A day after delivering a long and scathing speech targeting his successor, former President Barack Obama switched into campaign mode Saturday morning, rallying an army of Democratic activists who gathered to hear him speak in Orange County, Calif.
"We have the chance to flip the House of Representatives and make sure that we have checks and balances in Washington," Obama told hundreds of supporters and House campaign volunteers. "I cannot tell you, across the country, you can feel the energy, you can feel people saying, 'Enough is enough!'"
As he did Friday at the University of Illinois, Obama warned against politicians who seek to exploit fear in times of uncertainty to maintain power.
"The only way we reverse that cycle of anger and division is when each of us as citizens step up and say we're going to take it upon ourselves to do things differently, we're going to fight for the things that we believe in," he said as audience members yelled back his signature campaign refrain, "Yes, we can!"
Encouraging the crowd to start "taking some clipboards out ... knocking on some doors," Obama cautioned that the biggest threat to democracy is apathy and indifference.
"It's us not doing what we're supposed to be doing," he said.
Obama's speech was met with raucous applause and nostalgia-laced chants of "Four more years!" and "We love you, Obama!"
He highlighted each of the seven Democrats running in Republican-held districts in Southern California that were won by Hillary Clinton in 2016.
"What they understood is the stakes are high in this election," Obama said. "Fact is that if we don't step up, things can get worse."
