In recent weeks, scandal after scandal has rocked Barack Obama\u2019s administration.\u00a0 His presidency might be imperiled.<\/p>\n
Or it might not be.<\/p>\n
Obama steadfastly remains an activist, a \u201ccommunity organizer.\u201d\u00a0 Nor has he forgotten that which he learned from the godfather of all community organizers, Saul Alinsky.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n
In his Rules for Radicals, <\/i>Alinsky writes that the goal \u201cof the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a \u2018dangerous enemy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, given that he is the President of the United States, Obama\u2019s should be recognized by the world as the face of \u201cthe establishment.\u201d\u00a0 Obama, though, does not want this, for to be associated with \u201cthe establishment\u201d is to be identified with the status quo, politics as usual.\u00a0 But Obama promised hope, change, and even \u201cthe fundamental transformation\u201d of America.\u00a0 To make good on this promise, he needs the support of the electorate.\u00a0 Yet to elicit this support, he must convince Americans not just that he is not a member of the establishment.\u00a0 He must convince them that he is its enemy.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
More specifically, he must have us believe that it is those in the establishment that view him as a \u201cdangerous <\/i>enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alinsky explains that the term \u201c\u2018enemy\u2019 is sufficient to put the organizer on the side of the people,\u201d and that \u201cthe brand \u2018dangerous\u2019\u201d proves that \u201cthe establishment\u201d has \u201cfear of the organizer,\u201d \u201cfear that he represents a threat to its omnipotence.\u201d\u00a0 Once this fear is established for all to see, the organizer can get to work.<\/p>\n
Doubtless, Obama did not want for any of these scandals to come to light. Now that they\u2019ve arisen, though, they can be exploited to depict himself as a Washington outsider and his Republican nemeses as \u201cthe establishment\u201d that has vowed to destroy him.\u00a0 Potentially, this strategy trades off short-term loss for long-term gain.<\/p>\n
Again, Alinsky is instructive here: \u201cIf by losing in a certain action\u201d the organizer \u201ccan get more members than by winning, then victory lies in losing and he will lose.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is another respect in which Obama will exploit \u201cthe crises\u201d of government that the Republicans are trying to expose in his administration.\u00a0 Rahm Emmanuel warned us against letting \u201ca good crisis go to waste.\u201d\u00a0 Crises disorganize our ordinary categories and assumptions.\u00a0 At the same time, according to Alinsky, they both reflect and \u201cstir up\u201d the \u201cdissatisfaction and discontent\u201d of the people.\u00a0 This is great news for the organizer, for he can then \u201cprovide a channel into which\u201d people \u201ccan angrily pour their frustrations [.]\u201d<\/p>\n
Your average person\u2014the average voter\u2014wants crises resolved. He longs for normalcy, some semblance of calm.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, Obama remains more popular than his Republican opponents, and he long ago succeeded in convincing many Americans that the GOP is the establishment while he is their \u201cdangerous enemy.\u201d\u00a0 As long as they are perceived as \u201ccrisis mongers,\u201d Obama counts upon the public growing weary\u2014and frustrated\u2014with them.\u00a0 At the same time, he can style himself the hero, the organizer par excellence, who will relieve Americans\u2019 of their exasperation by conceding that there are crises and then swooping in to solve them.\u00a0 <\/i>Of course, such \u201csolutions\u201d will come at the cost of an ever larger government, one that is even more amenable to his agenda.<\/p>\n
But this is exactly what Obama wants, of course.<\/p>\n
So, Obama, in spite of being among the most politically powerful people in the world, has many Americans believing that he is an enemy of the establishment. And though all of the crises of government over which his opponents are sounding the alarm are scandals for which his <\/i>administration is responsible, it is Obama who will be able to take credit for resolving them.\u00a0 The country has never had a president, and not even many politicians of any sort, really, who were better suited to pull off these two seemingly insurmountable tasks than is Obama.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n
That the media continually run cover for him obviously explains quite a bit.\u00a0 Yet the President\u2019s rivals err gravely if they attribute his success solely to the media\u2019s partisan loyalties.<\/p>\n
In the popular imagination\u2014reinforced daily by Hollywood, the media, and academia\u2014the American political establishment remains under the control of whites generally and white men specifically (i.e. \u201cthe good old boy network\u201d). And blacks remain victims of racial oppression.\u00a0 President or not, Obama\u2019s blackness is seen as automatically rendering him an enemy of the establishment. His Arabic name, however, signifies an even wider gap between Obama and the latter.<\/p>\n
Republicans must hold Obama accountable for his actions.\u00a0 At the same time, they must reckon with our current racial politics\u2014and the ease with which Obama, the Alinskyite, will use these perceptions to his advantage. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
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In recent weeks, scandal after scandal has rocked Barack Obama\u2019s administration.\u00a0 His presidency might be imperiled. Or it might not be. Obama steadfastly remains an activist, a \u201ccommunity organizer.\u201d\u00a0 Nor has he forgotten that which he learned from the godfather of all community organizers, Saul Alinsky.\u00a0 In his Rules for Radicals, Alinsky writes that the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n