Wednesday, December 21, 2016

What will Obama do when he's no longer President?


Daniel Greenfield argues that he wants to be the éminence grise behind the progressive left wing of US politics.

President Obama is over. He knows that. There are still some things that he can do before he leaves office, but everything except the most destructive, can be undone by his successor. The next phase of his campaign will not be fought from the White House. It will be fought against the White House.

The other Obama is emerging in conference calls with his supporters. “One of the challenges that I’ve discovered being president is I’d like to be organizer-in-chief, but it’s hard,” he said in one call.

Obama can no longer be commander-in-chief. Instead he’s plotting to become organizer-in-chief.

The infrastructure for the organization was put into place long before anyone thought that Hillary might lose. Organizing for Action gave him his own organizing hub. If Hillary had won, it would have been a pressure group. Now that Trump won, it’s an axis to build a personal counterrevolution around.

. . .

In conventional politics, Obama is done. There’s no way back into the White House. And Hillary’s fate won’t leave much enthusiasm for nominating the uncharismatic spouse of a charismatic ex-president.

But Obama is not a conventional politician. He’s an organizer and a campaigner at the vanguard of a radical movement that seeks to control traditional institutions, but doesn’t feel bound by them. Unlike Bill Clinton, his plans don’t begin and end with the White House. As an organizer, Obama is equipped to build bases of power outside traditional institutions. And that is exactly what he is doing.

The demoralization of the Democrats is, as Obama put it, an opportunity. Social chaos is a time for the left to overthrow and undermine traditional institutions. Fear, anger and despair are radicalizing. The left has always operated by throwing bombs and then profiting from the fallout. That’s Obama’s agenda. Having wrecked the country and the Democrats, he sees that not as a setback, but as an opportunity.

“The network that you represent, you're perfectly poised to do that,” Obama told his OFAers. “In other words, now is the time for some organizing.”

While the leftist rioters in the streets are garnering the most attention, the real threat comes from the network of staffers dubbed Obama Anonymous which are beginning to organize and coordinate. OFA is Obama’s equivalent of the Clinton Foundation. The Clintons built Clintonworld around staffers, but its goal was harvesting money. Obama Inc. is being built around organizing and activism. Like Clintonworld, it will be a network encompassing a variety of political and non-profit institutions. Unlike them, it will be much less focused on directing money to its bosses in preparation for an election. Instead it will function like a traditional leftist movement, merging influence operations with crowdsourced mobilization.

. . .

Obama believes that he can find the key to beating Trump in the traditional tactics of the left. But most is ideology and power. Obama is not done transforming America. And America isn’t done with him yet.

There's more at the link.

I fear Mr. Greenfield may be right.  Mr. Obama won't be content with the damage he's already done to this country, particularly because many of his measures were never passed into law by Congress, and can therefore be undone in the same way they were implemented - with the stroke of a pen.  He's also a relatively young man, with many potentially productive years ahead of him.  That's not good news for the rest of us.

Peter

17 comments:

Feather Blade said...

How can we miss him if he won't go away?

*sigh*

Old NFO said...

Oh yeah, he's not going to go quietly... dammit...

JWINTHEDESERT said...

I have an idea...

Chris Mallory said...

Hopefully he will be involved in an autoerotic asphyxiation accident involving bestiality porn. Otherwise we are going to have 30-40 years of his disapproving looks and catty comments about how deplorable America is.

Fredrick said...

Having done a great deal of damage to the aspirational idea of America over the past two terms he now wants to be Commander-in-Chief of the cultural marxist movement? I think he'll have a harder time doing that than he thinks, especially once Trump gets going in office.

Suz said...

Here's hoping Trump continues to suck all the oxygen out of the room so the newsies want to continue to be hypnotized by Trump and forget all about the dear leader...Here's hoping that without much media attention he will just continue to fade away. Now that would be change! Especially if Trump is able to get the economy rolling again, so folks have jobs again instead of sitting around being bored and getting into trouble.
Maybe there will be a bad hurricane in Haiti again, and Trump can send Obama to co-ordinate the relief effort...

libertyman said...

I doubt he has the ambition to get involved in anything involving working for others. Will companies pay him thousands for speeches? Maybe , but usually there is a benefit to be had or anticipated, (see Goldman Sachs and Hillary).

I don't know, I think he will just play golf and fade away.

Anonymous said...

Obama is two things above all others. Cheap and lazy.

If he has to front his own money, he'll just be lazy.

Douche-golf-bag says what?

MrGarabaldi said...

Hey Peter;

Being a community organizer is all he knows how to do. I do know if he goes through with this, he will be defying centuries of traditions that the former presidents won't criticize their successors.

Rick T said...

Barry won't become a background advisor because he won't fade into the night. He will keep "community organizing" as long as he can get a microphone.

bruce said...

Just as goo-goo good government habit, I'd like to see ex-presidents routinely go to Congress, and I don't mean the Senate. The House of Representatives runs America and it runs it better with people who have executive experience.

And if the D party starts running as smooth as Obamacare, good.

Anonymous said...

My guess is that he will leave the country and get a U.N. post. He has pushed the U.N.'s agenda for quite some time, his resume demonstrates he has pushed the U.S. into many adopting positions closer to them. That is my guess.

Jess said...

Obama was useful, but now unnecessary in the large scheme of things. He may make some noise, but his rattling will only be what little his handlers will allow.

Anonymous said...

I think MrGarabaldi and Rick T have a point. What if Obama decides that he can be Jessie Jackson Sr., Louis Farrakhan, and Al Sharpton rolled into one? He can make $$$ from donors like Soros as well as the racial shake downs like Jessie Jackson et al.

That or he wants to he the head of the UN, so he can get paid, get lots and lots of perks and international fame, and still have a bully pulpit from which to bask the USA and western Civ.

LittleRed1

Post Alley Crackpot said...

Suggestions for his proper post-Presidential role:

-- Life-sized model for Mr Potato Head
-- Movie vampire straight from central casting
-- Politically correct re-visioning of Joe Isuzu

:-)

doofus said...

I resent that insult against that gifted salesman and hilarious taleteller Joe Isuzu by conflating him with that humorless, thin-skinned, narcissistic piece of shit President Mierde Midas.

You do the man a terrible injustice.

takirks said...

They need to keep him there in Washington so that when the investigators are done looking into his criminal activities, he will be easily accessible for the arrest and perp walk.

Oh, he doesn't want to go to prison? Well, he'd better keep his mouth shut, then. Motivating Trump to start the investigation into all the illegal crap like sending money to Iran and all the other financial shenanigans his administration pulled would not be a smart move, on Mr. Obama's part.

Of course, he's proven that he's not a smart man. Once Valerie Jarrett loses interest in him, I suspect he's going to start doing a lot of life-shortening stupid things.