While no one is surprised that President Obama followed through on his threat to unilaterally change the country’s immigration laws, many held out faint hope that he might pull the country back from the brink. His amnesty speech on Thursday, however, was a retrenchment; the words of a man determined to reshape the country in his own vainglorious image, the will of the people be damned.
The November 4 midterms — and their unmistakable repudiation of “every single one” of the policies the president insisted were on the ballot — are irrelevant to him and his cult of personality. That we’ve had a functioning constitutional republic since 1789 is of no significance, and no obstacle to this man and his stated desire to “fundamentally transform” the United States.
What GOP majorities in both houses of Congress can or will do to stop Obama’s lawlessness in January remains to be seen; for now, he’s gotten away with it. How? That’s easy.
Jonathan Gruber, the slick-talking academic who lined his pockets by touting the “stupidity of the American voter.” Five million dollars worth of stupid.
The current most-infamous Obama administration hack (Eric Holder is leaving, after all) wasn’t involved in planning executive amnesty as far as anyone can tell. But Gruber’s methodology was all over the president’s speech. This should shock no one, because he’s gotten over on the public time and again and again by eschewing facts and reason in favor of base appeals to raw emotion.
The man who repeatedly told a nation of would-be dupes, “if you like your plan, you can keep it, period,” ran the same con Thursday night. Why talk about Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which vests Congress with authority over immigration? No need, when you can tug at the heartstrings of people you consider “stupid.” Look over there! It’s a young illegal immigrant who learned English “by watching PBS” – where else? – and now she has three college degrees!
Oh, the imagery and allegory were spectacular. He had to do this, you see, lest “children be ripped from their mothers’ arms.” Who wants that? Republicans do, apparently; he spent several minutes impugning their character, before telling everyone not to impugn each other’s character. Ironic, since this president’s default setting is to demonize his political opponents, or “enemies,” as he once referred to them (before a large Hispanic audience).
Nor should the president’s prior statements (at least 22 of them) about constitutional constraints be held against him; he’s “waited long enough” for legislation. So, he took action to legalize at least five million people who violated our sovereignty and our laws to get here. He referred to this unilateral scheme as a “deal” multiple times Thursday night, and he’s relying on the Gruber Theorem to sell it.
Deal can connote a couple of things. First, it can mean a mutually beneficial exchange or bargain, maybe even a contract. Put into the president’s amnesty context, five million illegal aliens will face no prosecution or deportation for violating our laws; what does America get in return? To be fair, the Democrat Party sees five million new voters just over the horizon, so it might be a “deal” in that sense – not for the country as a whole, though.
In the political context, deal implies consensus, which obviously doesn’t fit here. How many Democrats begged the President not to take executive action? No matter; he’ll make this deal by himself, with his pen, like some despot in a banana republic. Would an executive order dissolving Congress shock anyone at this point? Is there anything he thinks he can’t do?
Ultimately, executive amnesty will fail, either from lack of funding or by judicial decision. What’s important to realize, though, is why Obama did this: because he thinks he can. And that notion is grounded in his abject contempt for the American people, and his unstinting belief in their irretrievable stupidity.
He lies because he thinks we’re chumps. Don’t take my word for it; just ask Jon Gruber.
