Obama – puppet or puppeteer?

A few weeks ago, while out promoting my new book, "Unmasking Obama," a fellow asked the ultimate question about Barack Obama: puppet or puppeteer?

After watching Obama slouch his way toward Election Day, drawing crowds smaller than those of even Melania Trump, I am convinced the answer is "puppet."

In his prime, Obama generated dramatically more enthusiasm than does the corrupt and senile Joe Biden. That said, the obvious puppet Biden will likely get more votes than Obama did despite the fact that the strings can be seen from the cheap seats.

This has to depress Obama. Watching the puppeteers from the sidelines, Obama has to fear that he will be discarded after this election as casually as Buzz Lightyear was in "Toy Story 3."

Obama liked to think he was his own man. He wasn't. Like Biden in 2020, if not as conspicuously, Obama served his masters as a front man for the long march of global progressivism through America's institutions.

The media failed to understand the reality of the Obama presidency in part because of their failure to understand the political transformation that occurred during Obama's tenure in the White House.

"Liberalism," as understood in the post-war era, died on Obama's watch. Replacing it was "progressivism." This was much more than a casual rebranding. If liberals could envision a harmonious future, benign and paternal, orderly and safe, progressives could not.

"Progressive," in fact, represents the rare bit of honest branding by the left. At the risk of tautology, progressives "progress." Like the sharks of our imagination, they move forward or they die. If old school liberals like Biden are to have any relevance, they follow, however uneasily, in the shark's wake.

In the post-Soviet era, with no one hand guiding the international left, American progressives have moved forward on numerous fronts: black, brown, green, feminist, LGBT, Islamic, globalist and socialist.

Barack Obama led none of the left's movements, but he enabled them all. Given his origins and his education, there was no front in the progressive march through the institutions that Barack Obama could not credibly represent. His timing was excellent.

"Intersectionality" was emerging on the left as more than just a buzzword. In theory, intersectionality meant that marginalized groups shared common oppressors and thus had common political interests.

Schooled in street-level Critical Theory, activists from various fronts were forging alliances with those in other fronts who also saw themselves as oppressed.

These activists, whether they knew it or not, would be expected to subordinate their own interests to the larger progressive cause – seizing and sustaining national power.

The emotional force that held the movement together was a shared contempt for the enemy. Movement leaders showed less interest in celebrating the many colors of their multicultural rainbow than they did in punishing those who resisted the celebration.

On Obama's watch, and occasionally at his urging, progressives found common cause in imputing hatred to others – hatred of blacks, of gays, of transgenders, of immigrants, of Muslims, of women, of poor people, of science and, yes, of mother earth.

If hate defined America's deplorables, love and justice defined the good. A calculus this delusional would ultimately prove to be unsustainable, not to mention unmarketable, at least in a market fairly run.

Understanding this, the puppeteers decided to focus on rigging the market. If liberals routinely broke the rules, they at least acknowledged them. Progressives have no rules, no honor, no guilt. Their goal in 2020 was to create a scenario in which any pliable puppet could win. In this regard, Biden was perfect.

No one was less his own man. Unlike Bernie Sanders, Biden was willing to soft sell the progressive agenda. All he had to remember were his talking points.

In the last few weeks, to suppress the potentially lethal Hunter Biden story, some of the puppeteers have had to show their hands, Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook most visibly.

Zuckerberg also pumped millions into Philadelphia in a unique privatization of the voting process designed to encourage Democratic turnout. Michael Bloomberg, meanwhile, has poured scores of millions into critical markets to buy ads for Biden.

Biden, however, is no Obama. Obama's most useful contribution to the leftist cause as president was his ability to shepherd the fractious coalition partners more or less along the same path.

Should Biden win – God help us – the sheep will be free to roam, and without Trump to hate, who knows where their hatred will lead them.

Jack Cashill's new book, "Unmasking Obama: The Fight to Tell the True Story of a Failed Presidency," is now widely available. See www.cashill.com for more information.