The video presented here is not owned by me and I have no claim to it's content.

Mark Twain said that history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. In that spirit I’d like to advance a historical observation regarding the recent immigration executive orders. Obama’s supporters are attempting to compare his executive orders to Reagan and Bush’s granting amnesty in the 80’s. It certainly is similar in that they are both about immigration, but his detractors are more correct when they say they are more sweeping and potentially illegal than those executive orders. In my opinion I think history’s latest executive order bears more circumstantial similarities to its most famous.

7 score and 12 years ago another president from Illinois issued a controversial executive order changing the legal status of millions of people exploited in that Century’s version of cheap labor. Both executive orders were of sweeping effect, partly delivered to hinder the president’s adversaries, and from a purely political point of view, a stroke of genius. Both Presidents also originally stated that they did not believe the presidency had the authority to take these actions.
Many then and now believed the order was an executive over-reach or unconstitutional, and they were probably right:
[ Ссылка ]
[ Ссылка ]

Just like now, more than half the country disagreed with the executive order, most in the South, but also in the North. Northerners were afraid that the new status of these people would mean that they would “take’er jobs”:
[ Ссылка ]

Many unfairly blamed the people in question as the source of the country’s problems (in that case a civil war, in our case a sluggish economy moving toward a purer form of capitalism) and many advanced a fanciful notion of deporting them all. Liberia was created by the United States for this very reason. Both orders made the respective Presidents heroes to the demographic they normalized and assured the loyalty of those people to the Presidents’ party for a generation or more.

So obviously I'm comparing Obama’s executive orders to the Emancipation Proclamation. Admittedly not a perfect comparison, but I continue to see more and more similarities between them. Our country is very polarized and people have lost faith in the democratic process, and back then it was so polarized the two sides were literally killing each other over their differences. Also, then as now, those political differences are largely based on geography: then, north versus south; now, urban centers versus rural areas. I don't mean to imply that Obama’s orders will be as well remembered as Lincoln’s nor that either man’s overall presidencies are all that similar; I'm simply drawing a comparison on these two executive orders. My opinion of Obama’s orders is the one that gives legal status short of citizenship to illegal immigrants may be unconstitutional, just as Lincoln’s order stood on shaky ground legally. The other two parts of Obama’s order are not.

Like Lincoln, Obama has developed a genius political strategy here as he’s placed his enemies in a really tight spot. Republicans could impeach him, add this to their lawsuit against him, attempt to pass a bill, or shut down the government in respective order of how badly such actions would backfire on them. Even if they successfully get the Supreme Court to decide the order is unconstitutional, much time will have passed by then and many would be enjoying their new status. Yanking it away from them then would cause the Republican Party to be viewed as the party that removed opportunity from millions of Hispanic families. The other barb in this triton is that differences on how to respond to the order will weaken the Republican Party by pitting the moderate and Tea Party wings against one another. This will be a terrible liability moving into 2016 and a spectacular gift to Hillary. It’s likely the Republican establishment would prefer to just let this pass without much fuss rather than introduce that kind of intraparty rancor.

The speech Obama delivered was itself genius in its use of scripture, an appeal to supporting families, and a quote from his immediate predecessor. All were clearly meant as stinging barbs for the party of God, family values, and George W. Bush. In a way it’s very ironic that Republicans are losing the Hispanic vote. If they hadn't spent two decades trashing them they could have been part of the Republican Base. Statistically speaking they tend to be conservative Catholics, pro-life, anti-gay marriage, low-educated, have strong family values and work ethic, and often work for low wages – in short a Republican dream constituency.

свернуть