President Barack Obama was not favored by the election gods in 2014. When the midterm Senate elections took place, the Democrats lost control of both chambers of Congress, both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Republicans now control the legislative body of the federal government, meaning he is powerless to make law and other than the few executive provisions he has as President he is unable to act upon his party ideology.

Or is he?

After the DREAM Act failed repeatedly in Congress–a stunning 6 times–Obama was pressured by critics and fellow Democrats alike to live up to his promises of Hope and Change that featured immigration. The DREAM Act would grant temporary citizenship to illegal immigrants that came to the US before the age of 16 and are in good legal standing. The Democrats are adamant that DREAMers, as they call these individuals, are innocent and that they have lived a life similar to any American’s insofar as they went to school, worked, and committed no crimes, while critics assert that such a program would grant virtual amnesty, invite fraud, and shield youth gang members from deportation.

Democrats seemed to have been defeated and with them their policies, but Obama felt that his allegiance to his party and his ideology trumped his allegiance to democracy. Obama used an executive order to make his will law, through two programs called DAPA and DACA, which are re-branded and repackaged versions of the DREAM Act. Together, they will provide amnesty for undocumented, illegal immigrants who entered the country under the age of 16 and are in good standing.

The reaction was mixed. On one hand, Obama moved forward with a major promise he made to Hispanic groups on the campaign trail in 2012. On the other, executive action is often viewed as unconstitutional and even tyrannical, and rightfully so. As it is to be expected, the legislative branch took great issue with Obama’s executive flirtation with dictatorship. 26 states, led by Texas, sued the President, and for over a year now his executive orders have been backlogged in court. Having faced a serious amount of defeats, many are certain that the Supreme Court will not rule in his favor when it rules, which could be as late as June 2016.

Following his trend of meagre attempts to fulfill his promises that had gone unfulfilled in the first half of the Presidency when he had the backing of Congress, the President issued executive orders regarding gun control this week. Igniting a political and legal firestorm, Obama tried to close the gun show loophole, which allegedly allows unlicensed dealers to sell guns to unlicensed buyers. Once again, he was showered with praise for progressive reforms from his party and was swarmed with a hellfire of condemnation from conservatives who prefer to focus on the abuse of executive power as opposed to the alleged progress the policy offers.