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In former President Barack Obama’s first speech since the presidential election last month, he took the opportunity to criticize the current state of polarization in politics. 

He was speaking at the Obama Foundation’s Democracy Forum on Thursday, and made the argument that if “one side” attempts to secure “a permanent grip on power” through “suppressing votes,” “politicizing” the military or weaponizing the judiciary and criminal justice system to target opponents, “a line has been crossed,” according to Fox News. 

“Pluralism is not about holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya,’” Obama said. “It is not about abandoning your convictions and folding when things get tough. It is about recognizing that, in a democracy, power comes from forging alliances and building coalitions and making room in those coalitions not only for the woke, but the waking,” adding that “Purity tests are not a recipe for long-term success.”

The speech drew sharp criticism from some conservatives.

“It’s over for Obama,” journalist Miranda Devine posted on X. “The spell is broken. Donald Trump vanquished him, Biden, Harris, the Bushes, the Cheneys. All of them, with a spring in his step.”

“Ever since his last minute desperate smear of Trump with the ‘very fine people on both sides’ lie, Barack Obama has been slow in realizing his status as false prophet of the Democrat party is no more,” conservative radio host Buck Sexton posted on X.

“Obama turned our politics into ‘if you disagree with me, you are a bad person,’” Republican communicator Matt Whitlock posted on X. “Few people did more to pave the way for Trump. So he can take a seat.”

“By voting in a democratic election, millions of people proved they hate democracy,” author Jon Gabriel posted on X. “Yes, this Obama fellow is quite the intellect.”

“Setting aside the unbelievable hypocrisy here, this is also the guy who’s launching a project to lessen our political divisions. Being the problem — way up on his high horse, looking down disappointedly at the unwashed masses — while publicly lamenting the problem is peak Obama,” Fox News contributor Guy Benson posted on X.

Will Cain, co-host of “Fox and Friends Weekend” said Saturday that Obama is “projecting.” 

“He’s not just projecting that which we all know at this point, which is, the Department of Justice was weaponized under Joe Biden, it was a consolidation of permanent Washington under Joe Biden…it all began under Barack Obama when, for example, he spied on a Fox News reporter,” said Cain. “That is when Lois Lerner targeted conservatives with the IRS. That is when much of this began and was just extrapolated under the presidency of Joe Biden.”