President Obama is a uniquely gifted demagogue. An orator of unparalleled skill supported by a gushing media, Obama has yet to present a major policy proposal geared toward solving specific problems. But he has won elections. And he has done so by implying -- over and over and over again -- that his opponents are morally deficient.
It is truly astonishing just how thin President Barack Obama's playbook is. Since his re-election, Obama has boiled down that playbook to one play, which he runs with the regularity of a team quarterbacked by Mark Sanchez. It usually involves children. It always involves moral indignation. It invariably involves urgency calls for action. Action now. Action yesterday. Action overdue.
The content of the action doesn't matter. All that matters it that those who oppose action are the bad guys.
We saw Obama use precisely this rollout strategy with regard to gun control. He utilized the Sandy Hook massacre as a peg on which to hang his anti-Second Amendment agenda; he masked that agenda originally by creating a do-nothing commission dedicated to "listening." He then flanked himself with 7-year-old children, stating that their passion for gun control was the impetus for his drive to seize firearms. The implication: if you don't agree with Obama, you don't care about the safety of children.
We used to laugh such politicians out of office. When Jimmy Carter cited his 13-year-old daughter, Amy, as impetus for his passion on nuclear disarmament, Americans tossed him unceremoniously from the White House. When President Obama does the same, we fete him as a great leader.
And so Obama continues to use the tactic. In pushing his illegal immigration agenda -- an agenda that suggests virtually no significant border control and sponsorship of a second wave of immigrants gaining citizenship via family associations -- Obama flew out to the failing Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Nev., to use the school's majority Hispanic population as a backdrop. He didn't care enough about the kids to offer them better educational opportunities. But he then proceeded to explain that those who oppose his agenda are actually closet racists: "I promise you this: The closer we get, the more emotional this debate is going to become. ... When we talk about (the issue) in the abstract, it's easy sometimes for the discussion to take on a feeling of 'us' versus 'them.'"
In other words, oppose Obama, you hate brown people.
That's the whole point of these exercises. Obama knows full well that he will not be able to pass either a vast gun control scheme or an immigration program that lacks significant border enforcement. He has no intention of passing such legislation. He merely wants to propose such legislation to demonize his opposition as evil -- racist, uncaring about children and the like.
That's despicable. But for President Obama, such tactics are necessary in pursuit of his grand remaking of the American vision. The Constitutional vision believes in checks and balances; it assumes that men are neither angels nor devils but self-interested parties. But such a vision leads to gridlock, as the Founders well knew. Obama wants action. He is a man of action. And so his vision of man is different. There are good people -- people who agree with him --and there are bad people. With that moral dichotomy in place, the Constitutional system becomes obsolete and America awaits transformation.