over time, were expanded so that we had a basic understanding of I can’t just be picked up on the street and hauled off to another country. That wasn’t a partisan view, that wasn’t a Republican or a Democratic notion that that shouldn’t happen. That was an American value and norm.

What I believe it continues to be that there has to be responses and pushback from civil society, from various institutions and individuals outside of government, but there also has to be people in government, in both parties who say, “Well, no, you can’t do that. You can’t do that.” What we’re seeing right now is when you do not have those constraints or guardrails, when you don’t have people inside of government who say, “No, this is how the law works, and we should follow it.”

Democracy is not self-executing. It requires people, judges, people in the Justice Department, and people throughout the government who take an oath to uphold the Constitution. It requires them to take that oath seriously. — (Applause.) — When that isn’t happening, we start drifting into something that is not consistent with American democracy. It is consistent with autocracies."

About how progressives' values are being tested now: But what’s been fascinating about this period in our history, and it’s anomalous, is that things got steadily better. I mean, the world became hugely wealthier and healthier and better educated, and infant mortality dropped. Women and girls suddenly had access to education. Human rights became an idea that people violated but were guilty about.

If you listen to sometimes like just Nixon in the Nixon tapes, just talking about bombing Cambodia, crazy how indifferent they were in ways that were taken for granted then. Now, whatever differences I have with the Bush administration, they wouldn’t have conversations like that. That happened just in 20 years. I think a lot of us started to take it for granted. Part of what happened was if you were relatively privileged to have grown up in the United States of America during this period, 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, Milan, and travel and have a house in the Hamptons and still think of yourself as a progressive. Now things are a little different. Your commitments are being tested, not the way Nelson Mandela’s commitments were tested where you go to jail for 27 years, you might lose some of your donors if you’re a university. 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.