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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Our Once and Future Caudillos

By Jonathan F. Keiler

It’s been oft said that Barack Obama has turned the United States into a banana republic through his autocratic style of governance, rejection of constitutional principles, and corruption. You will not get argument from me on that. But add to that indictment, at least as things presently stand, the most glaring evidence that he has wrecked the modern world’s first and greatest republic. That his likely successors on either the Democrat or Republican side will continue America’s slide into confused autocratic, corrupt, and authoritarian rule. History demonstrates that once caudillos come to power, their most likely successors are other caudillos. Obama is a caudillo. And so would be Clinton, Sanders, or Trump as president.

It is easy to mock caudillos, whether they hail from Latin America (where the term originates) or other backwaters of the underdeveloped world. But on balance, this is the model that has dominated international governance since nationalist revolutions between the 18th and 20th Centuries superseded monarchal dynasties......Obama grew up under such a government in Indonesia. He has basically has sought to displace the American constitutional model with the corrupt philo-Islamic authoritarianism of his stepfather’s homeland.

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