Pundits are pointing to President Barack Obama’s recent decline in public opinion polls, and saying that he may now become another “lame duck” president, unable to accomplish much during his final term in office.
That has happened to other presidents. But it is extremely unlikely to happen to this president. There are reasons why other presidents have become impotent during their last years in office. But those reasons do not apply to Obama.
The Constitution of the United States does not give presidents the power to carry out major policy changes without the cooperation of other branches of government. Once the country becomes disenchanted with a president during his second term, Congress has little incentive to cooperate with him — and, once Congress becomes uncooperative, there is little that a president can do on his own.
That is, if he respects the Constitution.
Obama has demonstrated, time and again, that he has no respect for the Constitution’s limitations on his power.
Despite his oath of office to see that the laws are faithfully executed, Obama has unilaterally changed welfare reform laws, by eliminating the work requirement passed by Congress during the Clinton administration. Obama has repeatedly and unilaterally changed or waived provisions of the Obamacare law passed by Congress during his own administration. He has ordered Border Patrol agents not to carry out provisions of the immigration laws that he does not like; we see the results today in the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants entering the country unimpeded.
What can ordinary citizens do? Everything! Theirs is the ultimate power of the ballot that can bring down even the most powerful elected official. The most important thing the voters can do is vote against anyone who violates the Constitution.
Yet if voters fail to protect the Constitution, the last-ditch remedy is impeachment. But Obama knows that he is not going to be impeached. Who wants to provoke a Constitutional crisis and riots in the streets? And, worst of all, end up with Joe Biden as president of the United States?
With neither the Constitution, nor the voters, nor the threat of impeachment to stop him, Obama has clear sailing to use his powers however he chooses.
Far from seeing his power diminish in his last years, Obama can extend his power even beyond the end of his administration by appointing federal judges who share his disregard of the Constitution and can enact his far-left agenda into law from the bench, when it cannot be enacted into law by the Congress.
Federal judges with lifetime tenure can make irreversible decisions binding future presidents and future Congresses. If Republicans do not win control of the Senate in this fall’s elections, a Senate controlled by Majority Leader Harry Reid can confirm judges who will have the power to extend Obama’s agenda and complete the dismantling of Constitutional government.
Obama can, as he said before taking office, fundamentally “change the United States of America.” Far from being a lame duck president, Obama can make this a lame duck democracy.
