Articles: The Obama Revolution Enters its Radical Phase:
Political scientists long ago
developed a template for analyzing the course of classic revolutions, which still works pretty well, as for example, recent events in Egypt demonstrate.
While the Obama presidency has not been a real revolution, Obama took office with the deliberate intention of “transforming” United States, a process that has been in many ways almost as painful and destructive as a revolution.
That process, like classic revolutions of the past,
now appears to be entering its most dangerous and radical phase. The radical phase of the classic revolutionary cycle comes after a more moderate period, and tends to provoke a strong conservative counter-reaction.
It is driven both by the excesses of leaders who see their power and opportunity waning, and the demands of an agitated constituency that feels let down by the pace of change and wants to push the radical agenda to the breaking point.
We can see this happening in the country today.
It is evident in Obama’s increasingly desperate attempts to remain relevant and press his agendas through any means possible, for example through unconstitutional executive actions.
- It is evident as well in the rise of extremist movements like Black Lives Matter.
- Finally, these developments have already provoked a drastic conservative reaction in the person of Donald Trump and his partisans.
- More specifically, we can see the artifacts of this radical phase in many developments that mirror violent and disruptive revolutions of the past.
- Radical revolutionaries almost always attempt to remake the military, as in the final analysis, it is the locus of the state’s coercive power...
- The radical phases of revolutions are also marked by violent disturbances and expansive civil unrest, something that we see increasingly in America today, from riots in Missouri and Baltimore, to campus “protests” over largely invented slights.
- Weakness and unrest get the attention of enemies, and historically the radical phase of revolutions attracts foreign attack.
- Also inevitable are the false crises, the blaming of inexplicable forces, the hatred of the domestic opposition more than any true enemy of the state.
Throughout, the radical revolutionary leader always pretends to be above it all, smarter than the mob, confident of riding the tiger to the end.
The incorruptible Robespierre, the analytical Trotsky, all came a cropper in the end though, not as tough, honest, or smart as their apologists pretended.
Obama too takes this
tone of superior detachment as the West is under attack, unwilling to admit mistakes and so unable to learn from them.
In the end the radical phases of revolutions collapse under the weight of their own chaos and confusion.
But the worse the situation becomes, the more it motivates and radicalizes opposition.
The English Revolution ended with the last failed Stuarts, the French Napoleon, and the Russian Stalin.
Obama’s radical reign is doing just that, in the person of Donald Trump, a demagogic reality television star, who is skillfully channeling the fear and rage of a significant part of the populace.
It’s not even hard to believe that Obama is flat-out
encouraging the phenomenon, in the expectation that it will upend what might otherwise be a relatively easy Republican victory, given the sorry state of his governance.
America is a stable republic, populated by history’s most reasonable and moderate people. Nevertheless, this descent into radicalism is dangerous.
It is highly unlikely to end in the disasters that marked similar stages in other countries through history, but a lot more damage might be done before it ends, and before we get a good idea of what a new beginning might be like.
