Obama Admin's Radical Agenda on Race and Government Power

These past two weeks show just how extreme an agenda President Barack Obama is pushing through his Cabinet officers when it comes to race and government power.

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services compared those who oppose Obamacare to those who opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. She then separately said that decent people need to stand up to Obamacare’s opponents the way they would stand against lynching black Americans.

U.N. Ambassador Ken Blackwell is a black American who also opposes Obamacare. Blackwell responded to Sebelius’ comments:

“Her statement is outrageous and offensive to the legacy of many civil rights leaders and activists who actually–and literally–left blood on the ground in their efforts to close the gap between America’s promise and practice.”

Then you have new Secretary Thomas Perez at the U.S. Department of Labor, who infamously scuttled a racial-discrimination case that was before the Supreme Court, convincing the petitioners to drop the case after the Supreme Court had agreed to hear it, but before they could render a decision, as it was likely the Court would reject his far-left theory on race and the law. Of Perez, Blackwell added:

“Perez is bright, ambitious, and a serious threat to American social order. Like the president who appointed him, Perez has utter disregard for the U.S. Constitution and American exceptionalism.”

Those comments were fueled in part by looking at Perez’s very impressive legal resume. If Obama can get him confirmed as labor secretary, might he try to elevate him to the Supreme Court? If you go back a couple decades, it was more common to appoint governors, senators, or Cabinet secretaries to the Supreme Court, rather than focus on nominating those currently serving as judges in the lower federal courts.

Finally, you have Attorney General Eric Holder at the U.S. Department of Justice. As reported by Breitbart News, Holder has declared judicial war on the State of Texas in defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court. He presumes to declare that Texas is subject to part of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court struck down last month (involving voting rights and race), a provision that only Congress can reauthorize if–and only if–new evidence justifies it.

President Obama’s actions are literally lawless. The rule of law is the cornerstone of American exceptionalism (a concept Obama marginalized in 2009, saying that citizens of any nation think their own nation is exceptional). His assault on the rule of law through his Cabinet members injures us all. Doing so to seize and expand governmental power makes it only more dangerous.

And for him to consistently do so along racial lines is a cynical strategy that turns Americans against each other and appeals only to the most unwholesome aspects of human nature.

Sadly, the damage from this disgraceful strategy will last longer than Obama’s three remaining years in office.

Ken Klukowski is legal columnist for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski.