11:00 p.m. ET, August 19, 2020
Obama: "Do not let them take away your democracy"
From CNN's Gregory Krieg
Former President Barack Obama.
Democratic National Committee
Hammering away at a message that has become a theme of the night, President Barack Obama lamented the precarious state of democracy in America, then urged voters to go to the polls in November on a mission to save it.
“I'm…asking you to believe in your own ability, to embrace your own responsibility as citizens,” he said. “To make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure. Because that is what is at stake right now. Our democracy.”
In an implicit rebuke of President Trump’s famous convention line from 2016, when the future president pledged that “I alone can fix it,” Obama on Wednesday said he believed Biden and Harris could “lead this country of dark times,” but that their election wouldn’t be enough.
“No single American can fix this country alone, not even a president,” Obama said. “Democracy was never meant to be transactional, you give me your vote, I make everything better. It requires an active an informed citizenry.”
Obama also addressed the millions of frustrated Americans who could sit out the election, put off by a political and economic system that regularly ignores their needs while profiting off their work. Trump and Republicans, he said, benefited from that malaise and, now, was trying to use it to further empower himself.
“They know they can't win you over with their policies so they're hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote and to convince you that your vote does not matter. That is how they win,” Obama said. “That's how our democracy withers. Until it's no democracy at all and we cannot let that happen. Do not let them take away your power. Do not let them take away your democracy.”