Source: Politics<\/p>\n
As much of the political world tunes in to the Jan. 6 commission\u2019s opening hearing Thursday evening, former President Barack Obama will be half-a-world away, preparing his own presentation about the potholed path that democracy is on.<\/p>\n
Obama is speaking on Friday at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit in addition to holding a meet-up Saturday of more than 60 Obama Foundation leaders from across Europe. It is the latest in a series of clarion calls he\u2019s made about challenges democracies are facing. But, unlike those past ones, the shadow of America\u2019s own political tensions will be especially pronounced this go-around.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the two events that most clearly manifest the dangers to democracy in the world today are January 6 and the Russia invasion of Ukraine,\u201d said Ben Rhodes, Obama\u2019s longtime foreign policy adviser, who is helping with the speech. \u201cThe Russia invasion of Ukraine represents the danger that autocracy poses to human beings and global order. January 6 represents the danger to democracy from within. Those are related challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear the degree to which Obama will reference Jan. 6 in his speech, or if he\u2019ll discuss it at all. He is a chronic, last-minute editor, making it impossible to confidently state the contents until near-delivery. But Rhodes noted the goal is to speak to broader themes \u2014 disinformation, the need for inclusive capitalism, inequality, and the decline in political institutions \u2014 rather than specific news events. Others involved in the program stressed that the more important context was not Donald Trump\u2019s lingering denial of the 2020 election results but the war in Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an inflection point. It is not just Ukraine\u2019s fight but a fight for liberal democracy,\u201d said Jonas Parello-Plesner, executive director at the Alliance of Democracies, which is hosting the summit.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re speaking to a convinced trans-atlanticist,\u201d he added. \u201cYes, this has been a hard moment for America\u2026 But show me the vice president in China or Russia who would stand up to their leader and say, \u2018No, this is not how this should be done.\u2019 So you\u2019re a bit shaken. But the checks and balances are still there in the American system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those who have worked alongside Obama say he recognizes that the roots of the problems democracies now face became apparent during his presidency. The backlash to the stock market crash and the rise of the internet opened a brief window of possibility around the globe. But that window closed relatively quickly. Technology hasn\u2019t been a uniquely liberating force. Disinformation hasn\u2019t been checked and regulated. Voting rights have not been expanded. Populism has been accompanied by nativism.<\/p>\n
In his post presidency, Obama has tried, as Rhodes put it, to \u201cconnect some dots\u201d on the issues. Earlier this year, he held an off-the-record session in Chicago with a group of reporters who cover democratic backsliding and disinformation, including Semafor\u2019s Ben Smith, The Atlantic\u2019s Anne Applebaum and Charlie Warzel, CNN\u2019s Brian Stelter, and tech journalist Kara Swisher. He held another one in California with journalists including CNN\u2019s Donie O\u2019Sullivan, New York Times reporter Kevin Roose and Platformer journalist Casey Newton.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also sought insight from conversations with a number of academics, including Renee DiResta, the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory, Marietje Schaake, the international policy director at Stanford University\u2019s Cyber Policy Center, Safiya Noble, professor of gender studies and African American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Maria Ressa, the CEO of Rappler and the first Filipino recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n
Asked for some of the reading materials that he has used to stay informed on the topics, an Obama aide sent over a lengthy list of newspaper and magazine articles. Among them, a New York Times column on Trump strategist Steve Bannon\u2019s savvy<\/a> in hyper-localizing his political focus; a New Yorker piece<\/a> on the efforts by activists to create an ad-hoc oversight board at Facebook; and a Wired item<\/a> on how to stop misinformation from going viral. He also has perused an Atlantic item<\/a> on the gutting of newsrooms by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, and a Curbed item<\/a> about how one author\u2019s objectively brilliant job at parallel parking sparked an Internet spat that underscored the mob-ification of online communities.<\/p>\n But, like everyone else, Obama\u2019s work on these fronts has been overwhelmed by topics that seem more directly pertinent to everyday life. The coming summit will be the first in-person meeting of this cohort of Obama Foundation\u2019s Europe program participants since its launch in 2020, when Covid-19 intervened.<\/p>\n \u201cCopenhagen will be his opportunity to zoom out again,\u201d said one official familiar with the planning, \u201cwhere democracy stands and where young leaders can plug into that solution.\u201d<\/p>\n Obama\u2019s post-presidency has been a contrast between glitz and grunt work. He\u2019s taken on a producer emeritus role at Netflix, helping to develop and even narrate documentaries. He has launched a podcast with Bruce Springsteen and penned the first half of a massive memoir.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also helped spearhead a major redistricting initiative to put the Democratic Party in a far better spot than after the last round a decade ago. More recently, he\u2019s begun aggressively using the spotlight that he commands.<\/p>\n In November, Obama gave a climate-focused speech in Glasgow that stressed the need for younger leaders to engage in politics. In April, he spoke with The Atlantic\u2019s Jeffrey Goldberg about disinformation. Later that month, he went to Stanford University to talk about<\/a> how disinformation was puncturing democracy across the globe.<\/p>\n That Stanford address, in particular, has taken on a layer of significance in Obama\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n Some aides emphasize that Obama has a unique capacity to discuss the tech industry \u2014 its products and shortcomings \u2014 having been, perhaps, the politician who benefited most prominently from the rise of social media networks that revamped campaigns and the fundraising for them.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that gives him credibility to talk about this,” said Jason Goldman, a former Twitter board member and Obama\u2019s first chief digital officer. “He knows these products. He has a long standing relationship with these companies. He is by nature a bit of a nerd. And when he has these conversations, they see a kindred spirit… He\u2019s also able to say I’ve had this personal and professional journey of using these tools.\u201d<\/p>\n But there is also internal staff pride that his Stanford address was critical of Silicon Valley at the intellectual heart of it. The from-the-belly-of-the-beast staging is something Obama has done repeatedly before. As president, he spoke about the need for financial regulatory reform at Cooper Union and challenged House Republicans on health care reform while at their retreat.<\/p>\n Copenhagen will be a continuation of that. Though the summit was planned before Russia\u2019s invasion, the war in Ukraine will loom over its proceedings \u2014 a bloody, theatrical demonstration that democratic fault lines are close to crumbling.<\/p>\n \u201cHe knows the headwinds these young leaders face in terms of global democratic backsliding,\u201d said Laura Lucas Magnuson, executive vice president of global programs at the Obama Foundation. \u201cIt makes what we\u2019ve long been doing more urgent than ever and the work of our leaders more urgent than ever. At this moment people really want to hear him continue on that track.\u201d<\/p>\n