Is Obama Just a Hapless Putz?

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In an interview the other day, I was asked what the president might’ve been thinking when he instigated the chaos on our borders with his talk of pen-and-phone amnesty. Half a dozen things went through my mind. Maybe he’s trying some sort of Cloward-Piven maneuver: an attempt to overwhelm our welfare state to the point where we replace it with “a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty.” Or maybe he’s just trying to flood the population with Democrat voters. Or maybe he feels America stole its southland from Hispanic people anyway and it’s up to him to give it back.

The president’s not an idiot so obviously he intended to accomplish something by bringing this humanitarian disaster down upon the heads of ourselves and the children of Central America. What exactly was it?

Then, after the interview, it suddenly occurred to me:  What difference, at this point, does it make what the president is thinking? What difference does it make what he intends? Intentions, as every conservative knows, don’t dictate results. While, in the moment, he has put the lives of thousands of children, the health of Americans and the nation’s security at risk, the end game is out of his control and may — almost assuredly will — be entirely different from what he expects.

Cloward-Piven, for instance, has always struck me as an idiot strategy. The idea that you can cause chaos and then predict what will come out of that chaos makes absolutely no sense. If our welfare state were overwhelmed, who knows what would come out of it? Hell, maybe it would be the end of the welfare state. I can dream, can’t I?

Likewise, the prediction common on both the left and right that illegal immigrants will be now and forever Democrat voters is about as certain to come true as computer models of the future climate: i.e. not certain at all. Only Jews and blacks are doomed to vote eternally for Democrats even as the Dems screw them relentlessly into the ground. Not sure why. Maybe an evil curse. But hey, even Jews and blacks may one day come to their senses. As for illegal aliens? The future’s not ours to know.

And yes, I do believe Obama has a radical’s dislike of the country that has given him everything he is and has and that he wants to make us less of a power in the world. But who cares what he wants?  I can virtually guarantee you our power is not going anywhere for at least a century or so. We are far, far more mighty and durable than people think. By not asserting American force, Obama can cause the death and oppression of many innocent people in far off lands — he already has. But as soon as we have a patriotic president again, our power will reassert itself and bring some sort of order back to the world.

In fact, I would predict that almost everything Obama has done in his time in office will vanish without a trace within a decade or two. Obamacare, the clown car foreign policy, the corruption…  I think it has caused some problems and will cause some more, but then I think we’ll shrug it all off and move on. Even some of the cleverer subterranean stuff, like favoring cities over suburbs, will only have a long-lasting effect if, in fact, the suburban era is over. If people still want their houses and lawns and cars, they’ll get them back, no matter what oppressive regulations this guy puts in place.

Many people on the right think Obama is an Evil Leftist Genius. Not me. I think he is a hapless putz. I think his ideas are all wrong, his application of his ideas is incompetent, and the chaos that he causes with his wrongness and incompetence will not lead in the direction he thinks it will.

I think when the history of the 21st century is written, Obama will not merit more than a single line. Even the fact that he was the first black president may come to seem irrelevant in a couple of decades. In which case, he will not merit any line at all.

The guy is just a sad little schmuck who played cynical politics well and got promoted way above his competence. His policies won’t change the face of the nation. They’ll just make a mess that those who come after him will have to clean up.

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