By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, December 25, 2014
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.
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