In his “fourth quarter,” he feels free to ignore popular opinion, the rule of law, and Congress.
Until now there were two types of peaceful American change. One was a president, like Franklin D. Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan, working with Congress to alter American life from the top down by passing a new agenda. The other was popular-reform pressure, as happened in the 1890s or 1960s, to change public opinion and force government to make new laws or change existing ones.
Barack Obama has introduced a quite different, third sort of revolution. He seeks to enact change that both the majority of Americans and their representatives oppose. And he tries to do it by bypassing Congress through executive orders and presidential memoranda of dubious legality.
Take so-called climate change. Even when Obama enjoyed a Democrat-controlled Congress, he could not ram through unpopular cap-and-trade legislation. Now he promises to reduce carbon emissions through executive orders. He just signed a climate-change “accord” with China, bypassing the U.S. Senate, which by law must approve treaties with foreign powers.
Polls show that a majority of Americans oppose amnesties and want immigration laws enforced. The 2014 midterm elections were a reminder of those realities. No matter. Obama just did what for six years he warned was illegal: bypass immigration law and grant millions exemptions from enforcement through what he once called “a pen and a phone.”
For over a half-century, both Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses have excluded Cuba from normal U.S. relations. The Castro regime once hosted nuclear missiles pointed at the U.S. It sent expeditionary forces around the globe to spread Communism. It executed opponents, and it still locks up tens of thousands of political prisoners. It drove more than a million refugees to U.S. shores.
Obama knew there was neither popular nor congressional support to reestablish normal ties, especially given that the elderly dictators the Castro brothers are soon to pass on. The traditional props for Cuba’s failed Cuban economy – Russia and Venezuela – now have failed economies of their own.
Easing up on Cuba makes about as much sense as if Reagan had given up on the Cold War in 1981, on the principle that prior opposition to Communism for over a half-century had failed to collapse the tottering Soviet Union.
Obama is said to feel liberated in his revolutionary mode, without worry of either midterm elections or his own reelection. He promises in his “fourth quarter” to enact more executive orders that will radically transform America, despite potential opposition from voters and the Congress.
In part the Obama revolution is linguistic. Words have been reinvented to mask unpleasant reality. Executive orders are “presidential memoranda,” to disguise their ubiquity. Costly Obamacare is an “Affordable Care Act.” Treaties are mere “accords” that do not need to be ratified by the Senate. Deportations are redefined to create a false sense that immigration law is enforced. Terrorism is disassociated from its Islamic roots through euphemisms like “man-caused disaster.”
In part the Obama revolution is bureaucratic. Old agencies are reinvented for new progressive missions. The NASA director promised to pursue Muslim outreach. The IRS went after political opponents. The actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement are selective, and predicated on politics that are deemed favorable to the long-term Obama agenda. Whether the Department of Justice under Eric Holder intervened in a case was predicated on race, class, and gender criteria rather than just the legal merits.
In part the Obama revolution is a war to divvy up the nation by race, class, and gender. Differences are all stoked through various made-up wars. Incendiary presidential advisers like Al Sharpton, inflammatory rhetoric such “nation of cowards” and “punish our enemies,” and presidential commentary on controversies such as the Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown cases inflame and divide.
After six years of Obama’s tenure, the president’s approval rating is just above 40 percent. He has lost more congressional seats during his administration than has any president in over a half-century. His party is in shambles, with historic midterm losses in state legislatures and governorships.
Obama’s promised new legislation — gun control, climate change, Obamacare — was either rejected by Congress or passed but found to be both unpopular and nearly unworkable. Positive changes — such as lower gas prices brought on by new American oil and gas discoveries and innovative new methods of extraction — came despite, not because of, Obama.
Yet the president presses on with his unpopular agenda, believing, as did Napoleon, that he alone is the revolution — intent to ignore popular opinion, the rule of law, and Congress. He assumes that his mastery of the teleprompter and iconic status as the first black president exempt him from congressional censure or outright public revolt.
In the next two years, we will see presidential overreach that we have not witnessed in modern memory.
© 2014 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
The best, most thoughtful, and complete essay on Obama from VDH ever! Obama will become more totalitarian, of this there is no doubt. For me, the saddest part is the lack of an effective and focused opposition. If the Republicans were to dedicate themselves to stopping/slowing this guy, that would be an excellent mission, while the American people could get on with the business of the country. Alas…
There is obviously so little interest in the newly elected congress we are to subjected to wearisome Obama beating. When is a lame duck not a lame duck? When it is a dead horse. Oh, where will we go in two years? Whom will we beat then? Let’s pretend we are setting a direction for self-government, generate legislative impasse, and let the hidden state take care of us all.
“In part the Obama revolution is a war to divvy up the nation by race, class, and gender.”
Au Contraire, I think Obama has done more to steel right of center patriotic Americans’ resolve to defend this country from “enemies foreign and domestic” than any other factor since WW2.
Spot on!
The pledge is here: I, [name], do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
Sir,
You are a Mason, then I presume.
An honor to read your post.
JDL
The title could read, “A One Man Devolution”. What is scary is not that Mr. Chiponmyshoulder was elected, but that so many voters were and are fooled by him.
Obama is in propria persona a man-caused disaster. A 40% approval rating at the point is solid proof of the existence of a large moron element in the populace.
You are be far the best analyst/commentator out there—bar none.
The one force that exists beyond anyone’s power in our wonderful country is the power of “public opinion.” Obama ultimately will be destroyed/impeached by it as was Nixon. Lastly, I think his own party will finally come around to put in the knife as he sucks up all their political air with his more and more outrageous divisive remarks, especially if he continues to hold onto Sharpton.
Keep up the good work (as I’m sure you will) as much remains to be done.
This nation has a huge minority of people who are in fact communists by all practical definition. The President, with his 40% approval rating, can and will continue his agenda of Social Progressivism. The President is supported by a slim majority of SCOTUS, the House of Representatives, and the US Senate. All three of these branches support the Presidents agenda either in fact or by their non-resistance and complacency.
The nation as a whole has neither the will or the ability to resist this change in our nation’s government and so it continues to be altered.
The time of the free-born Citizen and individual liberty is ending and the time of the government of the hive has begun.
So is everyone just railing impotently while Obama makes these fundamental changes? Or will your vaunted “checks-and-balances” system stop him before it’s too late? I believe that part of the problem is that the Republican majorities have to grow a set….
Thank you Mr. Hanson for your great insight and wisdom – really appreciate what you do!
Regarding the statement: “iconic status as the first black president …”
For the record, just to be accurate, President Obama is not the first American black president; neither was President Clinton the first American black president. Remember that phrase about President Clinton? This shows that many liberals are dying for a non-white president as long as he/she is not a conservative of cause!
President Obama is the first American hybrid president, where he has a black father (who’s not even an American) and a white mother. We have not yet had our first true American black president that is coming in the future. Perhaps if Mr. Ben Carson was to be elected then we would finally have our first true American black president!
President Obama with respect to his mixed race represents people like me who also had a black mother and a white father. Yet I don’t go around telling people that I am white or black or try to please these interest groups, I am just an American!
In an amazing way, no matter how you slice it or dice it, everything about Obama when look at carefully from a microscope is really all about smokes and mirrors, duplicity is the order of the day with him and with those who promote him!
Tout court, Obama is a despot. Why the Democrats have tolerated him I don’t know, but your previous essay, “The Timid Generation”, helps to explain it.
I get what is probably a different set of thoughts when I read this. Maybe some that should just stay in my head but I guess I’m tired of it all so allow me to do what I’m going to ultimately bitch about.
It is a given that Obama is pissing on us and our way of life. Who the hell does he think he is that he alone will make our country into something he wants, or that he can? We hear daily from his hustlers and baiting dirt bags. We are told that we need to fly straight and make things right, reach a little deeper because, “you didn’t build that”. I think we’ve been challenged several times to the point of taking up arms yet we haven’t.
VDH composes the truth accurately and he warns us of what comes but we already have these thoughts and know them to be true. Other notables write, or speak the truth for profit yet none of it is helping return us to the Constitutional Republic that we started with. Just more talking and writing and career boosting. Listen to me, the end is near, buy gold, blah… blah… blah. And in his defense, VDH doesn’t do that to my knowledge but that’s not my point. There are a lot of voices but none that affect change.
We The People, a majority, spoke clearly for the first time in a very long time. I saw it at the polls last November. Many Americans stepped out to speak up. We voted for the other team and they show their true colors by melting away into the machine. They are indistinguishable as a difference. My wife says, “wait and see” so I watch and I’m not encouraged. I’m worried about the day when she realizes too that they screwed us.
I’ve seen too many egregious acts in the past 6 years that could arguably justify armed resistance, yet nothing much happens. I include myself in the do nothing column. I’ve often thought of going to the border to help my countrymen repel the thieves who are stealing their way here then boldly demanding rights as if they’ve done nothing wrong. I ask myself If I can really give up all that I’ve worked for to do that. I shouldn’t have to, I voted with the team that is against it, right? I sit here ashamed that I can’t decide to do what I know to be right. I’ve always tried to everywhere else in my life. I grew up being educated about men and women who did these things during times just like these. Maybe the idea that then is now is worth further argument but I don’t think so any more. I can just look at my tax burden and see half of my earnings spoken for, less if only I would live like a hermit. I’ve said my good byes to the land of opportunity!
I want to be middle class and productive. It is what I want to make time for and makes most sense for me. I feel I can contribute to the greater good from here and suit my needs at the same time. I don’t desire riches and I certainly don’t begrudge others for chasing them but it’s plain to see that the place I want to be in society is being discontinued. Benefits for thieves, excuses for thugs with only admonition and forced compliance for me. At least I’m not alone in this.
Nobody is listening to the elephant in the room. He is liberty and he is angry. His grievances are being ignored and worse, made irrelevant. This lack of common respect for our rights has dropped the patriotic among us into chaos and we’ve gone beyond normal political discourse where there seems no hope for resolution of our Constitutionally vetted grievances. It has all gone way beyond the expected norm and we are careening out of control. I sit here angry and talking, and writing and doing… not much else but just hanging on. This is America, proven to be the home of the brave and she is worth more that what we’re giving her.
I feel your pain, brother!
sadly there is no charles maurice talleyrand around to buffer obama’s debacles or protect america from this greenhorn’s actions.
Three words: narcissistic personality disorder. His magical thinking is very much a trait of NPD, too. Do a bit of research about it and I think you’ll come to understand Obama’s actions much better.