https://www.obama.org/town-hall-europe/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/06/barack-obama-progressive...
“One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States,” he said, “maybe it’s true here as well, is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, ‘Uh, 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 has strayed from purity on the issues.
“And when that happens, typically the overall effort and movement weakens.”
He advised his audience of young Europeans to “take some time to think in your own mind and continually refine and reflect, ‘What are my core principles?’
“Because the danger is if you don’t know what your principles are, that’s when you compromise your principles away.”
He added: “You can’t set up a system in which you don’t compromise on anything, but you also can’t operate in a system where you compromise on everything.”
Answering questions, Obama said progressives needed to think about remaining “true to our values and principles while recognising that in democracies … the only way we are going to be able to get things done is that we agree to a certain set of rules and part of those rules are that you never get 100% of what you want”.
He cited the Paris climate agreement as an example of an imperfect deal achieved under his presidency with the aim of building on it later. Trump has withdrawn the US from the deal
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