ANALYSIS/OPINION:

President Obama is gradually transforming America into a socialist authoritarian state. This is the real meaning of his recent decision to grant backdoor amnesty to young illegal immigrants. Mr. Obama is behaving like a Latin American strongman, who asserts arbitrary power and ignores the rule of law. He is assaulting the very pillars of our constitutional republic.

Last week, the administration announced that it will stop deporting young illegal aliens. The policy shift affects as many as 800,000 illegal immigrants. Mr. Obama’s order lifts the fear of deportation. It also grants them work permits. Mr. Obama has waved his magic wand and converted the immigration status of countless aliens, flipping them from illegal to legal residents.

The order applies to those who entered America before the age of 16 and are younger than 30, who have been living here for at least five years, have no violent criminal background, possess a U.S. high school diploma or have served in the military. The policy change is a blatant attempt to bribe the Hispanic vote prior to the November election - a key constituency Mr. Obama must win.

Yet, the order is more than crass partisan politics. It is an ominous usurpation of centralized power - a naked attempt to entrench an imperial presidency. Mr. Obama lacks the legal authority to grant amnesty. He is not a monarch or tyrant with unlimited discretionary authority. Rather, he is confined by our constitutional system of the separation of powers and checks and balances. The Constitution is crystal-clear: Congress has the sole power to craft immigration policy. Mr. Obama’s actions are flagrantly anti-democratic.

His goal is simple: to destroy the American nation. For decades, our supposed betters have encouraged open borders and unlimited Third World immigration. Corporatist Republicans seek to import cheap labor; liberal Democrats want to import millions of potential voters. The middle- and working-class, however, have been decimated. Their wages have eroded, crime has skyrocketed, border states in the South are overwhelmed, and hospitals, schools and welfare services have been strained to the breaking point. Illegal immigration is slowly bankrupting America.

Now Mr. Obama has established a magnet for millions more to come. Aliens know they can wait out Uncle Sam - eventually, amnesty will be granted. U.S. national sovereignty, the rule of law and our constitutional republic are being sacrificed on the altar of multiculturalism and the creation of a Democrat-ruled one-party state. The administration has whetted the insatiable appetite of leftist Hispanic activists. The logic is inexorable: If a path to legalization can be paved for young illegal immigrants, then why not all 12 million to 20 million aliens in America? Mr. Obama clearly hopes to galvanize the Hispanic community and to build a permanent liberal ruling coalition by massively expanding the Democratic base. Today, it is piecemeal amnesty. Tomorrow, it will be wholesale legalization. The American electorate will be transformed, thereby entrenching Obamaism for decades to come. In short, Mr. Obama is slowly erecting a leftist state.

This is what nationally syndicated radio talk show host Michael Savage has been warning for years. The combative conservative’s show, “The Savage Nation,” reaches 10 million listeners every week (full disclosure: I have been a guest host on his program). Almost alone among major conservative commentators, Mr. Savage has been sounding the alarm about Mr. Obama’s creeping dictatorship. His latest blockbuster, “Trickle Down Tyranny,” (Harper Collins, 2012) is a must-read. Well-written and concise, the book provides a detailed, comprehensive account of the administration’s rampant corruption and numerous abuses of power.

It has one overarching, central theme: Mr. Obama is a radical leftist carrying out a Venezuela-style revolution. Mr. Savage calls the president a “fiscal Marxist” and a “new Hugo Chavez” determined to dismantle American capitalism and constitutional democracy. Mr. Savage discusses almost every one of Mr. Obama’s power grabs - Obamacare, the Dodd-Frank financial reform, the de facto nationalization of General Motors and Chrysler, the drive to create a “green economy” through administrative fiat, the numerous policy “czars” who have Cabinet-level powers but no accountability or congressional oversight, the National Defense Authorization Act, which enables the president to detain any U.S. citizen indefinitely under suspicion of being a “terrorist,” the push to censor the Internet, the illegal war in Libya, the massive expansion of government through out-of-control spending and record deficits, and the administration’s criminal involvement in gunrunning to Mexican drug cartels.

According to Mr. Savage, Mr. Obama’s aim in the U.S. is similar to Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin in Russia: to create the Union of Socialist States of America - the U.S.S.A. The president is a Leninist bent on forging a new world order based on economic collectivism, world government and an internationalist ruling class. The key to achieving his dream is to eradicate the American nation. This is why for years Mr. Savage has been pounding the importance of “language, borders and culture.” The ultra-left’s mission is not only an economic revolution, but a cultural one: transforming America into a bilingual, multicultural socialist empire. Mr. Savage understands that the battering ram is massive, unlimited immigration, thereby smashing our historic and demographic core.

Such profound social engineering requires state coercion and centralized rule. We must be compelled to abandon self-government in favor of soft tyranny. This is why Mr. Savage darkly warns that our freedoms may vanish in a second Obama term: “We will very likely not survive as a free nation after four more years under Obama’s rule,” he writes.

Mr. Savage is right. Mr. Obama is a dangerous demagogue, who believes he is above the law. Like many leftists, he is obsessed with amassing power. His amnesty order marks a major step toward an arbitrary statist regime that willfully tramples on the Constitution. The U.S.S.A. is being born.

Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute.

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