Manufacturing outrage is the modus operandi of Obama and Democrats.  Liberal media are their tools.  The result has been destruction, pain and murder.  And the worse is yet to come.

The last six years have seen an explosion of faux controversies generated by Democrats.  Aside from political ads attacking opponents (Paul Ryan pushing grandma and her wheelchair off a cliff; Romney as a bully, homophobe, dog abuser and carcinogenic (I may have missed a few calumnies).  Before those defamations, it was Sarah Palin who endured unceasing attacks.  And before that it was Obama’s two opponents for the Senate who were targets of ginned up outrage.

There also have been campaigns that have attacked broad groups of Americans. 

Consider the purported epidemic of rape by privileged whites on college campuses.  Then there was a fictitious gender gap in wages between men and women.  Aren’t there enough wars around the world without having to start (un)civil wars in America?

The most disgraceful use of this strategy has been the deliberate stoking of black rage against whites.  Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown became martyrs not perpetrators.  Al Sharpton was anointed healer-in-chief and Obama’s point man on race (the arsonist becomes the fire department chief -- such are the perversions Barack Obama has inflicted on America).  Barack Obama has fanned the flames by comments such as “racism is deeply rooted in American society” and his Attorney General Eric Holder has race-baited throughout his tenure, routinely claiming civil rights violations at the height of the strife triggered by the deaths of Martin and Brown -- and routinely being frustrated by the facts.  Joe Biden told a black audience that “Republicans are “going to put y’all back in chains.”  Police have borne the brunt of these malicious attacks, all but accused of being Ku Klux Klansmen in blue. 

All these slanders were meant to play on people’s worst emotions. fear and envy, and generate votes for the delectation of Democrats, costs to this country from this  artificial outrage be damned.  All were lies. 

They are manifestations of a ploy dreamt up by Barack Obama’s White House Senior Adviser (at the time) David Plouffe, as the Weekly Standard noted last year:

Last week, National Journal reporter Major Garrett provided an interesting explanation for the White House’s obsession with promoting a dubious statistic on the alleged “pay gap” between men and women.  The White House has repeatedly claimed that women earn 77 cents for every dollar that men earn.  Such “war on women” rhetoric has no doubt proved inspiring to many single women, the Democrats’ most crucial voting bloc.  (Republicans still enjoy an advantage among married women.) 

However, as has been repeatedly pointed out, once you control for a number of confounding factors in the data, including the degree to which women drop in and out of the workforce to attend to marital and parental duties, the pay gap all but evaporates.  Even the usually credulous D.C.  press corps was scratching their heads over the White House’s misleading rhetoric.  The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus -- not exactly the face of conservative opposition to Obama -- called the White House’s use of the stat “revolting.” But as Garrett explains, the Obama administration deliberately sought to create controversy:

[The White House was] desperate to inject the issue into the political bloodstream and amplify otherwise doomed Senate Democratic efforts to make it easier for women to sue and win damages for workplace pay differences.  The controversy that played out on front pages, social media, TV, and radio did just that. 

This is the White House theory of “Stray Voltage.” It is the brainchild of former White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe, whose methods loom large long after his departure.  The theory goes like this: Controversy sparks attention, attention provokes conversation, and conversation embeds previously unknown or marginalized ideas in the public consciousness. 

The false allegations are amplified by the usual suspects: liberal media outlets, bloggers, Democratic Party operatives masquerading as think tank “experts” (The Center for American Progress, a George Soros-creation, is among the worst of the lot; it has been described as Obama’s Idea Factory and has also been a revolving door for Obama’s key officials).  Lies are streamed through the social networks that Obama and the Democrats have spread throughout America.  Narrowcasting has empowered liars as never before.

Truth does not matter.  As the great Winston Churchill said “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”  Even when purveyors of the false allegations are compelled to issue “corrections” they are ignored.  Few people read fact-checkers such as the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, who routinely hands out awards to Obama and his minions: Pinocchios.  We might read about Obama’s Grammy and Nobel Peace Prize, but how about his Lie of the Year, bestowed upon him by PolitiFact.com, for his repeated claims that “if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it”?

But facts do not seem to matter to Democrats, only rage that can motivate people to vote for them.  Their leader Barack Obama is a con man who thinks Americans are stupid people, susceptible to believing any stories he peddles.

Many of these outrage fabricators appear to be disciples of Saul Alinsky (Hillary Clinton actually shares this ideological kinship with Barack Obama) who wrote, “it’s up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change.”

This was clearly Obama’s strategy from the get-go.  When executives of AIG, an insurer bailed out by the government, were awarded bonuses, people were understandably upset if not enraged.  When asked how he would quell this anger, President Obama said he was not interested in calming the waters.

"I don't want to quell anger.  People are right to be angry.  I'm angry.  What I want us to do is channel our anger in a constructive way."

Of course, what is one man’s constructive path may be another man’s destructive path.

And so it has been throughout Obama’s presidency.  He has never missed an opportunity to manufacture outrage.  When there have not been existing “sores of discontent” he creates them.  After all, that is the logical next step when there is no discontent to manipulate -- create it.

The latest example of his modus operandi has been the agitprop he has poured out regarding the invitation extended to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to speak to Congress regarding the dangers of Islamic extremism (see my blog entry that Boehner blindsided Obama on Netanyahu invitation was manufactured agitprop).  Barack Obama -- the most thin-skinned, petty and prickly of our presidents -- considers this trivial incident a diplomatic affront.  The White House invented the tale of Netanyahu’s supposed outrageous behavior to blunt any unwelcome criticism of Barack Obama’s surrender to the mullahs.  The White House deliberately manufactured this spat with Netanyahu.

This is manufactured taking of offense is ironic coming from a man who gum chews while at solemn occasions with foreign leaders, took selfies during the funeral ceremony for Nelson Mandela, handed Queen Elizabeth an iPod loaded with his own speeches as a gift from the American people, insults Indians for racism in their nation while on an official visit, sent the bust of Winston Churchill out the White House door, mistreated then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, accused Canada of being greedy for wanting to export their oil-and on and on.

For some reason, the White House routinely manufactures outrage when it comes to Israel (see How Obama is turning America Against Israel for other examples). 

So what has been the result of this manipulation, this appeal to people’s most base emotions? Arson and damage in Ferguson and elsewhere (usually in areas and among people who can least afford such wanton destruction).  Americans believe race relations have worsened under Barack Obama, and that is blowback from the onslaught of disparaging whites as racists and scapegoating them as the culprits behind problems afflicting the African-American community.  Obama and Democrats who have irresponsibly played the race card for political gain have poisoned race relations in America. 

The anti-police hysteria fomented by many Democrats, including New York City Mayor De Blasio (see Heather MacDonald’s superb “The Mayor who slandered the Police”), Eric Holder, Al Sharpton and Barack Obama, reached a fever pitch and led to the murder of two New York policemen.

In fact, in one area --and one area only -- has he tried to quell anger.  That would be any anger towards Islamic extremism.  In that no-go zone he has done his best to manufacture apathy or ignorance or willful blindness.  Why?

The good news is that Americans have finally begun to realize they have been manipulated.  Democrats manufacture outrage, but like most tools it has begun to wear out its usefulness.  Americans have learned that where there is smoke there is not necessarily fire -- in fact, it might just be smoke blown in our faces.

The resounding defeat of Democrats in November was a sign of better things to come, one hopes.