President Obama’s Conservative Legacy?
No. President Obama is not a conservative. Don’t worry. I haven’t flown off the deep end. Put the bottle of Pepto Bismol down. I just believe that President Obama’s aggressive progressivism (some may call it worse than that) may actually lead to a new constitutional conservative revolution in America.
Let’s think about this. What will be President Obama’s legacy? Time will tell on that. We all know he will be an historic figure because he’s the first African-American president. We also know that the success or failure of Obamacare will play a significant role in determining his legacy as well.
But, let me ask you this: Could a big part of President Obama’s legacy ultimately be how he became a pivotal figure in our nation’s history in which conservatives finally began to wake up and get serious about our constitutional heritage?
Obama becomes President in 2008 and two years later, the Tea Party movement is in full force over issues like Obamacare and the financial state of this country. While the movement was percolating before 2008, it wasn’t until Obama’s radical agenda (in their view) pushed them over the edge.
In 2012, due to a masterful GOTV effort by the Obama campaign (and a weak GOP candidate who committed serious mistakes along the way), the president is re-elected. Constitutional conservatives go into a temporary funk but have since come out of it and are now seriously discussing ways in which to amend the constitution.
Mark Levin’s book called, “The Liberty Amendments” has just begun to spur a discussion within the conservative movement about a states convention to modify the constitution. Sen. Tom Coburn is now talking about it and no doubt others will soon follow. A National discussion may be on the horizon faster than expected.
One more item to contemplate: President Obama’s policies (NSA surveillance, federal debt, Obamacare, etc) have spurned a whole new generation of constitutional leaders. Do you think Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and others like them would have the soapbox and forum they do today without a president like Barack Obama? You think they would be getting the same traction if Reagan or Bush were in office? Unlikely.
The point here is that Obama’s presidency may end up having the unintended consequence of bringing about leaders that can articulate the values of a new constitutional conservative movement in this country.
To be sure, we don’t know how this is going to play out. GOP moderates and the D.C. “Ruling Class” will fight this movement every step of the way. And the mainstream media will go the shortsighted route and just look to what’s transpiring at the moment in which it appears moderates are making inroads into the GOP.
However, this isn’t really about the Republican Party as it is about changing the direction of this nation. We may not know the true outcome of what President Obama did for the constitutional conservative movement for decades to come. But mark the years 2008 through 2016 as the period in history where constitutional conservatives woke up and began the long road of changing the course of this nation.
They may want to thank President Obama.