The Popular Rule was in its infant stages with the birth of television and the love affair with the Kennedy presidency and it has grown dramatically through the presidencies of Carter and Clinton.  Many were of the belief that it peaked with the presidency of Clinton as his rise to power mirrored the growth of the internet age and the explosion of new political coverage and commentary; however, the emergence of Barack Obama to the political fold showed the nation that the Popular Rule was here to stay and stronger than ever.

So exactly what is the Popular Rule?  This is not the Jefferson / Hamilton view of popular rule; however, it would likely be a distant cousin in that it is an outgrowth of the discussion of preserving this nation from the oppressions of tyranny.  It is the idea that those who create the news, who control the messages conveyed to the general public, those who have influence with American youth, and generally those who control the conventional means of dissent are united in one common cause and have a vested interest in its success.  It is essentially a mandate to rule by shear force of popularity.  It is the antithesis of republican democratic government.  It is purely rule by the man who’s most popular.  It is the notion that all that the individual who wields this power would say or do would be above dissent or criticism simply because the most outspoken from all walks of life from Academia to Hollywood threw their political support behind him and controlled the means of communicating any and all information.  While this may seem like a simplistic characterization of the state of affairs; if viewed objectively, it is plain to see that politics and the generation of power are no different than any other walk of life.  Those who are able to generate the most support and the largest consensus are generally those who lead; and when that leadership is successful in silencing all opposition for fear of alienation then they have truly reached the pinnacle of power and control.  While the Popular Rule is characteristic of most modern Democratic presidents, The Popular Rule that brought President Obama to office was historic and will undoubtedly go down in the annuls of American history as truly game-changing if not nation-changing.

At the core of the Popular Rule is a group of control elements that help to manifest, perpetuate, and maintain its actual controlling force.  They include two mediums for spreading and manipulating the facts; “The Media” and “Academia” and the audiences through which these messages will be shared and carried on to others “Hollywood” and “The Masses.”

The Media and Academia: Provide credibility and a means to distribute and control the message.  Together they can shape the very history that they will later serve to write.  The interjection of Academia to the support structure gives the administration credibility and limitless power to act above criticism except from those who are clearly definable as partisan.  The role of The Media in subjectively covering the news in a biased and favorable manner allows actions of the administration to go unnoticed when they are harmful to it and heralded when they can gain it favor.

Hollywood and The Masses: Every major American election draws a fair amount of support from both sides of the aisle.  The aim of both parties is to capture those not politically inclined and bring them into the fold to serve as the tie breaker in a close election.  Hollywood makes no qualms about which side they favor and they are usually there trying to bring those uninformed individuals into the political arena by motivating them through their “profound” and “well-informed” endorsements.  When The Masses are reluctant the Hollywood crowd loses interest, but when The Masses are passionate the two entities feed off one another as momentum begins to build.  When an element of race and that passion are added to the mix in the form of racism and hypocrisy they are more like fuel and wood in a blazing fire.

While Hollywood may be the only measure of the four that is readily expendable, it does serve as the ultimate icing on the cake.  The other three coequally make up a ring of influence that would lose its value to the bearer of the power if one element were lost in that they are circularly united.  The media could not favorably report on the news if Academia was admonishing its coverage from all angles; and Academia would have no audience or platform from which to gain their credentials without Masses of citizen “students” to profess to; and The Masses get the majority of their news from the media; then the circle can go the other way and assume that if they weren’t getting the kind of media coverage that they like they would turn to another source; perhaps a more academic one; which is largely supports the administration; who then supports the media.  Hollywood thrusts itself into the discussion because it fully understands and embraces the marketability of being involved in such a popular movement.  Additionally, Hollywood also adds a bit of JFK-Rat Pack glamour to the movement that gives it the “historic” and “unprecedented” effect as if it is truly history in the making.

While these four elements are the core of what brings rise to the Popular Rule, another factor that is only tangentially related to the rise of Barack Obama’s reign over the Popular Rule may have been the most troubling addition to the weapons cache.  As the Popular Rule was strengthened and supported by it, it may have been the greatest weapon at the Popular Ruler’s disposal.  This was obviously the majority control of both Houses of Congress when he entered the presidency.

By all accounts, the two of the most liberal or perhaps even socialist, presidents in American history were Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baynes Johnson.  Implementing the New Deal and the Great Society respectively, they brought about the most overreaching federal spending programs in American history.  The effects of these spending bills have persisted for generations in every aspect of federal entitlement programs.  What did these two presidents have in common – and what do they have in common with President Obama?  Both FDR and Johnson took the White House with their party controlling both Houses of Congress, and so too did President Obama.  Johnson enjoyed 5 years of total party control of the Federal Government where FDR had 12 years.  Upon taking office, he was only guaranteed two years of such wide control, but the first two months of the Obama administration’s reign over the Popular Rule may have been all that was needed to drastically alter the face of the nation and place him in their class.  Total control and the fervor generated by the economic crisis of ‘08 allowed him to sprint out of the gate and implement as much of his agenda in a few short months as the legislative docket would allow.  While support from his party was not expressly guaranteed, the strength of the Popular Rule would have been yielded against them as well, and even those who used to share a party caucus with the Senator from Illinois would not have been free from fear of retaliation or public scorn for opposing such a powerful movement.  Those who would have attempted to oppose him would have undoubtedly faced the same unfavorable treatment as Republicans across the aisle.

Another contributing factor to the sweeping power and danger of the Obama Popular Rule was the economic crisis that spilled into 2009 and beyond.  Riding the wave of an outcry for government salvation of a failing economy, we were truly in the midst of a momentous time in American history and many hardly noticed.  They realized the economic dilemma but they blindly ignored the actions of President Obama and his first Congress which may very well have shaped the role of government and the economic future of this nation for the next 40-60 years as did the New Deal and the Great Society of liberal’s past.  Reactionary policies and crisis exploitation during that time moved this nation closer to a future that only the most ambitious of big government sympathizers and apologists would have ever imagined.

The Popular Rule is one with few enemies, and when enemies emerge they are met by attempts to marginalize and to remove them from public view with swift force.  Even in the first days of the Obama administration, they set their sights on their first target in the form of conservative talk radio.  With endless support and a growing influence, conservative radio posed the only real threat to the Popular Rule at the dawn of the Obama regime, and while its first attempts to marginalize this core conservative contingency were brief and ill-fated, the cards were shown that President Obama and The Popular Rule will stop at nothing to quiet dissent.

When cries for the Fairness Doctrine began to reemerge – ever so subtly as they always do – conservatives from all walks of life were made aware that the battle was truly upon them.  When the attacks began to try to silence the lone source of opposition, all conservatives began to take notice as the result of such efforts would be detrimental to the future of our nation.   It has always been easy to dismiss or to filter through liberal television or left wing print media and to flat out ignore or laugh at celebrity banter; but when the lone voices of dissent are silenced, who among us can really be able to distinguish between what is the Left and what is the Far Left?  The center can only be found if there remains a Far Right as well.

The Popular Rule’s reemergence always means tough times for Republicans and conservatives alike.  It means their message will be met with unfriendly looks and great opposition.  It is aided by an inescapable barrage of support from the mass media and it is given “credibility” by the endorsement of the “intellectual” community.  This ignorant and blind support for a president simply because he is not a Republican is championed by all those who dominate the entertainment industry.  As conservatives bunker down and find sanctuary in the fortress of AM radio and their usual rallying points, the battle will wage on.  As the Popular Rule never goes quietly or truly ever dies; it is the duty of every conservative to wage those battles on a daily basis.  The only way to avoid an oppressive government is to continuously engage in well-informed dissent.  The First Amendment gives us that power and there has been no more fitting time in American history to exercise that Right than the present.

The Popular Rule of President Obama is unusually resilient and uniquely invested.  A favorable media hedged its bets on the success of “their” president; to manipulate the masses that rode the wave of Obama affection to the voting booth.  Hollywood adores him and the academic crowd champions his causes in scholarly papers and in the classrooms where they help mold the minds of our impressionable youth.  The Popular Rule aims to silence dissent and ostracize those who attempt to disobey.  The “cool crowd” has finally found their man and no one shoudl dare to challenge what they label as righteous, historic, or transcendent.  Obama’s greatest weapon in his young administration was to yield this great power to manipulate the masses and he used it well with four prime time “press conferences” in his first seven months in office, behind the scenes looks into the confines of the White House, and daily interviews with mainstream media.

He has been given the support of those who teach and those who control the media.  He has been given a mandate not granted through the voting booth but through his incredible popularity.  It was a popularity that transcended race and economic demographics.  It was fanatical and it was delusional; however, it could not be ignored – not by anyone that cared about the future of this nation.  Some of the most oppressive leaders in history have risen to power on the coattails of similar popularity.  A great many tyrants were cheered in similar regards as they rose to power.  Those who wish to think of America in greater terms can only pray that the foundation of a similar movement wasn’t laid in the first few months of Obama’s reign over the Popular Rule.