\n Former President Obama reflected on the societal changes in the United States over the decade since he left office, expressing concern about the trajectory of the country\u2019s politics.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIn that time we have lived through more war, and a terrible pandemic, economic disruptions, mass protests, backlash against mass protests, political conflicts that have shaken the very foundation of our democracy,\u201d the former president remarked.\n <\/p>\n
\n Obama commented on the vast technological leaps and widening economic inequality over those years, saying they have amplified divisions.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s a lot,\u201d he said. \u201cThe future feels uncertain, the ground unstable beneath our feet, and as algorithms keep feeding us a steady stream of distraction and outrage, as only the loudest, most extreme voices get attention, fanning our prejudices, appealing to our basest, most tribal instincts \u2013 it\u2019s tempting to give in to cynicism and even despair, to stop trying.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n While acknowledging he is \u201cnot immune to anger or doubt,\u201d the former president urged resilience and cooperation.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhen we lose faith in each other, when we stop believing that voting matters, that citizenship matters, that our collective voices matter, that how we treat each other no longer matters, and we give away our power to decide our own futures \u2013 we open the door to the most ruthless, or the most careless, or the most fearful among us,\u201d Obama said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former President Obama reflected on the societal changes in the United States over the decade since he left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-712043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}