Obama Fears Progressives Are Too Obsessed With ‘Purity’

As progressives continue to challenge the Democratic Party’s moderate members, former President Barack Obama says he fears that some may be going a step too far.

During an Obama Foundation town hall in Berlin on Saturday, he warned that without compromise, the conflicting ideologies could spur infighting among the left.

“One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States … is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, ‘I’m sorry, this is how it’s going to be,’ and then we start sometimes creating what’s called a circular firing squad where you start shooting at your allies because one of them is straying from purity on the issues, and when that happens, typically the overall effort and movement weakens,” he told the audience.

Obama recalled his days breaking into the political arena as a young community organizer, admitting that he, too, “wanted change now and I wanted 100% of what I wanted,” only to be disappointed by officials who couldn’t make it all happen at once.

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