Obama: ‘Tend To This Garden Of Democracy’ Or Risk Nazi Germany Path

Former President Barack Obama speaks during the Goalkeepers Conference hosted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017, in New York. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Former President Barack Obama speaks during the Goalkeepers Conference hosted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017, in New York. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
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CHICAGO (AP) — Former President Barack Obama says Americans must be vigilant in their defense of democracy or risk following the path of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

At a speech earlier this week, the former president told the Economic Club of Chicago that “things can fall apart fairly quickly” if Americans don’t “tend to this garden of democracy.”

During the speech Tuesday, Obama pointed to Hitler’s rise to power in Germany as he implored the audience to “pay attention … and vote.”

Obama also defended the media. He said the press “often drove me nuts” but that he understood that a free press was vital to democracy.

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  1. Avatar for yskov yskov says:

    There it is.

    Any shred of a fig leaf the GOP has been covering their racist gonads with will be dropped like a stone now. They will happily be the explicitly pro-Nazi, anti-democratic party they’d already morphed into with their anti-black, anti-Obama obsession.

  2. “Germany can no longer simply react to US policy but must establish its own position… even after Trump leaves the White House, relations with the US will never be the same.”
    — German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel
    [source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-us-donald-trump-president-america-angela-merkel-alt-right-israel-europe-sigmar-gabriel-a8094331.html]

    Fun Fact: Canada — ***CANADA!*** — issued a similar statement last April after Cockholster unitarily scuttled NAFTA.

  3. A year ago, he was expressing confidence (with what degree of sincerity, it’s hard to say) that our institutions were strong enough to survive this.

  4. I think the two messages are one and the same, really. Our institutions are strong enough to survive this… as long as we are not complacent.

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