Get Smart: “Fundamental Transformation” Demands Chaos

It’s the chaos, stupid.

Nothing more clearly marked the intended mission of Barack Obama’s presidency than his own words, spoken shortly before the 2008 election:  “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Two markers from his final month in office are the concluding grace notes of his presidency, and dovetail perfectly with his stated mission:

Obama’s presidency was a successful one, as measured by his stated purposes. Thinking otherwise misses the head fakes during his two terms, the scandals and related abuses of power that violated the sovereignty of the American people, and the residual damage that he leaves behind.

It was a successful presidency because realizing a fundamental transformation first requires the creation of chaos.

The political IEDs that have delivered chaos during the last eight years and are embedded to deliver further turmoil include:

  • Weaponizing the administrative state to act against American citizens deemed political enemies (e.g., the IRS targeting scandal).
  • Undermining the rule of law so there is no level playing field of justice.
  • Nearly doubling the national debt to roughly $20 trillion.
  • Enabling a more chaotic world by undermining allies and dealing passively with enemies while weakening America’s ability to defend itself.
  • Dividing Americans against each other on issues of race, religion, sex, speech, and immigration, all while not actively discouraging violence.
  • Enabling global and national elites while nearly destroying the Democratic Party’s electoral strength across the country.

In the 1965-1970 Get Smart television show, KAOS were the bad guys. The good guys had to “get smart” about the ways KAOS was creating chaos in order to put their plans into play. Today all of us need to get smart and realize that the creation of chaos during the Obama years was not an indicator of its failure, it was the unifying purpose of his presidential actions and his likely post-presidential plans. In other words, he meant to do that.

We also need to be sufficiently self-critical and acknowledge that our weakened culture contributed to making it possible for Obama to get away with acting this way.

align=”right” Obama’s presidency was a successful one, as measured by his stated purposes. Thinking otherwise misses the head fakes during his two terms, the scandals and related abuses of power that violated the sovereignty of the American people, and the residual damage that he leaves behind.

Obama’s presidency was yet another long march through our political, legal, and cultural institutions. Our already structurally weakened foundations were vulnerable due to, among other things, our lack of knowledge of and belief in Western Civilization and the American Founding.

Without a meaningful course correction, the next step in this long march will likely be some form of increasingly radical upheaval, a nihilistic and potentially violent struggle for power. We have already seen disturbing violence since the election  in Washington, D.C., Berkeley, and, of course, on campuses such as Claremont McKenna and Middlebury College. We have also heard talk in the short time since Trump’s inauguration about a military coup and impeachment, as well as other plans for getting him out of office. There even has been talk about secession. And now we are experiencing use of encryption to thwart oversight, lawfare—including what some are calling a judicial coup against Trump’s executive orders—and further claims about spying.

As a CEO and student of organizational change, I have been scratching my head for years trying to explain Obama’s actual behaviors in a way that is not just another speculative theory about his past or partisan sniping over policy disagreements.

Three recent Obama actions crystallized my thinking, which yielded the clarifying insight:

Obama and Valerie Jarrett

Obama had eight years to “secure a traditional legacy,” but that was not how he measured success. It was then that I realized that the creation of chaos was the common thread across all of Obama’s actions. This is taking the United States into new territory.

“The Old Head Fake Trick”—Governing Was Never The Goal

Effective leaders who create positive value build and guide strong teams, do strategic deals with partners, and take products or services to market, while upholding their fiduciary responsibilities to ensure the proper use of assets. None of these qualities were characteristic of President Obama or the efforts of his administration. Instead, we note the following characteristics of the Obama era:

  • No Teambuilding: Unlike Bill Clinton after the 1994 midterm elections, which saw an historic Republican resurgence, Obama was strikingly indifferent to the record net loss of 1,042 Democratic officeholders across the nation, losses (16-24 percent at the congressional level; 23 percent at state legislature level, leading to 44-54 percent loss in state legislative chambers and 43 percent decline in number of governors) which have been occurring regularly in elections since 2010. Furthermore, Obama has left behind a Democratic Party leadership vacuum at the national level.
  • No Strategic Policy Dealmaking, Other Than Obamacare:  Obama had the least productive legislative record of any modern president, signing fewer bills in eight years than Jimmy Carter or  George H.W. Bush signed in either of their four-year terms. This paltry outcome frequently is blamed on the Republican-control of Congress for the last six years of Obama’s presidency, but the senior Bush dealt with a Democratic-controlled Congress for all four years of his administration and signed 1,275 bills over two congressional sessions. Obama signed only 385 bills in the 2009-2010 session, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Recall that Obama focused on getting Obamacare, his signature piece of legislation, out of that one session, spurring greater government-induced chaos in one-sixth of the American economy and adversely affecting the finances and clinical care of many American families.
  • No Fiduciary Responsibility: Obama submitted budgets late to Congress an unprecedented six out of eight years and routinely missed mid-year statutory financial reporting requirements. Over 1,000 days passed with no approved budget. His budgets were not serious—as evidenced by the lopsided Senate votes (1-98, 0-99, 0-97) and House votes (0-414, 2-413), restricting spending direction and oversight by Congress. The United States lost its AAA bond rating in 2011. The lurking time bomb will be the increasingly large mandatory interest payments that will crowd out other spending priorities in future years.
  • The Head Fake Tricks: Building a governing coalition through teambuilding, specific policies, and fiscal responsibility was never Obama’s mission. Rather, he sought to build a lasting far Left activist network whose power would become greater than that of the political parties. He succeeded at both, creating such a network and weakening his party. The various iterations of OFA provided the organizational foundation for constructing the network.

Along the way, Obama often declared certain social issues “settled” in order to shut down political dialogue in the moment until such issues were deemed unsettled, such as gay marriage and transgender bathrooms. Policy reversals on such polarizing cultural issues were then used as flash points to create conflict that energized the activists and expanded the network.

Obama’s failure to enforce existing laws became a means of enabling the activists’ disruptive behaviors to be carried out consequence-free, encouraging further bad behavior.

His rhetoric was rarely about persuasion and aligned perfectly with a chaos strategy: “I won.” “The election’s over.” “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them…”

Meanwhile, Congress found that Obama’s Department of Justice extracted large sums of money from banks and corporations, directing those settlement funds to activist groups through backdoor channels that evaded Congressional spending authority and oversight, enabling further building out of the activist network.

Some thought that reversing executive orders would end the “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone” charade instead of realizing that the value of the orders was not in their permanence but in their transactional value, of creating an initial rallying cry on the Left and then causing polarization as they are reversed.

All of this meant Obama never led from behind. It only looked that way to people with a constitutional government worldview. And that was the ultimate head fake trick, because Obama was always about creating an alternative power base capable of stirring up the societal chaos necessary to realize a fundamental transformation.

Obama and Susan Rice

Americans need to understand Obama and his compatriots as they understand themselves. Community organizing has never been about charity formed at the local level through Tocquevillian voluntary associations. Rather, community organizing is about blaming others and stirring resentments that then divide communities, resentments that evolve into overt hostility when demands are not met, and even violence when sufficiently provoked. The object is to find ways to contribute to the moral, intellectual, and physical chaos that will aid in the attack on the foundations of a free society. In other words, fundamental transformation.

Many well-intentioned Americans have been busy living their lives while Obama has led the creation of a well-funded and well-organized far Left activist network, and he is not going away like other former Presidents. Get Smart’s Agent 86 was the bumbling star of a scripted slapstick show where the good guy always won in the end. But, right now the far Left is writing the script, directing the show through their influence over the many elements of our popular culture, there is nothing funny about it, and the good guys are losing control. This is a blueprint for tyranny that will end badly if we do not get smart to Obama’s understanding of himself and his definition of success. We can’t win if we don’t even know what we are fighting.

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23 responses to “Get Smart: “Fundamental Transformation” Demands Chaos”

    • Never vote for a Democrat for any office ever again. Don’t even think about it unless and until they expell the hard left from every facet of their party. That wouldn’t leave much of a party though…

  1. This article should be included in an indictment of Obama. I cannot understand why he is still walking around free.

    • He is getting trained as a President-in-Exile by Branson.

  2. Because of the media, Obama never had to do a head fake. He told everyone what he wanted (get rid of the Tea Party) and they (IRS) would make it happen. No legislation required. No debate.

  3. Liberalism is the US hating obamas that were never proud of the country, stump
    for a groper & rape enabler, sat in hate filled Wrights church, friends
    with a known domestic terrorist, host BLM cop haters & singers that sing
    hate filled lyrics…….the obama legacy of always siding with the most
    radical leftists, Black Lives Matter over the cops, Occupy Wall Street over the
    Tea Party, Illegals over citizens, refugees over citizens, Planned
    Parenthood’s baby killers over the rule of law, bureaucrats over doctors,
    teachers unions over students, accommodated leaders hostile to America, Putin,
    al-assad, iran, cuba while chastising Israel, abandoning afghanistan &
    Ukraine etc ….a radical leftist, divisive by choice…. FOURTH worst US
    economy in history thanks to them and you low info voters.

  4. Excellent summary. Obama was more of a Third world dictator than an American president. He went in believing that America was a racist country, and wanted to punish it, and line the pockets of his friends.

  5. We all have known for a long time that Obama is an enemy of the United States. He killed enough people, why not a drone strike on him. All that would be is justice.

    • Obama is a retired General of the Left.

      To put this on 1 person is to fundamentally misunderstand the Left and indeed the government and power centers of America.

      If Trump fell he’d be replaced and if Pence wasn’t actually WORSE than Trump he’d be replaced if necessary by war within the Right.

      Neither is Hitler…that is to say neither ends with the man. Neither is Dictator.
      Obama understood the Rubicon was crossed by the 2008 Financial Crisis and all his actions were in accordance with a committed soldier of the Left.

      Trump is presently trying to be President of the United States. That office changed forever the last generation really beginning with Clinton. Trump will accept this and understand politics is POWER and use it or fail and be replaced. However Trump is still just another soldier, indeed the most important one but not irreplaceable.

  6. Actually we just accept the facts as they are and act accordingly.

    We fight. We recognize what we are fighting and cut our losses and stop trying to resuscitate the corpse of the Constitution. Only POWER matters now and on this turn of the wheel it’s ours. The Left won the Long March. Very well let them hold their illegitimate gains.
    All legitimacy is gone. All pretense of peace ended with the campaign of shooting cops.
    War is upon us admittedly small scale. That’s what we recognize and that’s what we fight.
    They have taken more and undertaken more strife then they can win.

    Destroy them now. Peace is gone, The laws are the enemies domain. The Constitution needs in fact a burial and not a doctor. We can get it back if we win.

    We must use all our powers as the Left does and destroy our enemies while we can.

    The Law is lost to us, the Laws are immuno-viruses destroying we the host-working as designed.

    Obama set out to complete the 60s and he has.
    The 60s are completed. And it wasn’t far enough to destroy us, just damage us.

    We must recognize the Left’s march through our institutions was successful and indeed not ever really challenged wherever the Left marched. The Left you see offers unlimited, unfettered powers. Who in government, academia or media can refuse Power?

    Nor should we.

    The powers that remain ours or are ours by a transisient turn of the wheel should be used rapidly to destroy our enemies. The Left won the Long March we win the Rapid scorched earth counter-attack. The Left is good at Long Marches, we are terrible at same. We is either the Right or the Americans. Americans are good at all out war, terrible at protracted.

  7. Politics is Power.
    Not Law.

    Now it is only Power.
    Act accordingly.

  8. Obama was always an enemy of America specifically and Western Civ generally. His actions made complete sense in that context – and no sense in any other. Those who talked for years about “inept” or “in over his head” were missing the boat. And their ignorance was intentional – they did not want to look outside their worldview to see what was really happening as it would challenge THEIR immediate power base and comfort levels.

    BUT – the GOP could have stopped most of this at any time and refused. Congress brought a separation of powers lawsuit against Nixon for his trying to impound budgeted monies to spend differently than appropriate by Congress. Nixon lost. Did Congress challenge Obama even once? Nope. Did they even publicly note that dropping off a few $B on a pallet to Iran was money NOT appropriated for that purpose and so not only a violation of separation of powers – but illegal under current law? Nope. Did they challenge him under SepPowers for re-writing Obamacare multiple times? Nope. And the debt – the Executive only can spend what is appropriated or CR’d by Congress – or spend without Constitutional authorization – Obama acted in violation of the Constitution AND Congress did not challenge his doing so – that debt is on the GOPe.

    If we are to return to the Rule of Law – and we are NOT under it now – Obama, Lerner, Koskinnen, Clapper, Lynch, Hillary (at minimum) must be indicted and tried in a court of law. Not out of spite (though there is plenty to go around), but to ensure We the People – THE sovereigns in this nation – are aware of and can begin to reverse ALL of their illegalities, AND to set a precedent that this will not happen again. NOT prosecuting sets a precedent that we don’t care about the Rule of Law – which only can lead to bloodshed as Americans are NOT going down without a fight.

    • BRAVO, I agree totally. We absolutely must prosecute those you mention ( and Holder) or we, as a nation, are done.

    • community organizing is about blaming others and stirring resentments that then divide communities, resentments that evolve into overt hostility when demands are not met, and even violence when sufficiently provoked. The object is to find ways to contribute to the moral, intellectual, and physical chaos that will aid in the attack on the foundations of a free society. In other words, fundamental transformation.

  9. Obama needs to be arrested for treason and seditipn as soon as possible,

  10. BTW. Obama has been in Tahiti for all this time – avoiding service of process by Judicial Watch and others. Including Congressional subpoenas.

  11. I’ve believed for years that the only way the ship will be righted is another civil war. The left is utterly Godless and demon possessed.

  12. Thank you so much for writing this, we are in danger of losing our country if we do not get ordinary Americans to understand the Left and what their true goals are. One only need look at Venezuela to see what the end result would be.