Prince of Handouts

[Geee]

American Thinker:

 

Quite a lot has been said about what Obama's instant amnesty scheme means in the purely procedural sense -- that it's illegal and unconstitutional on its face, all of which is undeniable. What we haven't heard discussed is what it's actually for. It's being taken for granted that it's of a piece with general Democratic corruption at the voting booth -- ACORN, Black Panthers swinging nightsticks, phantom voters, Eric Holder defending the voting rights of the deceased, and so forth.

But in fact, it's much more straightforward than that. Obama's amnesty ukase is simply Chicago writ large.

While Chicago-style machine politics is the politics of the deal, it's also the politics of the handout. Chicago Democrats have retained power for generations not only by trading favors with their peers, but by carefully parceling out favors to the canaille -- aka, the voters. These can range from a city job for Junior after high school to a contract for a small business owner to the traditional holiday food basket handed out to the desperately poor by local precinct bosses. Such practices have been central to big-city politics since the heyday of Tammany and Boss Tweed, and they still exist in most cities, though seldom as blatantly and primitively as in Chicago. In the Windy City, it essentially stands as an outgrowth of old-world social mores, in which the peasant acts as a client to the local landlord or padrone, promising loyalty in exchange for crumbs. Chicago, almost uniquely, has extended it straight into 3rd millennium.

Obama is attempting to translate this sociopolitical anachronism to the national stage as the next step in identity politics. His amnesty is in effect a huge food basket given to illegal immigrants in hopes that the entire community -- and this includes legal and even native-born Hispanics as well -- will cast their votes for the padrone, in this case Barack Obama.

It becomes apparent what Obama's electoral strategy is going to be. He will hand out goodies to one after another interest group over the next five months -- favors intended to cement customary support or swing the undecided over to the Democrats. We can look forward to further executive orders containing handouts to every imaginable interest group, including blacks, gays (gay marriage is a likely possibility), unions (card check), American Jews ("Inmate Pollard, report to the warden's office."), and for all I know, the Church of Scientology. (Wait...didn't Big Bill already try that?) By this means, Obama hopes to encourage the traditional Democratic coalition while dragging in enough new voters to put him over the top. And all he needs is to continue dropping an executive order every couple of weeks. He must think he's discovered the political philosopher's stone.