Who can forget the Obama acceptance speech in 2008 on a football field in Denver, the nominee standing amid Greek columns and scrolling through a long list of goals to 84,000 Democrats? That was the high. Six years later, the Democrats get the hangover. On Thursday, Mr. Obama will announce his presidency’s only declaration of war—against the Republicans. After describing how he will redesign the U.S. immigration system on his own authority, he’ll fly Friday to Las Vegas.
The remaining two years will be irregular warfare, with Mr. Obama deploying his weapon of choice, the executive order. This essentially turns the presidency into a cruise missile: The president tells the country what to do, and the country does it.
Before the U.S. political system goes to the mattresses, I’d like to spend a moment discussing Jonathan Gruber, ObamaCare and the American people.
Jon Gruber is the now-famous ObamaCare designer and explainer-for-hire who said the Affordable Care Act became law because the American people were too stupid to understand what was in it.
Within days, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi were throwing Jon Gruber down the memory hole. You bet they were. The Gruber incident poses a direct threat to the Democratic Party.
Jon Gruber’s remarks matter not for what they say about the Democratic Party’s modus operandi but because of the truths he revealed about the Democratic Party’s reason for being. The Gruber threat to the Democrats isn’t reputational; it’s existential.
The Democrats have believed for decades that if they build it—a health-care entitlement or any other federal bestowment—the voters will come. That political model is cracking.