"Get out of the way": Obama calls on "old folks" in power to trust young activists, lawmakers

[Mr. Sparkle]

It would be easy for former President Barack Obama to get cynical. The signature achievement of his two terms in office is on the brink of oblivion, and many of the progressive wins of his era have been rolled back by a reactionary presidency and a conservative Supreme Court. Still, the one-time organizer has hope that the next generation of lawmakers can fix the problems that plague the United States. Speaking at Crystal Bridges, the Arkansas art museum founded by the Walton family, he called on the Democratic Party‘s old guard to “get out of the way” of upstarts seeking change.

“My bet is that all the problems we have right now will be solved if old folks get out of the way and we turn the reins over to this next generation that is coming up, so that they can bring those good old-fashioned American values to new sets of problems,” Obama said. The former president didn’t pretend that righting the ship would be easy. He said the United States is much “more divided” than it was when he left office in 2017.

“I think it is true that we are more divided and that our democracy is more unstable than any time in my lifetime, not in American history, I mean, we did have a Civil War,” he said. “I would not have expected the legitimacy of an election and the peaceful transfer of power to have been challenged. I thought that was not something that would happen today.”

He added that Democrats and Republican lawmakers are discouraged from working together, making compromise a risky proposition. “You’ll hear voters asking, ‘Why can’t they just get along? Why can’t they get stuff done?’ The truth is, there are a bunch of structures that have been set up that don’t give them an incentive to work together. In fact, the opposite, they get punished,” he said.

more... https://www.salon.com/2025/12/02/get-out-of-the-way-obama-calls-on-old-folks-in-power-to-trust-young-activists-lawmakers/

[gab13by13]

1. Isn't that what David Hogg was doing

before they fired him?

[mcar]

9. Hogg was using his position in the DNC

to advocate for primarying Democrats so that he could further enrich himself and his organization.

I don't see where President Obama is doing that.

[ananda]

15. This hurts a lot more than what Republicans do...

because we expect it of them.

[Blue Full Moon]

32. That's not true. The ones he wanted primaried fits Obama's statement

[mcar]

33. Where is Obama calling for primarying incumbent Democrats?

Where is Obama profiting off primarying incumbent Democrats?

[Nixie]

38. David Hogg's candidate in Arizona lost. So his theory lost.

It turns out that the long-standing political truths are still out there on a national level. He should learn those so that he really will know it all.

[cloudbase]

2. Good luck.

Very few people willingly cede power.

[mtngirl47]

10. Good luck.

Very few people willing to step up and do the work. Young people don’t appreciate fund raising and meetings. They aren’t interested in compromise. I will happily step down from my county position

[Blues Heron]

3. So skip gen X? Wtf. Boomers need to retire, but let's not go straight to the millennials ffs

[CBHagman]

6. Boomers aren't going anywhere...

...and as Jonathan Capehart observed the other week, we aren't hearing cries for Bernie Sanders to retire.

Government should be intergenerational. It's key to bring multiple perspectives, and institutional knowledge matters. President Biden was effective in ways some other leaders wouldn't have been able to pull off.

[SpankMe]

21. No one is suggesting a full geriatric purge

And Democratic leadership is not intergenerational at this stage. It is dominated by septuagenarians.

I agree with Obama. The decision-making, worldview, energy and tone of current Dem leadership is not keeping up with the times. It's time for people 70 and older to retire and pass the mantle to people 20 and 30 years younger who aren't sticks in the mud. And don't take umbrage about my use of "sticks in the mud" until you've watched a 20-minute long Chuck Schumer speech in the senate.

The fact that no one's asking Bernie to retire is not evidence that we're wrong about asking for the old generation to pass the torch. Bernie is an outlier. He's a young whipper-snapper in an old man's body.

Republicans have been "greening" for the last several electoral generations. Their SOCTUS picks have been in their 50's, and even 40's, so they can get 30 years of SCOTUS domination. Same with most of their judicial picks. They're supporting younger people for congress. They've been working on this for decades and are backloading the system with horrifically conservative stooges who have lifetime tenure. By stubbornly clinging to power, boomer Dems are hobbling our ability to compete for power.

[Sequoia]

39. "Sticks in the mud" !

Ha, so funny. Haven't heard that term in ages.

[Jose Garcia]

23. Sanders is too old to be considered Boomer

He was born in 1941, so he is considered a member of the Silent Generation.

[CBHagman]

29. Exactly right, and so is President Biden.

But both are elders. I didn't mean to imply boomer was a catchall term for people over a certain age.

[angrychair]

24. It about the next generation

Perspective is great but doesn't mean they need to be in control of those decisions.
I mean we have 80+ year olds. I mean on the Republican side they had the chair of the appropriations committee was out of the public eye for 6 weeks before it became publicly known, by way of a newspaper reporter in her home town, that she had been in a memory care facility and her staff and likely others in Congress, like Johnson, had kept it secret.
Grassley says he plans to run again which would keep him in office past 100.

The point is there has to be a balance. The Democratic Caucus needs to stop giving leadership positions based on the age/seniority of the member and be a little more flexible. Like, fine, if the committee chair is older so be it but their deputy should be a younger person or at least not necessarily the next oldest/person with the next most seniority. Especially so if the younger person is studied on the subjects covered by the committee (like a public health person on a committee about public health)

[CBHagman]

30. I appreciate your perspective...

...and at heart, everything we do as Democrats/progressives is about the next generation (the analogy of planting a tree is useful here, with programs and policies meant to prevent problems and address needs—and be adjusted as leaders see how well they work or don't work).

I'm all for balance, and I would also point to one of Heather Cox Richardson's Politics Chats, in which she addressed the different roles within leadership. Here's the video I'm thinking of, and I recommend paying attention to what she says about 34 minutes in, which covers different skill sets.

She doesn't mention ageism, but I have been concerned that some people are writing off entire swaths of the population when coalitions matter.

[Renew Deal]

31. Bernie isn't going to cost us a Supreme Court seat

or control of the House. That being said, running for reelection at 86 would be crazy. If no one else is calling for it, let me be the first.

[Midwestern Democrat]

34. As a member of Gen X, I would say that my generation was too damned passive - a member of Gen X should have been in the

Democratic House leadership LONG before 2023 - it's like my generation of Democrats had none of the ambitious/aggressive "Young Man in a Hurry" quality in them. If they wind up getting passed over for millennials, it's their own damn fault.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

4. This old gal cannot recommend this idea enough.

AND rank choice voting asap please!

[Alliepoo]

11. Same!!

There might be some boomers that are ok to stick around but I agree with President Obama that the old timers ( and I’m pretty old, too) need to step aside for the younger folks that are rising. This is more their world and future than it is the older folks. The young’s also understand how to fight the modern battles much better than the olds. Gotta meet fire with fire and the young’s bring the necessary fire. I like the idea of ranked voting, too!

[moreland01]

12. And open primaries!

That's true democracy, in my opinion. But when you say "open primaries", even the Dems freak out that our power might be threatened. THAT is what Obama is referring to.

[Tetrachloride]

17. rank choice appears to be the proper way

[Arazi]

5. Tsk tsk, surely Obama isn't agreeing with David Hogg

Hasn't he heard he’s to be shunned and cast out?

Can’t have new ideas. Or new proposals

[LittleGirl]

7. I agree President Obama

I have been saying this since you were elected. Those 80-90 year old congress critters need to move along. They don't have a clue what the next generation can bring us.

These "For Life" benefits in Congress should entice them to resign but noooooo, they will hang on for dear life until they die. It's disgusting how we let this happen.

[Just_Vote_Dem]

8. President Obama is absolutely correct

Always trust a grassroots organizer (who became President twice) to have the pulse of the people!

[Fil1957]

13. Democratic party establishment! Are you listening!

[RobinA]

20. Yeah, They Are Listening

and then they look at the current crop running the country, most of whom would not qualify as "old" and realize there's no hope at all.

[Raven123]

14. All of the problems will be solved by younger leaders seems overly optimistic

I do agree on the need for a shift from the comfortable entrenched incumbents to representatives more in tune with current issues and perhaps ideas on how to address them, but it is not a panacea

[question everything]

16. And take me off your solicitation list

[DownriverDem]

18. Aren't Boomers

working campaigns and donating money? Don't we need everyone?

[RobinA]

19. Sooooo...

The next generation is bringing old fashioned American values? Would that be Pete Hegseth, born in 1980? Or Kristie Noem, age 54? Stephen Miller, born 1985? Elon Musk, also 54? J D Vance, born 1984? Karoline Leavitt, born 1997? I mean, the worst people out there right now with the exception of Trump and RFK are far younger than these "old people." Frankly, as an "old" person, the younger generation currently at the top of politics is looking pretty scary.

[CTyankee]

22. I trust President Obama. We should listen to him, one of our best Presidents ever.

[ColoringFool]

25. I'm 76, And I Say "Phooey!" To Obama, And His Implied Criticism.....

OF JOE BIDEN.

[displacedvermoter]

26. Like Rahm Emanuel trusted younger

Progressives when he was Obama's chief of staff? Very courteous and willing to listen, right?

[QueerDuck]

27. "In fact, the opposite, they get punished..."

He's right about that. Every time a reasonable Democrat tries to find common ground or compromise a little bit in order to actually GET a little bit... we hear a chorus of outrage from folks calling them DINO's and demanding that they be primaried and badgered. This is not an "age thing" it's a matter of unrealistic expectations and demands being made on our elected officials and people not understanding how government works... or blaming the party that's NOT in the majority. We need a smarter electorate... that would be a good start.

[gulliver]

28. This overlooks the fact that a public service career now sucks

When the oldsters started their careers, we didn't have Internet-enabled moron mobs and death threats. We could attract better people, because the job was better.

Now you really have to wonder where these "young genius volunteers" are who want to serve us all so badly. We've let the job become so bad that I'm afraid we're getting more and more into a "beggars can't be choosers" market for any form government leadership.

Remarkably, we still get a lot of folks stepping up to the plate, but how long can that last? We need the people to be better followers, imo.

[QueerDuck]

35. Amen.

As much as we hear how much the up-and-comers hate "the establishment", it's clear to me that the most vocal opponents do not have a realistic understanding of how government works. In due time some of these outspoken voices occasionally get elected... and lo-and-behold... when their vim-and-vigor and anger fails to produce results, they too become "establishment" and work within the rules, making deals, sharing power, giving-and-getting, finding common ground... exactly as many of the ones before them did.

[malaise]

36. Agree 100%

Rec

[jfz9580m]

37. I am glad Obama said this

And this isn’t about age. I agree with younger progressives way more than my own lame Gen X, “Google will change the world!” Yeah sure it will. Why is that a good thing? Look at the world around you. It has changed. Has it changed for the better?

Obama’s politics are to my right, but he reminds me of my colleagues at my last work place. I dislike all of them, but they weren’t dishonest or sleazy. It’s not clickbait material. I dislike them because I dislike neoliberalism and those who justify it and bring it into academia or expect people like me to bend to the will of misogynistic accelerationists and rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Very dull and far from lurid.

Just like Larry Summers was an Obama nominee and part of the neoliberal mess that got us here, they were neoliberals and the last people who should mess around with mental health as marketplace solutions.

If I could message them I would tell them “I mean you no harm. Please continue to be lame. You won’t be dragged in. But stay out of my way because when I can I plan to take action against my last host institution and a lot of the stuff since, but not with MAGA/MAHA and Trumpers piling on”.

These alliances with stopped clocks don’t go anywhere.
If Russel Vought and the creeps learnt from their mistakes during Trump 1.0, thankfully so has the left.

I am going to make my DU posts more coherent from here on out. I am grateful EarlG and to my fellow DUers for tolerating me. I have had a very rough 14 years.

I self deported from the US, when I could not endure the implications of California Ideology.

I am not planning on going back because that would be messy. I don’t want immigration dragged into a case where it is a metaphorical issue more than directly relevant. I feel out of sync with most everyone everywhere routine stuff aside from.

Always did..But I used to plod along like my mom and her dad. We come from a family of lame bureaucrats or scientists and are camera shy and somewhat asocial. The last 14 years have been hell.
A world where activism is viral videos or endless compromises that are beyond the pale..I already compromise as much as normal humans do however radical my views would seem to those acclimated to a right shifted world, where with every shift we are told that it’s not more right-shifting.

I lost my mom in 2021 and that felt like the end of the world. But somehow I carried on for another 3 years.

With Trump 2.0..I have lost patience with the attitudes of moderates. It’s one thing when it’s just an opinion. It’s another when it keeps going towards real world consequences that are increasingly harsh on the best people in society (I don’t mean me. I am hideous and not bothered by it as long as I am not on display. I mean people like my colleagues or friends or family or doctors or anyone who is kind to me. The best people I know who are strained when I am strained and I have been strained because of my horrible rightwing host (liberal academia! Bullshit) and people of their ilk.

It was one thing when it was only me. I could and did reason “Maybe it’s me. I am mediocre, difficult, entitled, extreme, lazy etc.” Because I am all those things. I can’t be brutal with the worst people in society without being honest about myself. I don’t sugarcoat things for myself nor call out anyone but the billionaire class or reprehensible elites, beyond shoving mobs or anyone who attacks me out of the way.
I mean you probably don’t want to attack me as a general rule (I don’t mean other DUers..within the community you can. I will grind my teeth and post a genuinely civil response. If I accept a community or a person I let it go..infighting is tiresome).
But I don’t want to do the performative and frequently fascistic version of the shit I had to.

I am not dishonest, cowardly or insane and this period really tested my patience as I tried to endure this shit. I just wanted to be sure and I have seen enough.

And I was only confused by unfamiliarity with the strain of lunatic conservative BS I was dealing with. I knew the older Cheney version. This latest brand was unfamiliar. Now I am finally caught up.

Anyway, it was one thing when it was just me. When I started seeing it happen to so many people. People who deserve better either because they do their best or because they have real problems. The same cruel and demeaning stuff. Doge and the public servants. And on and on. And that culture is spreading everywhere.

That cannot happen.

I finally am at a real change point. I owe a huge debt to the left: DU, Current Affairs Magazine, Yasha Levine (he has helped me a lot.. he reminds me of some of my favorite colleagues in science, whom I avoid these days for their sake. These are some of the best people I know and I don’t want them associated with me in any way. My onc or my other doctors locally are similar. I don’t want the people who are actually holding this shit society together associated with someone whose politics aren’t palatable to what is currently mainstream or sucked into frivolous entertainment or gaming), Nandita Bajaj, Christopher Ketcham, Sam Miller, Nathan Robinson and Current Affairs, Amanda Marcotte, Andrew O’Hehir, Troy Farah and Chauncey DeVega.

I really hope I am anonymous, because I can’t function as a (mediocre) scientist or activist without that. At this point i wouldn’t care except that I find I cannot think that well around people or things unless straightforward or trusted (thanks EarlG/Elad/Skinner).

My thoughts have been a mess. I liked a graphic by DUer CrispyQ which also mentioned Indivisible. As Yasha Levine keeps saying, information without organization is no good. And not organization as in connection via a “panicky” ai agent mediated..just something lame I saw earlier today about an ai agent that panicked and deleted an entire database.

Nathan Robinson also wrote about how Mangione or the Unabomber needed a movement to organize with.

But that’s not easy as all serious activists would tell you and takes as much work as anything else.

But first you have to be clear on who you organize with and I am pretty clear on that head. And now I can let it all hang out.

Locally, a friend who is an animal rights activist and makes vegan sweets has helped me a lot. She is a tough lady. I love her.
My medical MJ company have helped me. That last is not an ad. It’s horrible that such a triviality can be used to make life so hellish for so many people when alcohol is legal.

Like Sam Miller, Ketcham, Levine and like minded people I can’t think like the neoliberal optimists. Maybe one can accomplish stuff. Maybe not. But one has to try one’s best the real way.

My job is easier than that of many since my detestable former host has given me one easy task. They are a source of so much wrong with the world.

There was one scientist I met there who was the least awful of that lot. It’s unfortunate..If I could have talked to him, I would have asked him to tell the rest of them to stay out of my way. I have no quarrel with them. Beyond general disagreeing with every view they hold outside routine science, the occasional stopped clock aside. But I will figure out how to do my part.

This is in a way a love letter to the left. They have really helped me over the years.
I am already “moderate” in any sane way. I have never resented my colleagues (my coworkers, any pi I have ever met and all doctors save for 5 shrinks. Dispassionately speaking, the pis and doctors and are some of the most intelligent and hardworking people I know and they aren’t jerks. I didn’t and don’t think they should go and do whatever it is an Immoderate person thinks. But none of that matters when a brutish Elon Musk comes along) for being successful.
What these companies peddle is a version of false hope that is antithetical to the real thing. It’s sugary rot. But the preachy narrative that tells you it’s your fault as your life gets worse and worse is monstrous.

I said earlier that I am lazy, entitled etc. That is if going forward I don’t pull myself together and pushback every way I can from here on out I would be annoyed at myself.
But I don’t think that’s true of you for any general you except our oligarchs and their sycophants or enablers. And least of all when you are struggling and barely managing.

My point is the if the best people in society (think Fauci and most decent pis I have met) are embattled when Trump and that cabal take over supported by the technofascists, it isn’t surprising that the rest of us are doing this poorly.
It’s not your fault (or mine) that your life sucks. It’s their fault. They are assholes and they will drain you of all your life force and blame junk tech which is mindless as if there are no humans responsible for the junk tech.
Oh it’s just the machine. Oh it’s just this person way low down I pass the buck to.
No it isn’t. It’s the fault of the parasitic ceo class. It’s the fault of bloated economists.
It’s the fault of people who encourage neo nazis or other fascists and misogynists and throw pointless bandaids at the problem.

When you do better, it’s for you to decide as an adult if you are doing what you can. Aside from everything else, once you can, anything you can do to outrun these assholes will take you to a place of sanity and peace.

But we are battling is something really evil and it’s not skynet or Godzilla. It is this collection of sleazy douchebags who want to to make democracy, civil rights, women’s rights, the public sector, regulation, environmental protections and every damn thing obsolete except a collection of sleazy little tech companies and a war and baby machine.

I feel as if I am in the bowels of some sort of virtual reality if not game ..some sort of ill conceived driven that is everywhere now. It is real and dully stupid and pointless.
I have never had any use for conspiracies or self aggrandizement.
But when you annoy me day in and day out with this worthless junk and then blame me, seriously you picked the wrong person to piss off.

People like me keep getting labeled fringe while these genuinely fringe guys are normalized constantly. That’s not sane.

I wasn’t dogmatic anymore than I was immoderate. That made these confusing worldviews that are inconsistent and muddle abstract concepts and real world action so annoying.

I didn’t think that shutting down discussions about the limits to growth or overpopulation (left or moderate) is sane. It means that only people like Nick Fuentes and MTG (actual Nazi sympathizers) or fraudulently hardcore Nazi sympathizers do it and they do it in the worst ways possible. And then when El Salvador looms or Roe v Wade is destroyed there is no one left to help. The narratives are all archaic and stuck in WW2.
You need new stuff that changes with the challenges of the time.

This has the feel of an ending for me personally because it is the end of the worst period of my life and the Stockholm Syndrome that went with it.

I still have to finish a paper and rebuild my old assertive self. My future looks very uncertain and so I am glad I have enough of a cushion that I don’t need to please anyone but follow only what I think is the right thing to do.

I was better off than many. I am childfree and an only child. My parents had public sector jobs, pensions, healthcare so I could come back home and refuse to bend the knee to jerks while still doing my part for publicly funded science. I utilized all the things that MAGA and MAHA are destroying - due process, women’s rights, pensions, healthcare, education with solid support from the technofascist wing (Google, Facebook, Palantir, Musk’s entire repellant outfit, Andreessen and all the morons skewered by Adam Becker in his latest book. Ad!). It was hellish but I survived.

But these systems and entities must not get away with this. It has become bad enough that they must be held accountable not just Trump and MAGA but the people who helped install them while pretending to be for progress.
One has to at least try…I am going to..

I thought I should clean and polish this up a bit since I plan to start a real change from here on out. But decided from the next post on. I have to start working on my real work which has taken a back seat to all this and which cannot be combined with this dreck.

I will get there. The sheer mindnumbing heartlessness and exploitation are sickening with these companies and those who enable them passively.

I was pleased to see this earlier this year:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/federal-workers-fight-back-trump-dismantles-work-radicalized-rcna192040

I was never moderate, but I used to instinctively shoot to sound lame (I.e. moderate. No offense to moderates on DU..any outside DU can..). Or at least I was trying to come off that way. Not sure I ever succeeded. I think you sound insane rather when you try to sound like someone you can’t understand.

Now I figure they would call one a “radical far left lunatic feminist” any which way..why bother with an act that never really worked?

A worm that doesn’t turn now and goes back to that moderate swill and more lame self justification. That’s cruel to other humans. To keep encouraging this at the expense of women’s rights, real decent civilian publicly funded natural and ecological science as opposed to everything being part of a war or pathetic entertainment machine that rots not just the brain but the soul.
Enough is enough.

I am a progressive. I am not calling for The Hague for randoms. I even forgive people from my parasitic former host provided they stay the fuck out of the way going forward. I am not for anything draconian except where it is truly crimes against humanity etc.
But you have to stand up for yourself.
This is too serious for more of this swill.
I really have seen enough.