The Obama administration enacted policies by introducing its legislative agenda into Congress, by interpreting standing legislation, by executive order, by selective enforcement of various regulations, and by other methods.
As the idiom says, one can “connect the dots” and find the underlying patterns which drove Obama’s decisions — underlying patterns which are often in tension with verbal expressions of his agenda.
It was the distance between his rhetoric and his actions which caused many African-American voters to become disillusioned with Obama: far fewer Black voters supported him in 2012 than in 2008.
Black ideologues were vocal in their disappointment with Obama: “Obama’s presidency didn’t lead to Black progress,” comments Jason Riley. “Obama’s call for quiet, individual soul-searching was a way of saying that he had no answers,” writes Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. “Obama’s careful assessments of the political landscape are wrong,” remarks William Darity.
American-American voters had detected the operational doctrine which was behind the seemingly inspirational speeches.
Obama’s words didn’t match his deeds. Or, as many pundits commented, the agenda is not the agenda. The agenda presented in Obama’s words was not the agenda which motivated his deeds.
Black voters were disappointed because Obama failed to deliver meaningful progress to them. Obama’s operational agenda was not about African-Americans.
The operational agenda which drove the Obama administration’s decisions was about decreasing personal political liberty and individual freedom; it was about a net transfer of wealth away from U.S. citizens and into other countries; it was about lowering the diplomatic, economic, and military status of the United States relative to other nations; it was about taxation to place money in the hands of the government instead of in the hands of ordinary citizens; it was about consolidating regulatory power in the hands of the government.
The practical ideology behind the actions of the Obama administration was not about healthcare, although healthcare was often the excuse for amassing more power to the government; it was not about education, although education was often the excuse for accruing more regulatory power to the government; it was not about the environment, although the environment was often the excuse for the government’s confiscation of private property; it was not about racial equality, although social justice was often the excuse for higher taxes to enrich the government.
African-American detected the disconnect between Obama’s words and actions. That’s why fewer Black voters supported him in 2012 than in 2008.
One example is seen in Obama’s relationship with the media. Much of the media - what is called the “mainstream media” - had supported Obama in the 2008 election. Yet the White House didn’t treat them kindly, despite the many favors which they’d done for Obama.
Obama, of course, spoken grandly about the freedom of the press. But his actions contradicted his words: he avoided press conferences, and held fewer of them than presidents either before or after him. While praising the idea of a free and independent press, he undermined and obstructed journalists and created obstacles for their work, as David Limbaugh writes:
At a presser in May 2010, reporter Les Kinsolving asked Gibbs a question that elicited applause from his fellow reporters: why hadn’t Obama held a press conference since July 2009? Instead of answering the question directly, Gibbs made rude, snide, and condescending comments purporting to define what a press conference is. About a week later, CBS’s Chip Reid tried to ask the elusive Obama a question immediately following his signing of the Freedom of Press Act. Obama haughtily declared, “I’m not going to do a press conference today, but we’ll be seeing you guys during the course of the week.” Reid said the irony of asking Obama a question just as he signed the Freedom of Press Act was too rich to resist, describing it as a way of “expressing frustration from the press corps because Obama does so little in the way of press conferences and answering questions from us.”
Obama’s aloof persona - his clumsy and clunky attempts to be folksy fooled nobody - revealed that he did not understand or trust ordinary American citizens. From the age of ten onward, he was raised primarily by his maternal grandparents; his grandmother was the vice-president of a bank, and could afford to make sure that he never attended a public school, and that he was enrolled only in exclusive private schools.
His detached demeanor betrayed his approach - he was concerned to do something to voters, not for them; he sought to rearrange the social, political, and economic order, not to identify with the members of society. David Limbaugh notes:
Perhaps the most maddening aspect of Obama’s cavalier lifestyle is that it all comes at the expense of the taxpayers to whom Obama preaches the virtue of frugality. He and the first lady jet in style from city to city and country to country, scolding the wealthy for not paying their fair share and for offending all of us with their private jets. We the people, it seems, are expected to simply accept our fate — which, on our current trajectory, is national insolvency — and not ask why the same man who stirs our resentment against more wealthy Americans enjoys a lifestyle on par with European royalty — all financed by our own hard work. Obama himself need not worry about our future debt crisis, since he’ll be collecting a generous presidential pension. For the sake of the rest of us, we should get him collecting that pension four years early.
Obama’s deeds and lifestyle revealed the underlying ideology which motivated his policies. He was not interested in education, healthcare, the environment, or creating truly equal opportunities.
The topics which Obama presented as his central concerns - healthcare, the environment, education, racial justice - turned out to be mere facades. He used these topics to obtain votes and to persuade the general public to go along with his plans.
Behind the facade of those noble-sounding words lurked his true agenda: decreasing individual liberty and personal freedom; a net transfer of wealth away from U.S. citizens and into other countries; lowering the diplomatic, economic, and military status of the United States relative to other nations; taxation and higher taxes to enrich the government and to place money in the hands of the government instead of in the hands of ordinary citizens; consolidating regulatory power in the hands of the government; amassing and accruing more regulatory power to the government; and the government’s confiscation of private property.
