Barack Obama’s Road to American Fascism

📎 https://endfascism.xy

Barack Obama didn’t ignite the fire of American fascism—but he sure as hell built the highway, laid the gas line, and made it bipartisan. While the world swooned over the symbolism of America’s first Black president, those of us paying attention saw something darker unfold: a smooth-talking technocrat dismantling democratic norms under the banner of hope.

Now, in the ruins of that failed republic, it’s time to stop pretending Obama was merely a disappointed idealist. He was a calculated enabler. And no, we will not be rewarding his bad decisions anymore. We are living through them.

“We don’t want to reward bad behavior” — Remember that?

Obama famously used that line to justify his administration’s refusal to prosecute Wall Street executives who tanked the global economy in 2008 (Taibbi, 2010). He framed it as pragmatic realism. But the reality? He rewarded the architects of catastrophe with bonuses, bailouts, and blank checks. Ordinary Americans got foreclosures. Banks got golden parachutes.

The message was clear: if you have enough power, accountability doesn’t apply.

That is fascism in slow motion. Corporate dominance enforced by a legal system rigged to protect the powerful. And Obama didn’t just allow it—he institutionalized it.

Drones, Whistleblowers, and the National Security State

Obama expanded the national security state into an Orwellian machine of death and silence. Under his watch, the use of drone strikes skyrocketed, including the extrajudicial killing of U.S. citizens without trial (Scahill, 2013). His administration prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all previous presidents combined (Greenwald, 2013). These weren’t aberrations. They were policies designed to crush dissent and normalize state secrecy.

In the words of Zuboff (2019), we entered the “age of surveillance capitalism.” And Obama welcomed it with open arms, letting Silicon Valley grow unchecked into the digital thought police we now live under.

Rahm Emanuel: The Fist Inside the Glove

Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff and the archetype of Democratic cruelty, once said: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” (Emanuel, 2008). That should’ve been the warning. Emanuel’s disdain for progressives was legendary. He called them “retards” behind closed doors (Milbank, 2010). He told activists to “sit down and shut up” as he helped orchestrate the neutering of the public option in healthcare.

But it gets worse.

When he became mayor of Chicago, his administration tried to crush the Occupy movement with tactics straight out of a fascist playbook: police overreach, surveillance, and coordinated crackdowns on peaceful protesters (Fang, 2012). Chicago, under Emanuel, became a test lab for liberal-authoritarian enforcement.

Now this man has presidential ambitions?

Absolutely not.

The Myth of the Progressive President

Let’s kill the myth once and for all: Obama was not a progressive. He was a center-right technocrat who expanded every authoritarian trend of the Bush era, from mass surveillance to drone assassination, while offering better optics and inclusive language.

His liberal defenders point to the Iran deal, the Paris climate accord, and DACA. But none of those offset the damage. Obama’s presidency normalized the architecture of tyranny. He sold us neoliberalism with a conscience, war crimes with style, and systemic rot with a Spotify playlist.

Bacevich (2008) put it best: America’s imperial delusion isn’t just sustained by right-wing hawks—it thrives under liberal cover. Obama made empire sustainable again, at least until Trump tore off the mask.

Half White, All American, and Fully Responsible

Let’s get one thing straight for the racists and birthers still clinging to the lie: yes, Obama was an American. But that’s not a compliment anymore. American exceptionalism is what fueled this descent into slick, corporate fascism. And Obama rode that mythology all the way to the top.

He used his identity as a shield. Anyone who criticized his policies was accused of being either ungrateful or racist. Meanwhile, the real damage was done—not to the elite class, but to the working people who believed he’d deliver change.

Obama wasn’t Bush. He was worse. Bush was a blunt object. Obama was a scalpel. Precise. Deadly. And unaccountable.

From Chicago to Collapse

Occupy protesters in 2011 weren’t just shouting into the wind. We saw it. We warned you. Rahm Emanuel had the city under digital surveillance. Cops beat activists. The press covered for them. And Obama said nothing. His silence was complicity. His restraint was strategy. And his legacy is the foundation Trump, DeSantis, and now fascist-lite centrists all stand on.

American fascism didn’t come out of nowhere. It was built with bipartisan votes, liberal silence, and Democratic “pragmatism.” Obama’s pragmatism.

Conclusion: History Will Not Be Kind

We owe it to ourselves—and the future—to name this clearly: Obama was a critical enabler of American fascism. He embedded it, normalized it, and left it locked, loaded, and gift-wrapped for his successor. He deserves credit for the symbolism of his rise—and full condemnation for the consequences of his rule.

He will go down in history not as the man who saved democracy, but as the one who handed it a velvet noose.

🧷 APA-Style Citations

Bacevich, A. J. (2008). The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Metropolitan Books.
Emanuel, R. (2008). Interview at The Wall Street Journal Conference. [Transcript].
Fang, L. (2012). Rahm Emanuel and the Liberal War on Occupy. The Nation.
Greenwald, G. (2013). No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State. Metropolitan Books.
Milbank, D. (2010). Rahm Emanuel’s War on Progressives. The Washington Post.
Scahill, J. (2013). Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield. Nation Books.
Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs.
Taibbi, M. (2010). Obama’s Big Sellout. Rolling Stone.