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Barack Obama: “Our biggest challenge right now is we need democracy and…”

Featuring: Barack Obama, Democratic | 44th President of the United States | National

Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum

Published June 19, 2025 | Video Starts at 28:03

So if you ask me right now what, what is our biggest challenge? I go back to what I talked about earlier. Our biggest challenge right now is we need democracy and social cohesion and trust more than ever. And it's probably as weak as it's been since I been alive. And that's a bad combination. (28:03–28:12)

CLAIM

Asserts that democracy, social cohesion, and trust are currently needed more than ever.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Barack Obama

“You have a billion Chinese lifted out of poverty.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 19:58-20:02
“I was the first digital president.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 30:46-30:49
“Smartphones come out around 2010 and are associated with the Arab Spring and Tahrir Square.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 31:31-31:39
“Vladimir Putin and the KGB had a saying that was then adopted proudly by Steve Bannon.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 39:09-39:25
“My administration applied tariffs as well, occasionally to counteract these bad practices.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 57:17-57:23
“While I was in office, [UConn] just kept on winning, and I picked them about four or five times.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 00:56-01:03
“The success of the Voting Rights Act or the Civil Rights Act was first and foremost the courage and tenacity of generations of freedom…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 04:27-04:44
“It was in the end also Lyndon Johnson, as flawed and tragic a figure as he was in a lot of ways. His capacity to overcome the constraints of…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 04:44-05:16
“Figures who aren't famous in the Justice Department who made sure that the federal government weighed in on the side of equality and…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 05:18-05:28
“I do believe the most important office in a democracy is the office of citizen.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 05:37-05:45
“There is a weak commitment to what we understood, and not just my generation, at least Since World War II, our understanding of how a…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 09:49-10:11
“Democracy is not self-executing. It requires people, judges and people in the Justice Department and people throughout the government who…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 12:18-12:38
“We are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like [autocracies].”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 13:48-13:54
“The Berlin Wall comes down, Cold War is over.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 19:03-19:09
“There's this period in the 90s in which the US really doesn't have a competitor.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 19:09-19:15
“You have former Eastern bloc countries who places like Poland or that suddenly are growing rapidly and people's standards of living are…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 20:03-20:18
“India, less so in Africa. But even there you're seeing progress.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 20:18-20:23
“This was all driven by global capital.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 20:27-20:29
“That created what some economists refer to as a winner take all economy.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 20:30-20:39
“The rise in inequality made people feel like I'm losing ground.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 21:17-21:25
“Globalization was hugely disruptive.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 21:26-21:30
“Mass migration has been triggered in part by the communications revolution.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 23:40-23:48
“Growing inequality, a changed information and media environment, demographic change...were disruptive and got people nervous.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 25:06-25:32
“The AI revolution is not made up, it's not overhyped.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 26:11-26:16
“Public schools, we know how to teach kids effectively.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 27:35-27:40
“It's probably as weak as it's been since I been alive.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 28:14-28:26
“If we're going to deal with climate change effectively, if we're going to deal with this AI revolution in a smart way, if we're going to…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 28:32-28:48
“I myself was elected in part because of this digital revolution, because I was not the establishment candidate.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 31:40-31:53
“Social media business model shifted early on... to sell ads.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 33:42-34:26
“Once you needed to sell ads, then the most important thing was getting attention and keeping people engaged on these platforms.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 34:26-34:36
“In 2020, one person won the election, and it wasn't the guy complaining about it.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 36:51-37:01
“That's what's happened in one of our major political parties.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 40:55-41:01
“It will require some government, I believe, some government regulatory constraints around some of these business models in a way that's…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 42:15-42:31
“We don't have aristocracies here, we don't have rank, we don't have monarchies, we have rule of law. All people are equal in the eyes of the…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 46:01-46:17
“That we all have a part to play in democracy, that we all have to take individual responsibility for our lives.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 46:18-46:28
“The United States sometimes gets taken advantage of because we've been the biggest market, China, China in particular, as it came up…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 57:03-57:16
“Our mission is to train this next generation of leaders, give them resources, ideas, most importantly, to convene them so they know they're…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 1:00:33-1:00:48
“We've got programs that reach very young people, like My Brother's Keeper, targeting young men of color who historically have been left out.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 1:00:50-1:01:05
“Girls Opportunity Alliance that focuses on women and girls making sure they have access to opportunity education around the world as well as…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 1:01:05-1:01:15
“It's important to be impatient with injustice and cruelty.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 1:03:37-1:03:46
“There's a healthy outrage that we should be exhibiting in terms of what's currently happening both here and around the world.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 1:03:51-1:04:01
“If you want to deliver on change, then it's a game of addition, not subtraction, which means you have to find ways to make common ground…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 1:04:02-1:04:20
“Part of being a community, part of learning from each other is even the people we agree with, we don't agree with 100% of the time.”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 1:06:18-1:06:27
“The left sometimes does it as much as the right. And it's part of what contributes sometimes to backlash when the left starts being scolds…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 1:06:51-1:07:09
“When people actually meet and they get to know each other and then they work on a common endeavor, then what Lincoln called those better…”
Barack Obama Discusses Democracy, Social Cohesion, and Leadership at the Connecticut Forum | Uploaded June 19, 2025 | 1:07:28-1:07:52