Since his retirement from politics, Barack Obama has displayed an astonishing lack of regard for the public good. Instead of serving his fellow human beings, he has mainly devoted himself to a rigorous program of conspicuous self-celebration.
All summer, millions of Americans this year worried about being evicted from their homes, catching the Delta variant, persuading recalcitrant loved ones to get vaccinated, or whether a COVID resurgence might keep schools closed in the fall. Former president Barack Obama was apparently loftily unbothered by any of these plebeian concerns.
The distinguished memoirist was too busy planning a ginormous sixtieth birthday party for himself on his vast and vulgar Martha’s Vineyard estate, a sprawling 6,892-foot tumor on a beautifully spare coastal landscape, which the Obamas bought in 2019 for $11.75 million. The 475 guests were to include George Clooney and Oprah Winfrey. Even people close to him argued for weeks that as the White House was urging caution, given the recent COVID resurgence, the optics of this shindig were not good. Last week he appeared, for a moment, to be conceding to internal Democratic Party pressure by disinviting most of the guests, limiting the celebration to family and close friends. But that soon turned out to be some kind of head fake.
While Obama’s party might not have caused a deadly outbreak — it was outdoors and the Obamas were requiring guests to be vaccinated — the former president’s birthday bash showed, at a minimum, a cavalier insensitivity to the fears and needs of his neighbors, as well as a general indifference to the political fortunes of his fellow Democrats and the sufferings of Americans. But the kerfuffle shouldn’t surprise close observers of Obama’s ex-presidency, which has been strikingly bereft of public-spiritedness.
He’s distinguished himself as an enemy of labor and friend of racist cops. NBA players began to go on strike last August after Jacob Blake, a black man, was shot by police seven times in front of his kids, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Amid a national uprising over the shooting and many other acts of racist police brutality, Obama called LeBron James and players’ union leader Chris Paul and urged them to get back on the court and finish the playoffs, which they did.
Obama was also instrumental in shutting down Bernie Sanders’s bid for the presidency, a huge setback to the movement for social democracy in the United States. When Sanders was leading in the primaries, Obama worked to organize the other rival candidates to drop out and back Biden, making it impossible for Sanders to win. He then persuaded the democratic socialist senator to drop out of the race.
And let’s not forget Obama’s awful museum in Chicago. The three-memoir author is erecting a garish monument to himself on Jackson Park, which community activists argue will wreak havoc on cherished green space and a fragile ecosystem, as well as upon the legal scaffolding for the very idea of the public interest (we wrote about this late last year).
In addition to his appalling Vineyard manse, Obama is also planning to live in an additional ecological monstrosity in Hawaii — owned by close crony Marty Nesbitt, chair of the Obama Foundation board — and developed for the Obamas. ProPublica reported last year that the Obama’s planned beach house has a controversial sea wall, which protects the estate in storms but is illegal because such structures disrupt the flow of the ocean and contribute to beach loss throughout the state.
It goes on here if you can stomach it
Delusions of Adequacy 
Reducing the size of Big Brother non elected bureaucrats who illegally dominate Washington and the US. Overreach and the dominance of unelected officials resonates with a larger debate over the role of government in society. Too much regulation and too much influence from bureaucrats who operate outside the bounds of democratic accountability. Bureaucrats have significant control over decisions that affect people’s lives without being directly elected. Public health, safety, and environmental protections – a States Rights Issue. Just that simple.
Limit the role of unelected bureaucrats in Washington. States should have more autonomy to make decisions in these areas. The federal government, with its centralized bureaucratic control, often imposes one-size-fits-all solutions. Throwing money at problems only breed corruption. Allow the States of our Republic their right to decide policies like health regulations or environmental laws enables a more tailored approach to governance, where local officials burden the responsibility and accountability to the voters they represent.
Smaller, more localized government better serves the people by respecting their autonomy. Respecting their autonomy, reducing inefficiencies, and preventing the rise of a large, overbearing central government. reducing inefficiencies, and preventing the rise of a large, overbearing central government. Too much power in Washington leads to policies utterly disconnected from the reality of people’s day-to-day lives.
Return power to the states and rein in the overreach of federal ‘carpet bagger’ bureaucrats. A vision of a government, more responsive to the people, grounded in local concerns rather than imposed from a distant, unaccountable federal apparatus.
Local governments, more in tune with their populations, far more accountable to voters. Local autonomy also ties into the broader philosophy of limited government. Washington simply not France. Washington a more limited role according to the Framers of the Constitutional Republic of States.
The post Wilson federal government’s overreach, especially through the bureaucratic apparatus, undermines democratic accountability and does not reflect the diverse needs of the country’s people. Public health, safety, and environmental protections—and many other policy decisions—left to the states, where governance far more tailored to local needs and where local governments more directly accountable to voters. Power decentralized to the states, more autonomy over policies, fosters a government more responsive to its citizens.
The Constitution and the Framers who envisioned a federal system with a limited central government. Washington, more like a coordinating body for the union, ensuring common defense and upholding the Constitution. Not micromanaging the daily lives of Americans or imposing policies that don’t fit the local context. The Trump Administration works to drain the corrupt bureaucratic, and by extension Corporate lobby domination of Washington. The overbearing central government must respect State sovereignty. America a Constitutional Republic. Bunk on the distant and disconnected carpet bagger bureaucracy.
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