Former President Barack Obama on Friday criticized what he called a daily “assault on our democratic institutions” from the Republican federal government during a speech at a public memorial service for the late Rev. Jesse Jackson in Chicago, noting such efforts made it “hard to hope.”
“Every day you wake up to things you just didn’t think were possible,” Obama told the crowd, which included former Presidents Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. “Each day we’re told by those in high office to fear each other and to turn on each other, and that some Americans count more than others, and that some don’t even count at all.”
“We see science and expertise denigrated while ignorance and dishonesty and cruelty and corruption are reaping untold reward every single day,” Obama added. “We see that, and it’s hard to hope.”
Obama: Each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions.
Another setback to the idea of the rule of law. An offense to common decency. Every day you wake up to things you just didn’t think were possible. Each day we’re told by those in high office to fear… pic.twitter.com/yuDgx3PeZX
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 6, 2026
Other attendees at the celebration of life for Jackson, who died last month at 84, included former Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, producer Tyler Perry and political activist and theologian Cornel West, according to Politico. President Donald Trump was not scheduled to attend.
During his speech, Obama said Jackson’s two attempts at running for president in the 1980s helped inspire him to run for president and set the stage for other Black leaders to find success.
“He paved the road for so many others to follow,” Obama said. “It was because of that path that he had laid, because of his courage, his audacity that two decades later a young Black senator from Chicago’s South Side would even be taken seriously as a candidate for the presidential nomination.”
The former president said Jackson’s decades-long dedication to civil rights should inspire others “to take a harder path” and be “heralds of change” if they want to impact their communities, particularly when people see “greed and bigotry being celebrated, and bullying and mockery masquerading as strength.”
“Because if we don’t step up, no one else will,“ he said. “How fortunate we were that Jesse Jackson answered that call. What a great debt we owe to him.”
You can watch Obama’s full speech in the video above.
