What is Barack Obama Up To?

Are Things Going to Get Worse?

Countless articles have appeared touching on the personality of President Barack Obama without giving a particularly satisfactory account of his actions or motives. Republican politicians speak about the President as though he were similar to previous presidents–a man who will perform the same sort of cost-benefit analysis as do professional politicians everywhere. It is suggested that the key to resolving differences on proposed legislation is skillful negotiation with him or his representatives.

But it does not appear that negotiations will succeed. Barack Obama is not interested in politics or even in the substantial success of programs he has seen enacted. Were he actually concerned, he would have insured that they were crafted through the process of political compromise. Instead, he has shown open loathing toward all who disagree with him, making negotiation based on mutual respect impossible.

One could hardly avoid observing that, on substantive matters, Barack Obama appears ignorant, particularly of basic economic principles; that he is, in fact, what used to be termed in moral theology, “invincibly ignorant,” with his repetition of trite phrases ad nauseum and refusal to engage anyone in serious discussion. His speech seems confined to slogans such as “taking the country forward” or the like.

To make matters worse, his proxies constantly make cooperation impossible by smearing all those who disagree with him by calling them racists, homophobes, plutocrats, fundamentalists, etc. As pointed out by Eric Voegelin, such attacks destroy democracy.

How can one explain the behavior and politics of this man?  Is it merely Chicago thuggishness brought to the national stage? Is it the desperation of a man in over his head? Is it the neurotic flowering of a horribly neglected child? Is it the rigidity of a liberal-indoctrinated man trapped in his student-era thought-patterns? Is he a gnostic revolutionary trying to “immanentize the eschaton?” None of these suggestions brings about the “ah-ha!” moment.

Recently my attention was arrested by several paragraphs from Eric Voegelin’s lectures entitled “Hitler and the Germans” while they were being prepared for publication here at VoegelinView.¹

This is what seemed most pertinent:

“He had absolutely no will of any recognizable kind, that is, an existence that was ordered by reason or spirit. But he did have an extraordinarily existence­-intensive libido, and he maintained this up to the end.”

“He appar­ently was able to do so simply because any reasonable and spiritual order was radically absent in him, and there was, so to speak, no further possibility of escape for him . . .”

When Voegelin speaks about libido, he means this:

“Where power of existence separates itself from reason and spirit, we do not speak of will, in the classic Christian vocabulary [volountas], but of concupiscentia or of libido.”

It is more likely than not that any program or legislation or executive order from this administration is primarily designed to satisfy Barack Obama’s intense libido, his desire to impose his will on whatever situation catches his attention and affects him emotionally.

Barack Obama doesn’t mind a crisis. It is an opportunity to increase his power, to satisfy his libido dominandi, to expand the machine he commands. One ought not be surprised if, on or after his State of the Union Address, Barack Obama declares a national emergency because of unwarranted obstacles to “moving the country forward.” Executive Orders would issue and we would then have “rule by decree,” a  phrase previously reserved for the antics of banana republic dictators.

The pretext for the emergency could be anything, but the simplest would be the failure of the House of Representatives to adopt financial measures to continue the government’s program of expenditures at a level required to “move the country forward.” Of course it would be proclaimed a temporary measure pending resolution of disagreements. Additional “crises” would follow, necessitating its continuation into the indefinite future.

There is no one in Washington to restrain him. His cabinet appointees lack independent stature.  Were one to threaten to quit, he could be let go without a fuss because no one would say a statesman had been driven from government.

As for the U. S. military: they are trained in the no-questions-asked military tradition and do not distinguish between the Constitution and duly constituted authority. The anecdotal evidence is that 90% of the military detest the current government, but military subordination to civilian authority is deeply ingrained, and one would hesitate to delineate circumstances when the military ought to overthrow the government.

Since the November 2012 election, one is tempted  to paraphrase Voegelin by observing that the phenomenon of Obama is not exhausted by his personality. It required a  majority to make this reelection possible–a culturally and spiritually confused majority that was too easily manipulated by Hollywood techniques and a tendentious press.

Of course the forgoing would be the worst outcome. Political forecasts aren’t worth much. Things happily fail to come to pass.