Obama says Republican Party has become ‘unrecognisable’ in shift that started with Palin

Expressing worry about America’s state of democracy, Barack Obama criticised the Republican party for being “cowed into accepting” positions that would be “unrecognisable and unacceptable” even five years or a decade ago.

In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the former president said when he left the White House, he thought there were enough institutional safeguards in place, including the Republican establishment.

He said he did not believe things would get “this dark” when Sarah Palin in 2008 brought the “dark spirits” such as “xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, paranoid conspiracy theories, an antipathy toward Black and brown folks” to the centre stage of the modern Republican Party.

“I thought that there were enough guardrails institutionally that even after [Donald] Trump was elected,” he said.

“The degree to which we did not see the Republican establishment say ‘hold on, time out, not acceptable’ but rather be cowed into accepting positions that would be unrecognisable and unacceptable even five years ago or a decade ago...,” Mr Obama said.

In his memoir, A Promised Land, Obama blamed Ms Palin for ushering a shift in the Republican party towards populist sentiment at its centre.

He said it culminated in the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol where “suddenly you have large portions of elected Congress going along with the falsehood [that] there were problems with the election.” As many as 147 Republican lawmakers voted against the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

On being pointed out that there were several GOP leaders who went against Mr Trump following the insurrection, Obama responded, “And then poof! Suddenly everyone was back in line.”

“...The base believed it because this had been told to them not just by the President, but by the media that they watch and nobody stood and said ‘stop, that is not correct’,” Mr Obama said, explaining the party’s realignment with Mr Trump and their belief in his election falsehoods.

He, however, lauded some Republicans including Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger for being “very brave” and standing up to Mr Trump.

“I didn’t expect that there would be so few people who would say, ‘Well I don’t mind losing my office because this is too important, America’s too important, our democracy is too important,’” he said. He was, however, hopeful that “tides will turn.”

“But that does require each of us to understand that this experiment in democracy is not self-executed,” he said.

“It does not happen automatically but it happens because each successive generation says that these values, these tools we hold are self-evident. This is important. We are going to invest in it and sacrifice for it and we will stand up for it even when it’s not politically convenient,” he said.