HARTFORD, Conn. — Former President Barack Obama never once mentioned Donald Trump by name, but the current president was never far from the conversation Tuesday night in Hartford.

Touching on a wide range of topics, Obama delivered a history lesson about democracy and freedom with references to the Civil War, World War II, civil rights, solidarity in Poland, and the Berlin Wall.

“Our biggest challenge right now is we need democracy … more than ever, and it’s probably as weak as it’s been since I’ve been alive,” Obama told a sell-out crowd of 2,800 at The Bushnell theatre in Hartford.

Obama appeared at The Connecticut Forum, a long-running speaker series that brings national figures to Hartford. In addition to the sell-out crowd, a spillover theatre was opened in part of the Bushnell complex for a simulcast for those who could not fit into the main theatre.

Saying that democracy needs judges and prosecutors to carry out the rule of law, Obama said that some recent actions by the federal government have pushed the limits of democracy.

“It is consistent with autocracies,” Obama said. “It is consistent with Hungary under [nationalist leader Viktor] Orban. … We’re not there yet completely, but we are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like that. … Let’s not go over that cliff because it’s hard to recover.”

As a one-time constitutional law professor and former U.S. Senator, Obama did not deliver red meat to the liberal crowd with any soundbite criticisms of Trump. The only person he mentioned by name was Steve Bannon, a Trump strategist who now runs a podcast and is not a member of the administration.

Instead, Obama talked about restoring the nation to its greatness and lessening the education and wealth gaps that have created tensions among some Americans.

“What really makes America exceptional is that it’s the only a big country on Earth … that is made up of people from every corner of the globe,” Obama said. “The glue that holds us together is this crazy experiment of democracy. … When this experiment works, it gives the world a bit of hope.”

The nation, he said, has lost its shared sense of purpose with a scattered and sharply divided media landscape that stretches from journalism to entertainment.

“We’ve lost everybody watching Walter Cronkite,” Obama said. “We’ve lost everybody watching MASH or Mary Tyler Moore. We’ve lost everybody reading Time magazine. … It makes it easier for demagogues to divide us.”

Obama’s appearance brought out a crowd largely of Democrats, including former Hartford mayors Luke Bronin and Eddie Perez, current Mayor Arunan Arulampalam, U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, and state comptroller Sean Scanlon, among others. He received standing ovations at the beginning and end of the event.

“I think all of us who yearn for a return of leadership that valued democracy, rule of law, and the American Dream were reminded of what we are missing,” Arulampalam said after the event. “I wasn’t looking for criticism of Trump as much as a reminder of what we can create as Americans if we can see the best in each other and work together again. We all have a lot of work to do to rebuild the foundations of our nation and tonight was a powerful reminder of that.”

Rather than making a long speech at a podium like the State of the Union Address, Obama appeared on stage in a question-and-answer format with liberal historian Heather Cox Richardson, who directed the conversation. Currently a history professor at Boston College who lives in Maine, Richardson holds three degrees from Harvard and has more than 2.5 million subscribers to her newsletter on Substack.

One of the problems facing America, Obama said, is the spread of misinformation and disinformation.

“You just have to flood the zone with so much untruth, constantly, that at some point, people don’t believe anything,” Obama said. “So it doesn’t matter if a candidate running for office just is constantly — just hypothetically — saying untrue things. Or if an elected president claims that he won when he lost, and that the system was rigged. But then when he wins, that it isn’t rigged — because he won. It doesn’t matter if everybody believes it. It just matters if everybody starts kind of throwing up their hands and saying, ‘Well, I guess it doesn’t matter.’ And that’s what’s happening.”

Like other presidents, Obama has been relatively low-key lately and has generally avoided direct criticism of a sitting president. Traditionally, presidents such as George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, have followed the long-standing practice of avoiding criticism in a public way.

But Trump has set a different tone, ripping into Biden when he was a candidate and now blaming Biden at times when things go wrong during the Trump presidency.

Obama spoke out recently on X, formerly known as Twitter, where he has 130 million followers.

“Thirteen years ago, my administration acted to protect young people who were American in every single way but one: on paper,” Obama tweeted. “DACA was an example of how we can be a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. And it’s an example worth remembering today, when families with similar backgrounds who just want to live, work, and support their communities are being demonized and treated as enemies.”

He added, “We can fix our broken immigration system while still recognizing our common humanity and treating each other with dignity and respect. In fact, it’s the only way we ever will.”

With 3.2 million followers on Facebook, Richardson posts on a daily basis, including Saturday and Sunday of the past weekend that included comments on the political assassination in Minnesota. She did not mention that she would be speaking with Obama, but instead said that she had prerecorded comments that would be posted Tuesday evening.

“I have a gig tonight so can’t make it live, but thought we should see if you all preferred a different, random chat time, or would like to be here chatting with each other at the normal time, which I’m guessing will be the winner,” she posted Tuesday. “I expect to be back live on Thursday, at 6:00 p.m.”

High speaking fees

Nationally known figures like Obama are known to receive sky-high speaking fees as they travel around the country.

Obama’s fee Tuesday in Hartford was not disclosed by the Connecticut Forum, but he was among the highest paid in the nation after leaving the presidency in 2017. Obama spoke at that time to private equity and Wall Street financial firms at a rate of $400,000 per speech, according to press reports at the time.

President Bill Clinton can earn $250,000 to $500,000 per speech, topping out at $750,000 in 2011 in a Hong Kong event that was paid by a telecommunications company.

In 2014, former Secretary of State and future presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton raised controversy when she received more than $250,000 for a speech at the University of Connecticut. The UConn Foundation paid for the appearance, based on the wishes of the donor who funded major speakers to come to the campus. Clinton spoke to more than 2,300 students and faculty in a controlled format as she answered questions on stage from the university president.

Despite any problems facing the country, Obama remains optimistic.

“I don’t think progress goes in a straight line,” he said. “That’s been true in the United States, and it’s been true around the world. I think the good will win out.”

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