Our Second Anti-American President

The current inhabitant of the White House is our second anti-American president. The first was James Buchanan, who during his term of office demonstrated his preference for the South by refusing to thwart the impending Civil War. Obama’s bias has not yet reached such proportions, but it is nearly as egregious.
This judgment may seem to be political hyperbole; nevertheless the evidence to support it is robust. To begin with, Obama comes by his anti-Americanism honestly. His father left this country and returned to Kenya in a snit, while his mother manifested her negative attitude by living as an expatriate in Indonesia for most of her adult life.
In any event, our president’s mind-set has had disastrous implications both domestically and internationally. Indeed, in many ways he has done more damage to the United States than would have been inflicted by a full-scale enemy assault. So let us review the facts.
On the domestic front he has brought the nation to the brink of a budgetary catastrophe. He has also lengthened our economic downturn by supporting policies that discouraged private investment. This, coupled with his disdain for the free market and those who drive it forward, has introduced a host of unnecessary uncertainties.
He has also shown contempt for our political institutions by repeatedly subverting them. To illustrate, instead of healing the nation’s political divisions, he has refused to compromise with the opposition. From the beginning he has been a super-partisan whose mantra has been “it’s my way or the highway.” In addition to vilifying the Republicans, he has refused even to talk to them.
Then too, when it has suited his purposes he has thumbed his nose at the constitution. By his own admission, he has sought to govern without the cooperation of Congress. This strategy too began right out of the starting gate, when he began to rely on so-called unconfirmed “czars” to implement his policies
We have also witnessed his penchant for employing sleazy backroom deals to achieve his ends. This reached a high-water mark with the passage of Obamacare. Not only were its details unread by those who passed the legislation, but it was larded with special benefits for the president’s political allies.
In general, Obama has undermined the democratic culture of our nation by resorting to demagogic tactics. Thus, he promised everything to everyone, but he has also indulged in dishonesty of a magnitude not approached by his predecessors. Democracy depends on trust, yet time and again he has proved himself untrustworthy.
As to the international scene, he has repetitively fawned over our enemies, while disrespecting our friends. We have seen this with respect to Israel and the Palestinians. We have also seen it in his policies toward Russia and Western Europe. The president has even managed to offend our Canadian and Mexican neighbors, while providing succor for socialists in Honduras and Venezuela.
Perhaps worst of all, he is in the process of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq and Afghanistan, at the very same time that he is allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. To make matters even worse, he is intent on hollowing out our military, just as it faces greater threats.
But now we have two new pieces of evidence regarding Obama’s underlying attitude. Internationally, he is beginning to make overtures to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. It was apparently not enough to undercut our Islamic friends, but we may soon be asked to get into bed with our Middle Eastern adversaries.
And then there are his recess appointments to the new consumer protection agency and the national labor relations board. Even though the president knew that the Senate was not technically in recess, he did what he wanted—the constitution be damned. Obama evidently intends to remake the United States along the lines he prefers.
It was not very long ago that our president promised us change we could believe in. Time has now revealed what he meant. Quite clearly Obama did not appreciate the country he inherited and hoped to convert it into something else. While he portrays this as love, it is really scorn.
Calling a sitting president anti-American is surely extreme, but those of us who are fond of the United States must understand what is occurring, that is, if we are to protect our nation from those who would dismantle it.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University