Obama Has Some Advice for the Post-Obama Democrats

The party has lost its grasp on ethnic minorities, young people and blue-collar voters. Why?

By Jason Riley. Excerpt:

"Mr. Obama was on firmer ground when he said that progressives would do well to engage in some self-reflection. “We say that we’re for rule of law. Are we going to stick to that when it’s tough?” he said. “We believe in freedom of speech. Do we stand up for freedom of speech when the other person talking is saying stuff that infuriates us and is wrong and hurtful?” He told the audience that “part of how we got confused around some of these issues is that those who claimed to be fighting on behalf of social justice and freedom of speech and equality—sometimes we didn’t observe it ourselves.”

Mr. Obama said that college should be a place where people have access to different points of view and learn to sharpen their critical-thinking skills, not just tabulate slights. When you leave college, he noted, no one will care about your delicate sensibilities. “You will deal with people in the world who don’t like you and say mean things about you. You better get used to it. Don’t be in the classroom thinking, I can’t be triggered,” he said. “You will have horrible bosses on occasion, or co-workers who say obnoxious things and . . . you need to get used to that here.”

Turning his attention to the adults on campus, Mr. Obama urged schools to acknowledge that some of the criticism they are facing today may be legitimate. “If you are a university, you may have to figure out, are we in fact doing things right? Have we in fact violated our own values, our own code, violated the law in some fashion?” he said. “If not, and you’re just being intimidated, well, you should be able to say, that’s why we’ve got this big endowment. We’ll stand up for what we believe in, and we’ll pay our researchers for a while out of that endowment, and we’ll give up the extra wing or the fancy gymnasium.”"