President Obama, speaking at a press conference in Peru yesterday:
"I want to be respectful of the office and give the president-elect an opportunity to put forward his platform and his arguments without somebody
popping off in every instance, [but] as an American citizen who cares deeply about our country, if there are issues that have less to do with the specifics of some legislative proposal or battle but go to core questions about our values and our ideals, and if I think that it’s necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, then I’ll examine it when it comes."
Obama said of the new administration and Congress, "give them a hearing…. People should take a wait-and-see approach" on Trump.
[H]is advice about not waging all-out war on Trump and the Republicans isn’t what many in the shell-shocked party want to hear.
Not to worry, they won't be hearing it for long.
It is of course incumbent on the sitting president to speak, for now, in a conciliatory manner about the incoming catastrophe of his successor. But Obama knows, just as every conscientious citizen knows, that Trump & Friends' catastrophic incompetence, corruption and arrogance will be spectacularly manifest within 60 days. Obama can then say he's "give[n] them a hearing" — and proceed with blasting them.
Better Obama than no one — and no one, other than Obama, is who Democrats have to coherently speak for the party. They're all over the road.