Originally posted at American Thinker.
The definition of a maximalist is a “person who holds extreme views and is not prepared to compromise.” Although he accuses others of being maximalist saboteurs, there is no one who holds more “extreme views,” or is less “prepared to compromise” than Barack Obama.
In an interview with a supporter and defender of progressive-style overreaching government Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, in a piece entitled “Obama on the World,” self-proclaimed moderate Barack Obama talked of Iraq, Putin, and Israel.
The president used the unrest in the Middle East to describe the state of American politics in the following way:
We have so many things going for us right now as a country — from new energy resources to innovation to a growing economy — but we will never realize our full potential unless our two parties adopt the same outlook that we’re asking of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds or Israelis and Palestinians: No victor, no vanquished and work together.
Obama did not elaborate on whom, in America’s political system, he likens to ISIS, al Qaeda, Hezbollah or Hamas, so one can only guess.
According to Barack Obama, “societies don’t work if political factions take maximalist positions.” The president said, “At the end of the day… the biggest threat to America — the only force that can really weaken us — is us.” Naturally, that “us” does not include the one issuing the warning.
So, while attempting to explain how American politics are dysfunctional, our doggedly un-self-aware president used Middle Eastern upheaval as a parallel to accuse conservatives of being the very thing that he is — a partisan maximalist.
In essence, Obama was accusing others of doing what he does, which is a classic psychological defense mechanism called projection, where a person assigns to someone else the very same thinking and motivations he himself demonstrates.
Excusing himself from his own failures and assuming zero responsibility for the barrier to political cooperation his own extreme liberal views pose, the underlying message of the interview was that extreme conservative opinions that demand “maximalist” ends are a danger to the country.
Then, after a dysfunctional president described American politics as dysfunctional, he inserted the tried and true ‘diversity’ buzzword into the conversation by contending that “the more diverse the country is, the less it can afford to take maximalist positions.”
While Barry pretends to be chastising ISIS in Iraq by dropping on them what equates to a couple of brightly-colored water balloons, here at home, in the name of diversity he allows gangs of tattooed Mexican hoodlums dressed in army fatigues to roam America’s streets and threaten American lives.
That sort of philosophy works on Obama’s behalf. By imposing a wide variety of illegal interlopers on a resistant public, the president can then accuse those who differ from his extreme views on immigration of xenophobic obstructionism.
Since he was elected, Barack Obama has adhered to the “I won” mentality. Now after six years of shocking ineptitude that has left everything from the economy to the healthcare system to the future of America hanging precariously in the balance the person responsible for the mess has the bald-faced audacity to label those attempting to stop that downward spiral extremists?
On the list of politically dysfunctional maximalists, both in and out of Congress, would be nation-wreckers include extremists like the diminutive governor of Arizona Jan Brewer, whose state the Obama administration sued for trying to uphold immigration law.
How dare Brewer attempt to defend Arizona citizens from a blitzkrieg of sickly, criminal, big government-dependent illegals all of whom contribute to the diversity Obama claims is incompatible with the opinions of conservatives?
Then there’s Governor Rick Perry who, as governor of a state under siege, had to call out the Texas National Guard to protect his people from the tide the president refuses to stem of diseased, lawless humans entering Texas from south of the border.
Other ideological maximalists are Congressmen Darrell Issa (R-CA), and Trey ‘the pit bull’ Gowdy (R-SC). Both these so-called extremists regularly nip at the heels of the IRS scandal, and, every chance he gets, Gowdy handily eviscerates perpetrators with the skilled precision of Edward Scissorhands.
Then there’s maximalist obstructionist extraordinaire Ted Cruz (R-TX) whose The Legal Limit Report No. 4: The Obama Administration’s Abuse of Power, lists 76 of the president’s “lawless” actions. It’s likely that Obama sees the outspoken Mr. Cruz as a major contributor to America’s political dysfunction and a huge part of the problem of why our nation is presently, as the president put it, a nonfunctioning society.
Alluding to Iraq and Israel, Obama reassured Friedman that in the Middle East he is only going to involve the U.S. if “different communities there agree to an inclusive politics of no victor/no vanquished.”
That “no victor/no vanquished” philosophy must be the driving force behind his plans to “provide a unilateral amnesty to several million illegal immigrants, and award them work permits.” Never mind that those sorts of “inclusive politics” fly in the face of an American public that opposes executive action on amnesty and a Congressional community desperately trying to curtail the president’s repeated autocratic maneuverings.
Speaking specifically about the conservative wing of the Republican Party, the president pointed out to Freidman that “Increasingly politicians are rewarded for taking the most extreme maximalist positions… and sooner or later, that catches up with you.”
That sort of catch-up is precisely what Obama is about to experience himself. Because despite his delusional rhetoric, and based on his own all-time low approval ratings in the polls, this November his maximalist positions will catch up with him and the equally maximalist wing of the party he leads.
