SALEM, MA — Former President Barack Obama harkened back to the soaring themes of hope and unity from his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston with calls to "fight cynicism because it is the enemy of democracy" — while also mocking President Donald Trump's recent White House press ban as a violation of a "foundational creed" of America — at the annual Salem State University Speaker Series showcase on Monday night.
Obama held court in front of 4,000 Salem State students, faculty, and overwhelmingly adoring ticket holders at the school's athletic complex with a mixture of sarcasm, self-deprecating humor, criticisms of duplicitous elements in the country's history and present, with his overriding message that he feels there is still more that brings all of us together than divides us — despite often the best efforts of Washington politics and large media companies that feed off fear and dissension for personal and corporate gain.
"Obviously, today, we are rife with divisions," Obama said. "Our democracy seems broken in so many ways. It feels mean-spirited. ... We have gone through times like this before. I believe we can get out of it.
"In fact, we are not as divided as we seem at the ground level. We are not as divided as our politics or our media would indicate. The loud, noisy, polarized dialogue is, in part, manufactured for a variety of interests. And when you get on the ground, it turns out people are still treating each other decently and with respect."
Obama said the resistance to rollbacks on progress in civil rights, women's rights and LGBTQ+ rights is proof that Americans share more values than many would believe.
"The task we now have is finding ways to capture what I think is the goodness of people," he said. "I will say that the rise in social media and the siloing of information bubbles that we all occupy — so that the reality of someone who reads the New York Times is entirely foreign to somebody who is watching Fox News — we are going to have to find ways to bridge that. And we are going to have to create new town squares where everyone is having a common dialogue."
Obama blamed much of the disconnect between people and the government on Washington dysfunction and unresponsiveness that he charged leads to people "getting attracted to — how shall I put it? — less-constructive politicians ... and sometimes-dangerous ideologies."
Obama continued his thinly veiled shots at Trump — who he never mentioned by name — when historian and moderator Doris Kearns-Goodwin asked him about the recent banning of select media organizations from the White House press corps.
"This country has never agreed on anything uniformly," he said. "But there are some foundational creeds — some bedrock truths — that make us who we are. To rip against, or pick on, or bully or exclude somebody because they don't like the criticism that is being leveled at them, that is a foundational issue.
"I am not surprised that the current president wants to ban newscasts that are critical of him because he's that guy."
He said what has surprised him about the press ban is the lack of pushback on it from Republicans and, at least initially, some other media groups.
"You can't do that and say you are still living in a Democracy. When I was president, we used to push other countries not to do this. ... This should not be a partisan issue. This should be something that rises above partisanship.
"This one is actually in the Constitution. It's pretty straightforward. Free speech — there's a reason why it's the First Amendment."
Obama concluded that he believes it's time for a new generation of voices to rise up and address the challenges of the future — including AI, climate change and income inequality — instead of the older generations of men across the globe clinging to power through promoting the battles of the past.
"What people are starved for at the moment is the ability to tell a moral and compelling story about how we live together. ... There is an underlying moral fabric to how we see each other and treat each other.
"Our leaders have to be able to speak that language in a serious way and in an earnest way."
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