Barack Obama issues disturbing warning about the future of the US under Trump

At the Con­necti­cut Forum on June 17, for­mer Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma issued a sharp cri­tique of Don­ald Trump’s lead­er­ship, warn­ing that the U.S. is “dan­ger­ous­ly close” to becom­ing an autoc­ra­cy.

Oba­ma expressed con­cern about nor­mal­iz­ing anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic behav­ior, specif­i­cal­ly ref­er­enc­ing the cur­rent administration’s response to anti-ICE protests. “There is a weak com­mit­ment to what we under­stood as the foun­da­tions of a lib­er­al democ­ra­cy,” he said, cit­ing the ero­sion of checks and bal­ances and threats to the rule of law.

He empha­sized the impor­tance of pushback—not only from civ­il soci­ety and insti­tu­tions out­side gov­ern­ment but also from bipar­ti­san polit­i­cal lead­ers will­ing to stand up against anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic actions. “What we’re see­ing… is not con­sis­tent with Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy,” Oba­ma stat­ed, com­par­ing recent devel­op­ments to auto­crat­ic regimes like Hun­gary under Vik­tor Orbán.

Autoc­ra­cy, Oba­ma explained, is a sys­tem where pow­er rests in the hands of a sin­gle leader, often unchecked by advi­sors, courts, or the press. Cit­i­zens have lit­tle or no voice in governance—something he fears Amer­i­ca may be approach­ing if cur­rent trends con­tin­ue.

Despite the warn­ing, Oba­ma main­tained a tone of cau­tious opti­mism. He encour­aged young peo­ple to remain impa­tient with injus­tice while also build­ing coali­tions. “Change is a game of addi­tion, not sub­trac­tion,” he said, urg­ing uni­ty over divi­sion.

His remarks fol­lowed the nation­wide “No Kings” protests. While prais­ing grass­roots resis­tance, Oba­ma also called on elect­ed offi­cials to take more active roles in defend­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions.

Inter­est­ing­ly, crit­ics note that Obama’s own admin­is­tra­tion deport­ed more peo­ple annu­al­ly than Trump’s.