The Most Powerful Man in History

Although many have pointed out that the Democratic party will have commanding majorities in the US House and Senate, the Presidency, and control of Supreme Court appointments for the next 4 years, no one realizes that the centralization of power is going to be far greater than anyone suspected. Barack Obama will not only go into office with friendly majorities in the House and Senate, he will also go into it with presidential power far beyond what any president has ever had, control of all business in the United States, control of the financial dealings of every American, control of the education of almost every American child in the United States, and worst of all, a "mandate" and the fanatical support of a huge swath of Americans.
The part of this that the media and most people focused on was the Democratic majority in the legislature. This by itself is important, but not even necessary for Barack Obama to have almost limitless power. If you look at the Bush presidency, the legislature has no power over the presidency, and members of congress like going with the flow. Legislators will do anything the "powers that be" ask, and this is shown by them voting for the authorization to go to war in Iraq, the patriot act, the banking bailout, the military commissions act, the refusal to impeach Bush, the telecom immunity bill, etc. Many of these votes were with a democratic majority in congress. However, the congress always goes along with whoever's in power. The reason? I'm sure there's a billion excuses, but it all revolves around losing support from the party and/or corporate masters and/or looking bad to an extreme minority in their district/state that causes them to make these insane votes. Even if they suddenly grew a spine, they have no power to do anything. Members of the president's administration routinely refused to testify before congress or answer their questions even though it is explicitly against the law to do so. These men suffered no consequences. Whenever the congress passed a law that limited the president's power, the president released a "signing statement" that showed his intention to ignore the bill. If push came to shove, and the legislature actually went after the executive branch, the president could always declare a catastrophic emergency under presidential directive 51 and then he can control the legislative branch. Very unconstitutional, but when has that ever stopped them. So, even without the congressional majority, Obama can do whatever he wants, but having them doesn't hurt.
He also has more power in the executive branch itself. In the past year, the treasury department has taken control of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, it controls huge portions of all banks because of the bailout, in addition to all of the other industries it already runs (such as security, transportation, planes, trains, nuclear power, utilities, etc.). Since it now controls finance, there is really no business that he could not control by threatening their credit stream (although presidential directive 51 also allows for a direct takeover of business.). Obama has also promised more socialization, in health care (already heavily controlled by the government), public works, and the new "stimulus".
Obama also has more direct power over our lives due to Bush's rollback of civil rights. The supreme court has given us back one important right, that of habeas corpus, but I doubt that would be much of an obstacle to a determined executive. Obama will have near unlimited power to spy on us, to declare us enemy combatants and search our homes without warrants and imprison us indefinitely (as long as there is a kangaroo court "military commission"). I seriously doubt Obama will put much effort into eliminating these powers, despite his earlier protestations of them. The people no longer demand an end to civil rights abuses, and Obama will only do things for the people if it helps get him elected again. Once in office, Obama will learn how useful it is to him to be able to violate a human being's civil rights, and will not give up the right willingly.
With the advent of "no child left behind", the US government has a hand in the curriculum of every single student that goes to public school. With most people expressing king worship at Obama at every turn and the fact that most teachers are hard-core liberals, the indoctrination will ramp up in our public schools, most likely creating a generation of people who worship the state more than ever before.
In the military field, Obama will preside over the biggest military budget in history. This military has had extensive experience now in fighting a low level insurrection in the most brutal manner possible. They have also just been allowed to violate the Posse Comitatus act, which vastly limits how the military can operate on home soil. So we now have a dedicated combat brigade dedicated to "policing" the "homeland". It won't be fun for us discovering what happens when the US military interacts with an outdoor wedding party.
Now, George Bush already has most of these powers, but he is also partially hamstringed by the fact that nobody likes him. This makes it difficult to give his actions "legitimacy." Barack Obama, on the other hand, is very well liked by Americans, and is viewed as the "hope" for "change". He has also compiled a massive database of hardcore supporters who will now be used to build support and execute his directives. He'll be like our "Il Duce".
Even if Barack Obama is a much better man than I give credit for, he won't be the only man to be president in our lifetimes, and there's very little chance any of the power delegated to these men at this point will go away. Eventually, a truly evil despot will be elected president, and I shudder to contemplate the fate of our country then.