Barack Hussein Obama, Dictator

Washington, DC. To hear some Republicans tell it, the United States has officially become a kingdom. Others say it's even worse — a dictatorship, not some benevolent monarchy, and Barack Hussein Obama is our dictator, a ruthless, Constitution-shredding (foreign-born) despot who will stop at nothing to reduce our once-great republic to a republic where bananas grow with wild abandon.

Apparently, this happened while we were all napping. A slow-motion coup, according to Limbaugh, Ingraham, Levin and other Jeremiahs of the Republican Party. This calamitous view is shared by prominent lesser-paid — but actually elected — Republican leaders as well, like Steve King (R-Iowa) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) who, risking their own personal safety, dare to warn the cowering American populace and hopefully restore Bush-era constitutional fidelity.

Now some Americans are reasonably asking themselves, "What the fuck?" Their consternation comes from the fact that there are no tanks in the streets, they continue to do exactly what they've been doing (some with healthcare for the first time, a same-sex spouse and legal pot), voting when there's nothing good on TV and it all feels very un-dictatory. But Republicans can smell it.

See, aside from the fact that President Obama has entirely too much melanin to qualify for the highest office in the all the land, there's his threat to use executive action to get around Congress and, you know, do something. Never mind that he's issued fewer executive orders than any of his recent predecessors, it's that he does it with so goddamn much, well, Blackness. Worse, he simply refuses to let the Republicans continue to put the brakes on anything that resembles progress and now even refuses to smile when they spit in his face.

Never having lived in a dictatorship or a banana republic (though we get choke banana here in Hawaii), I can't say for sure, but it seems that more than that is required to make someone a dictator. Like absolute power, or merciless elimination of opponents or eradication of the free press. At least a funny hat.

Obama doesn't even have a beard. And it seems to me that if he were truly a dictator, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, Steve King and John Cornyn would be represented by little flickering votive candles. The word "gridlock" would cease to be used to describe the political process. The red states would be begging Mexico for food and supplies and petitioning the UN for intervention. Fox News would be airing Fox & Friends 24 hours a day, with hosts Mike Malloy, Thom Hartmann and Stephanie Miller. Kanye West would be Chief Justice. And the White Sox would win the Series. Every fucking year.

You know, aside from that last thing, an Obama dictatorship might not be so bad.

©2014 Kona Lowell