If someone had written all this as a political intrigue novel in 2004 it would have been dismissed with a simple handwave and people saying, “impossible”.
Barney thought we weren't importing enough radicals and jihadists into the country.
Gotta do everything we can to make them feel right at home.
Barney is a lying sack of sh*t with a massive chip on his shoulder, and genuinely resents the Nation in which he lives.
The Keynote Speech Before The Democratic National Convention That Made Him A Star
http://www.2004dnc.com/barackobamaspeech/index.html
There is much insight into this characters words: Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake: One of her characters asks, “As a species we're doomed by hope, then?” By hope? Well, yes. Hope drives us to invent new fixes for old messes, which in turn create ever more dangerous messes. Hope elects the politician with the biggest empty promise; and as any stockbroker or lottery seller knows, most of us will take a slim hope over prudent and predictable frugality.
The truth is there were many who did wave their hands and dismiss the dangers of this man. Even many wise folks here dismissed him, until it was too late. We often say that they “drank the koolaid.” I have often contemplated what is that drink? We know it is empty calories, a sweetened poison that murders many. And yet the masses drink it, willingly. I submit it is the “greed” of hope, not the audacity of hope. Atwood's character goes on to conclude, “Hope, like greed, fuels the engine of capitalism.” While I don't agree with the conclusion of what the fuel of capitalism is, I do agree with the manner in which Hope has been facilitated as a form of greed.
Liberals, socialists, marxists know how to make and take the precious gift of Hope and use it to answer people's greeds. Hope coupled with greed, as an answer to the poor and middle class, is the kool-aid put these people in office. So if we understand what is in the kool-aid we can begin to find the antidote.