Obama’s Idea of ‘Democracy’

Originally posted at American Thinker

Ever since he dazzled the world with speechifying on behalf of the common man at the 2004 Democrat convention, Barack Obama has been pushing his own brand of “democracy.” Here we are, in 2024, and Joe Biden is parroting the Obama “democracy” talk. The way we know this blather is issuing from the latter, not the former, is because on July 4th, 2024, Obama predictably took the opportunity to tweet this:

The Fourth of July is about celebrating the big, bold, inclusive experiment that is our American democracy. And it has always been an experiment. Our democracy has never been guaranteed, which means we can’t take it for granted. We need to keep fighting for it, keep improving it, and keep making sure it reflects the better angels of our nature instead of the worst. That, more than anything, is what America is all about.

Judging from the sentiments expressed in that communiqué, the former president is either still unaware that America is a constitutional republic or is unequivocally invested in incrementally imposing majority rule upon a defenseless minority by issuing warnings that “democracy” is in peril.

The key difference between a democracy and a republic lies in the limits placed on government by the law, which has implications for minority rights. Both forms of government tend to use a representational system — i.e., citizens vote to elect politicians to represent their interests and form the government. In a republic, a constitution or charter of rights protects certain inalienable rights that cannot be taken away by the government, even if it has been elected by a majority of voters. In a “pure democracy,” the majority is not restrained in this way and can impose its will on the minority.

Big Government Barack has spent the last 20 years trying to promote America as a “true democracy” as well as to dictate to us our best and worst angels. The former president feels he’s the only one who knows “what America is all about” and acts as if we need him to set us straight. The problem is that this country’s freedom hinges on individual rights bestowed by God, not cake crumbs tossed off the Truman Balcony at the White House. America’s inalienable God-given rights include life, liberty, and the free pursuit of happiness. These are birthrights that belong to every American, regardless of race, creed, or color. And it’s that individual freedom that established a heritage that reflects our “better angels,” not democratic collectivism, communalism, or socialism shrouded in rhetoric promoting Obama’s version of “democracy.”

The reason America thus far has not “perished from the earth,” is because we have a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people[,]” not the other way around. It’s no secret that Barack Obama would like that to change and has made it clear over the years that he sees things quite differently than the Framers of the Constitution. Barack Obama has said that he believes:

The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, [that] says what the states can’t do to you, [and] says what the federal government can’t do to you. But it doesn’t say what the state or federal government must do on your behalf.

The former president’s goal has always been to “combat the evils” of America and remediate perceived injustices through must do government fiat. It’s clear that Obama’s intention is to force collectivism on those entrenched in what he views as the self-centeredness of individualism.

In that infamous 2001 “negative liberties” radio interview, Barack Obama also stated that the U.S. Constitution is a “flawed” document from which America must “break free.” During that conversation, Obama stressed that instead of an originalist, fixed document, what America needs is a “living” Constitution that refocuses from “negative rights” to “positive economic rights.” In other words, in Barack’s world, our system needs to be revised to forcibly “share the wealth,” and “level the playing field.” Because Americans live in a constitutional republic, to accomplish that goal, Obama has made it his life’s purpose to convince voters to install leaders and legislators that will advance his Marxist worldview.

Wasn’t it during Barry’s tenure that free speech, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, and the right to due process all became threats to what he claims to esteem? Under the guise of furthering the cause of supposed “democracy,” during his two terms and more recently as Biden’s covert advisor, it’s obvious to those paying attention that Obama’s true beliefs have zero to do with what he claims America is in danger of losing.

Always speaking as if it’s understood that everyone agrees with what he’s saying and that an unspoken enemy is what deters democratic progress, in 2022, Obama had this to say:

If we want democracy to flourish, we will have to fight for it. We’ll have to nurture it. And we will have to demonstrate its value, again and again, in improving the lives of ordinary people. That includes looking at the shortcomings of our own democracies — not the ideal, but the reality of our own democracies… Only then will we be able to tell a better story of what democracy can be, and must be, in this rapidly changing world.

Rather than foster pride in America and esteem our system of government, by suggesting it was “not the ideal,” the master of Machiavellian Innuendo implied that America needs a loftier system to replace the one he deems unjust.

This is the same guy who also said, “It should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank accounts, that drives our democracy.” Yet he stands by without comment as our nation’s compromised border threatens the foundation of the democratic process, free and fair elections. Instead of warning us that “democracy” is in jeopardy because American citizens are about to be disenfranchised by illegal aliens canceling out their votes — Obama remains silent because throngs of illegal “have nots” ultimately serve his purposes.

The “democracy” progressives like Obama favor requires a political system that justifies the exercise of power by some (those that agree with the Left’s agenda), over others (that disagree with the Left’s agenda), which is not how our Constitutional Republic was designed to work. In truth, the “democracy” currently being foisted on Americans is just a courteous name for the Left being given carte blanche to sanction mob rule. And who is better at inspiring a mob to enforce rules than the 44th president of the United States?

Sadly, our nation has slowly become comfortable with “pure democracy” because “the exercise of power of one person over another [is now] justified by reference to the protection of the interests or rights of the person over whom power is exercised.” What has not yet been specified, if not dictated by the Constitution, in any given situation, who or what gets to decide what protecting “the interests or rights of the person over whom power is exercised” entails?

The contradiction is that while fairness is preached, individual autonomy is rendered dangerous. Think back, wasn’t the supposed “protection of interests” exactly what Americans experienced during COVID? A clarion call went out that stated that the minority noncompliant threatened the lives of the majority compliant. Then, to safeguard the “common good,” the rights of the minority were denied when the paranoid wishes of a majority, dictated to by a fearmongering federal government, were enforced by threats and unconstitutional mandates. That, my friends, is the kind of so-called “democracy” Barack Obama dreams of, and the kind of “democracy” Joe Biden promotes on behalf of the master calling the shots.

Honestly, with the speed at which things are changing, four more years of the masses being indoctrinated with the Left’s way of thinking and the lynch mob may be commended for defending the common good with the help of pitchforks, torches, and ropes.

Back to Obama. This is a man who is notorious for speaking as if his viewpoint represents the majority. For 20+ years now, every chance he gets, America’s most famous community organizer tickles the ears of the disgruntled, stirs up racial hostilities, and makes heroes out of criminals. Even the slightest disagreement with Barry’s vision of how the ‘world, not as it is, but as he would like it to be’ has resulted in labeling patriotic citizens, threats to “democracy.” While contributing to the climate that made prosecuting, jailing, and “demonizing political opponents” acceptable, Obama feigns concern for all Americans by making disingenuous statements like, “This increasing habit of demonizing political opponents creates a dangerous climate.”

In addition to demonizing the Second Amendment, during his tenure, the former president was not a friend of free speech. Remember Obama’s 2010 public chiding of one whole branch of government at the State of the Union address? That spectacle was over the ruling in the landmark Citizen’s Uniteddecision. The public tongue lashing the high court received from the President of the United States at the SOTU is what lit a fire under the confrontational aggression directed toward the judicial branch that still exists today.

Despite political debate being a foundational American pastime, citing “misinformation” as the reason, the former president would be fine with passing a law restricting political commentary on social media. That way, when swaying popular opinion, the government could crack down on the praise of candidates that disagree with Obama and allow unrestricted praise of candidates that represent a point of view that Obama approves of — all while touting the merits of “democracy.”

Remember when Obama defended “democracy” by saying, “In our democracy and our civic discourse, it seems as if folks who take religion the most seriously are sometimes also those who are suspicious of those not like them.” Statements like that, as well as the former president drawing moral equivalencies between ISIS and Christianity, has facilitated the ongoing subversion of even our nation’s religious foundations.

Obama’s calculated “threat to democracy” effort is succeeding because seeds of suspicion have been planted so deeply in America’s psyche that, in some circles, free speech and the right to bear arms are now viewed as menacing. Not to mention the Americans who support legal immigration being labeled xenophobes, and comparisons being made between reverence for the American flag and hatred.

Recently, at a Biden 2024 campaign stop in Philadelphia, the former president again pushed his idea of “democracy” to the fore by suggesting to gushing sycophants that “when true democracy goes away, people get hurt. It has real consequences.” To date, Obama has not yet defined what he believes “true democracy” to be, nor has he clarified what those “real consequences” actually are.

What’s suspect is that Barack never discloses how the “true democracy” he continually nudges Americans toward will eventually be accomplished, nor has he let on whether or not the end goal is to substitute the protections of our founding document with a mob controlled by a cunning Marxist leader. If democratic ideals were truly of concern to those warning America that “democracy” is in peril, why would Barack Obama, and now Joe Biden, institute policies unpopular with the majority by repeatedly circumventing established governing bodies that represent the people they claim they’re fighting for?

If the former president’s idea of fairness involves stirring up the majority to intimidate and eventually eradicate the beliefs and desires of the minority, shielding Americans from that kind of threat is the reason why our Founders decided to institute a constitutional republic in the first place.