It’s a puzzlement
After all this time has passed and I’ve written all these words on the subject, the spell Obama has been able to weave still puzzles me.
I first noticed the phenomenon in early 2008, when an apolitical and very intelligent friend told me that, for the first time in her life, she was going to work for the election of a candidate. That candidate was Obama.
My friend proceeded to canvass and phone up a storm, and seemed starry-eyed—which is not her usual state, believe me. When I asked her why, what was so very wonderful about Obama, she just said that he was inspiring and intelligent and she felt he was a different sort of candidate, and she trusted him. And there wasn’t a hint in her demeanor or her words that this was mainly about his race, either, although that certainly didn’t hurt.
It was something else. Whether Obama’s gift was a form of hypnosis, neuro-linguistic programming, con artistry, or just plain charisma, this friend of mine would have been the last person I would have thought susceptible to it. That’s part of the mystery. And I’m afraid to ask her how she feels about him now, for fear she’ll tell me something like this:
I was talking to someone at work today, and he normally seems like a reasonable guy, ex-Navy.
And then out of nowhere he exclaims how much he hates conservatives, and that he thinks Obama’s a great human being.
I asked what brought it on, and he just said “Because Barack Obama cares about me.”
I s*** you not, that’s what he said (and keep in mind, he’s not even a minority. He’s as WASP-y as it gets).
I just shook my head and turned around, because there’s no getting through to that kind of stupid.
Let me reiterate: my friend is not stupid. I’ve known her for many decades, and she’s the opposite of stupid. To top it all off, she’s usually very perceptive about people, and neither gullible or naive. Sharp as a tack.
I have come to the conclusion, after six years of this, that I will never understand it. And don’t say the explanation is “women.” I’m a woman, for example. And I know women who are quite immune to Obama’s charm, and men who have fallen for it. Nor does it even break down on liberal/conservative lines, although of course that’s part of it (the more rational part). I know liberals who’ve always had strong reservations about Obama, and I’ve read about conservatives who at least initially were drawn to him.
No, I don’t truly and deeply understand, despite all my efforts. But I’ll keep trying. You say, why bother? I think it points to a dangerous susceptibility in human beings, one that certainly didn’t begin with Obama, but one that has wreaked havoc in the past and will again in the future. To understand it helps more people to recognize it earlier, and to recognize it earlier has the potential of offering more protection against it.
great job killing the point In the other tgread as usual
why nit just say the topic is dead rather than waste my life through time ditched? if i knew you would bury it, i could have enjoyed my sat morning with my wife rather than dispose of my life wasting time. at some point i started jotting down on paper when to plot trend… Waste of time unless i dont wait to see what others post… got the hint finally…so sorry
Artfldgr:
I have no idea what you’re referring to.
Infuriating. I’ve waited these six long years knowing Obama’s results would be ugly but does my friend see it? No.
Back when the Jeremiah Wright episode was working up to be one of so so many “puzzlements,” I nearly decided to end a friendship due to his blindness and defense of Obama. How, I asked, could Obama not know of Wright’s anti-semitism? How?
And I waited six years for the evidence to mount even further and staged a comeback with the “you can keep your doctor” broken promise. The answer: Ohh, all politicians do that. They can’t possibly keep all their promises.
But, there is a difference this time. The aura and light isn’t shining quite so bright over the self-proclaimed savior’s head. They blame us, the world, and perhaps even themselves, but still, at rest and down deep, the offense of failure presents and the conclusion “I thought he was different, but he’s not” stings and smolders. They don’t want to talk about. Their emotions flare up suddenly.
It’s raining outside,
I have a lawnmower.
______________________
Does that help, Neo?? ((-:
Perhaps your friends apolitical nature is the key. Not paying any attention to politics it just seems sordid. When a well-packaged product like Obama comes alone (with all the subtle hints from the glitterati that he is the one) coupled with the understood socialism in his approach, it offers a great relief from the stresses of life.
As a small business owner I have to watch my self to not be too critical/sharp with people in conversation. I now have little tolerance for the helplessness of many people who work for large corporations. Underneath they want a mythical obama to be there to smooth the sharp edges of life, remove responsibilities and allow them to remain apolitical.
The reaction of many former Obama supporters…”well, they’re all like that”…is dangerous, as is the parallel reaction of certain Conservatives who have concluded that voting & political activity are pointless given the corruption of the system. These levels of cynicism open the door to totalitarian thinking.
A researcher who interviewed Nazi-era Germans (referred to as as “friends” a couple of years after the war’s end had the following to say:
“National Socialism was a repulsion of my friends against parliamentary politics, parliamentary debate, parliamentary government–against all the higgling and the haggling of the parties and the splinter parties, their coalitions, their confusions, and their conniving. It was the final fruit of the common man’s repudiation of “the rascals.” Its motif was “throw them all out.” My friends, in the 1920′s, were like spectators at a wrestling match who suspect that beneath all the grunts and groans, the struggle and the sweat, the match is “fixed,” that the performers are only pretending to put on a fight. The scandals that rocked the country, as one party or cabal “exposed” another, dismayed and then disgusted my friends…”
and
“My friends wanted Germany purified. They wanted it purified of the politicians, of all the politicians. They wanted a representative leader in place of unrepresentative representatives. And Hitler, the pure man, the antipolitician, was the man, untainted by “politics,” which was only a cloak for corruption…Against “the whole pack,” “the whole kaboodle,” “the whole business,” against all the parliamentary parties, my friends evoked Hitlerism, and Hitlerism overthrew them all…”
More on this at my post Dangers of ‘A Plague on All Their Houses’
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/40509.html
Oh….Neo, I just quoted one of your own old posts back to you. Duuuh
I discovered this week at work that two young women–both smart as hell and professional—are Obama supporters. I lent the September issue of Commentary to one of them to read over the weekend. It has an excellent cover article by Brett Stephens of the WSJ entitled “Meltdown” on Obama’s breathtaking actions and inactions and another on the record of the Useless John Boy Kerry as Sec’y of State. We shall see. They’re not “political junkies”, so maybe….
the spell Obama has been able to weave still puzzles me.
Ever heard of hypnosis when the subject is conscious?
Same thing, except it’s now called mind control. It’s graduated to a new version.
These levels of cynicism open the door to totalitarian thinking.
That door was already open, long long ago. If you can’t stop it, then stop complaining about what’s already happened.
One reason I;m a physicist is that the whole realm of human behavior is beyond my comprehension (yeah, I know very Sheldon Cooper-esque).
I also have several friends, and know quite a few more people who are smart, generally savvy about people, and totally bought into Obama. Was/is there some form of mass hypnosis at work here? It really is all so very strange especially given the colossal failures of the past 6 years that they won’t give him up in any form.
Here’s some examples of group think and ideological lock step.
Jones Kool aid cult, mass execution/suicide/murder
Democrat party and plantation class in 1850s America.
Hussein O’s Obamaca that is a transformed ver of America.
The modern Democrat party that purges apostates like Lieberman.
Islamic Jihad and its ideological purity.
Look for the dots and connect them together. If you can’t understand the dots or any of the above group dynamics, then you’re not going to get it with Hussein O either.
I believe that Obama simply fills a psychological need for many people. It has nothing to do with intelligence, because the rational thought processes that normally govern behavior and choices are either disengaged, or cross-wired. There seems to be no other explanation.
Obama filled a need in 2008. He was “different” in many ways from the traditional candidate. While many saw the danger signs in that difference, others were simply attracted to it for their own reasons.
It is very hard to admit that you “took leave of your senses” and did something that would seem incredibly stupid in retrospect. Much easier to deny and double down, as in 2012. Who knows? Unicorns could be real, and your hero might achieve metamorphosis.
As incredible Lucy of Peanuts fame would say: “The Doctor is In”
Koestler on closed systems:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_archive.html#108638662359305703
The thing I find most difficult to understand is this: Just about everyone, at work or in other settings, has known people that focus entirely on getting glory for themselves and in getting promoted to whatever is the next higher status position….but show no interest whatsoever in actually doing the work well once the position is achieved.
Should’t it have been obvious from Obama’s whole manner, not to mention his history, that he was one of those people?
Back in 2008, before the elections, I came across this article:
http://www.pennypresslv.com/Obama%27s_Use_of_Hidden_Hypnosis_techniques_in_His_Speeches.pdf
I too was totally puzzled by intelligent friends who just fell head over heels in love with Obama and looking for some sort of explanation. There seemed to be a subconscious sexual component to it and, like a person who can’t bear to hear their lover criticized, my friends would become enraged at the simplest of questions, like, “What has he done exactly?”
I showed this article to friends and family and they thought it was ridiculous. Hypnosis? No way. But, for those who have read “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” it’s really not such a stretch.
I believe a band in the 80’s had a song called ” Cult of Personality”, probably explains it quite well neo-neocon. BTW love you’re blog( and you’re change of mind series especially).
I think Oldflyer comes the closest to it. It has nothing to do with intelligence or perceptiveness. In fact, it only has to do with Obama tangentially, if at all. It has to do with the inner motivations and aspirations of that particular person. Recall that Obama himself has spoken of it, of his perception that people invest in Obama their own aspirations. He’s a generational ‘standard bearer’, much like JFK was for many of the baby boomers.
Others have spoken of it as well;
“Much of Obama’s allure is that he is new and exciting enough to be a sort of blank canvas onto which activists of all kinds can paint their aspirations. Says Chris Lu, his legislative director, “He’s like a Rorschach test–you see in him what you want.” Garrett M. Graff, “The Legend of Barack Obama” November 1, 2006
“Barack Obama, ladies and gentlemen, is a blank canvas upon which anybody can project their fantasies, or their desires.” Rush Limbaugh, 2008
And because many people have invested Obama with their aspirations, giving up on Obama is far too close to giving up on their aspirations.
In fact, it’s taken his supporters recent personal fears of the ISIS threat to break Obama below his 40% threshold in support.
neo …
More than you might dare to believe…
You’re looking at “team thinking” — or other wise
“somebody to love”
There is a seriously large fraction of the population that needs needs to “belong on a team.”
My old ex-best friend was a team believer for Clinton. Bill could spin on a time — on a given issue — and the outcome DID NOT MATTER to my ex friend.
He was ON THE TEAM.
He would’ve made a perfect Hitlerist, Stalinist, or Obamist. THE MAN, the great leader, that was his pole star.
So, what you’re describing, what I’m describing is very much in the style of Eric Hoffer’s TRUE BELIEVER.
This voter is taking his orientation from his reptilian brain stem.
In the case of my ex-friend, his True Belief was hugely anchored on extreme hatred of his father’s world view.
And this is an individual that would rank very high on the IQ scale, very well read, etc.
He still could not jettison — nor even recognize — his emotional anti-bonding to his father.
Paging back through the hundreds of hours of political discourse, it’s plain that his father was a classical liberal — in the Federalist sense — and political discussions were the main fare at the family diner table.
Keep the above dynamic in mind whenever you run into strange thinking/ unthinking in smart people. You may actually be witnessing an ‘acting out’ against parental wisdoms/ value clusters… emotions so inchoate that they are not put to speech.
Such ‘reptilian’ foundations are something that ‘true believers’ can’t express because they are largely pre-rational.
Their sureties stroke the psyche as a subdued arousal. The true believer enters a state of bliss, of comfort.
My ex-friend would rise into euphoria when able to vent his anti-paternal screeds. He’d rise atop his didactic sermonizing into a manic high. His visage was that of a lucky child on Christmas morning.
I can’t imagine him NOT being an 0bamabot.
Barry surely touches all of his digital buttons.
Socially, sexually, emotionally, he’s never grown up.
There are a LOT of voters out there that have ‘true believer’ syndrome. If they’ve got high IQs then they are well able to screen out introspection. This adaptation extends to maintaining a patina of universal rationality to the larger, external, world.
For such a soul knows that their reptilian ‘thinking’ would not be well received — and can not be well expressed. This is the driving impulse towards simplistic catch phrases and agitpop slogans. For whomever can’t think straight on their own is well served by popular platitudes that shift the conversation forward — and off one’s plate.
The number of souls who can think deeply — like neo is but a trivial fraction of the population.
That’s why ‘changers’ are so rare.
Most of humanity just wants to join up with a team — hopefully a winning team.
This dynamic is now being played out in extremis in the Islamic State. One does not debate — one must pick a side.
This team oriented nature of human conflict is repressed during scholarly debates. In such a theater, it’s assumed that a ‘faction history’ does not exist. How artificial can you get?
In real politics, the ‘faction histories’ are all important.
David Foster, Kevin Williamson has a like minded view and article.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/387612/you-say-you-want-revolution-kevin-d-williamson
Kevin is a great thinker and a great writer, but this article is one of his worst, at least for the facts he alleges. And if his facts are not correct, that undermines the issue.
Three “facts” which I refute are these:
1. But Barack Obama did not fool Americans – not the first time, and certainly not the second time. They knew what they were getting.
That’s ridiculous. Many Americans, on both sides of the aisle, were fooled. Krauthamer was fooled. Probably every white voter who voted for racial harmony was fooled. Every voter who wanted “non-partisan politics” and “transparency” was fooled. Obama’s campaign and image were lies. And lies “fool” people.
2. And don’t tell me that Mitch McConnell or John Boehner aren’t “real conservatives.”
They’re not. They’re more Washington D.C. elites who show greater teeth to “real conservatives” who want to decrease government. Any politician who panders to get votes by pushing immigration “reform” isn’t conservative. That’s a non-vote position. Immigration reform is the Trojan horse of the Democrats and Boehner and McConnell have been the Democrat’s greatest allies in that strategy. All other good those two might do is irrelevant and undone by allowing a hostile takeover.
3. We already have a good idea who it is that the Democrats are going to select to replace President Obama: Someone worse.
No we don’t. Obama was the perfect storm, the perfect mole, the perfect Manchurian candidate, the perfect hater of America, the perfect despiser of our allies, the perfect contemn-or of our military and our economic strength. Who could be worse?
And Kevin, very unusually for him, employs a straw man argument when he switches the analysis from what conservatives want to what the American public wants. Kevin says
“It’s there that conservatives, particularly conservative populists and media figures, go spectacularly wrong. We are constantly hearing from talk-radio and Fox News pundits that the United States is just waiting to rally behind a right-wing candidate who can articulate the conservative agenda in a persuasive way with a smile on his face. But both experience and our best research suggest that that is far from the case. The American public is decidedly mixed in its political views:”
Conservatives aren’t saying the United States is waiting to line behind a conservative. That’s a misrepresentation. We assert that a conservative candidate will win because he or she will bring out all the conservatives and enough moderates.
The varying views of the American public Kevin lists are strawmen. Conservatives do not think the minimum wage should be raised. Conservatives do not think there is too much free trade. Kevin’s assertion that conservatives think the whole US is waiting to line up behind a conservative is a strawman argument set up by him, not conservatives. It’s ridiculous to think a conservative is going to get any of the leftist /progressive vote. Kevin also strawman’s what conservatives “think” by asserting we don’t know the difference between a McDonnell senate and a Reid senate, or the difference between an Obama presidency and a Romney presidency. Obviously, we do. But we also know our power is our vote. And why is it we don’t have the freedom to not vote when the candidate put up by the Republicans is a milquetoast non-combative, go along to get along RINO. Why is it us who has to change? It’s not a voting problem, it’s a listening problem. In that the Republican Party isn’t listening to the vote.
This article by Kevin is the worst I’ve ever read by him. It lacks even his usual powers of description and structural prowess. The introduction, using the example of Nigel Farage, contradicts Kevin’s point and Kevin distinguishes English and US politics with the one liner: But there are many dimes’ worth here.
Not really, Kevin. That was the whole reason why there arose the tea party, the same party which your two “real conservatives” have vowed to destroy.
I think I figured it out. Obama is a kind of “religion”.
His faux personas fill deep needs in certain types of people. He answers a dilemma they’ve had for decades – how to be relevant when they have no other transcendent elements in their lives.
He’s false prophet fro true believers – but we can never forget that false prophets are proverbial exactly because they have such a hold on people’s minds.
It is always the majority that follows the fake and the fad and the demagogue. It is always the (sometimes) lonely minority that needs strength beyond strength to resist the crowd of followers. We all naturally want to be in the majority.
Obama will sink like a rock at a certain tipping point when his followers realize they are the minority. They are weak people who cannot bear to be un-cool.
The end will come like bankruptcy comes. As someone said, it happens gradually, and then all of a sudden.
Down with Obama and anyone anywhere who ever supported him! Free America!
On the basis of my previous posts, I decided to google and found lots of articles on BHO’s use of “conversational hypnosis”. Not sure what to make of all these blogs… maybe Neo, who is a professional, could peruse them and decide if what they are saying may lie at the cult phenomenon we are witnessing.
I think the majority-probably a big majority- are simply gullible. Sociopaths have been taking advantage of this for thousands of years to build followings in religion and politics. The only thing I can offer in consolation in this case is that Obama will be leaving office in a little over two years. At least I hope that is the consolation prize.
What have you really got to lose by asking?
Nonetheless I think that the answer probably is something like the ex-navy guy gave. Government is the realm of love dispensation, and Obama is the Divine face of its dispensation.
Not too long ago a self-identified liberal blogger, of no particular note, visited a semi-active blog of no particular distinction where I occasionally fill in.
He left a comment on “my” blog. I reciprocated on his. He expressed an unreasonably profuse appreciation for my contribution. I figured I’d try and leverage this appreciation and goodwill to get to the heart of his otherwise vehement liberal attitude: by carefully attempting to tease out an answer as to why he adopted such a vitriolic emotional posture toward conservatives.
Over the course of our exchanges, and while exaggeratedly claiming that he admired my ability to express myself, he warned me that not only could he not express himself with the same precision, but that I should not even expect him to try and do so.
He further announced that he would not be held down to any expectation of intellectual consistency. Whatever principles or perspectives he might have expressed earlier, on whatever topics he might have addressed, should be understood by me to be part of his always evolving, ever shifting, kaleidoscope of multi-hued feelings and views.
Then, he banned me from further comment after I eventually pointed out to him that it was an odd thing for a militant collectivist to accuse conservatives of being fascistic.
I’ve looked in a half-dozen times in the last month or so: not because there is anything worth reading there but just to do a kind of liberal pulse check. And there he is, still relentlessly throbbing with resentments against “repukes” and conservative neanderthals, and against their selfish and hypocritical refusal to truly turn their lives over to his progressive version of “Jesus”: a kind of protest banner Jesus who represents in practice the progressive’s view of a god mostly useful for symbolizing an emerging social-justice millennium.
Conservatives and libertarians don’t really have to do anything to arouse the ire of the progressive, than to exist as non-progressives. In fact, their not doing what the progressive wants is the main cause of progressive anger.
How can the kingdom of social love and the abandonment of the individualist ego be truly inaugurated, when awful and imperialistic better-than-thou-morality wreckers and naysayers, lacking in all communal fervor, are politically allowed to withhold themselves from the glorious progressive project of politically guided evolution; and allowed to continue to focus on their own selfish interests? After all, progressivism, like socialism, is an all-society proposition.
Conservatives have accurately said for years that with liberals, the state takes the place of God.
Yes, sort of. But the liberal person still craves love as well as release from his inhibitions. Obama becomes the face and voice of this god. The state and all its agents and elements must be commanded to provide this love. Equality, as the progressive sees it, means he will be self-sacrificially loved wherever he goes, and by whomever he meets. Those who withhold, are sinners.
It’s incredibly irrational. But modern-liberalism’s first public intellectual acts were to dethrone reason as the arbiter and judge of appetite, and relegate it to the service of appetite’s fulfillment, whatever form that fulfillment might take.
There is therefore, ultimately, no reasoning with a progressive. Because the progressive’s desires are held to emanate from a realm now declared to be fundamentally beyond the bounds and proportioning of reason.
Evolution and power first: justification later.
What, when it comes to the progressive being/thing, is really there to reason about, and ultimately, “who” with?
A small excerpt from Irene’s link:
Young people and more educated people actually have lower hypnotic subconscious suggestibility
thresholds for scientific reasons explained. Popular perceptions of Obama are provable as inconsistent with his accomplishments, history, background, and even what is heard from him consciously — however, they match perfectly with the messages he is caught sending intending to be received only subconsciously. People are admittedly mesmerized by him. The irrational rise to power of and uncanny passionate support for a logically unaccomplished and questionable man based on his speaking alone like the “Obama phenomenon” is widely accepted — only the rational explanation for it is missing. Finally, he would not continue to use these deceptive techniques if he did not believe they work.
‘Progressives’ are indeed true believers devoid of any knowledge of history, economics, and human nature. They believe humanity can be molded into their vision of perfection via totalitarian government. They willfully ignore the cruelty, death, destruction, and ultimate failure of the totalitarian quests for utopia that litter the history of the 20th century. Obama was their dream of dear leader who would correct what they believed to be wrong with America. They can not stop loving their dear leader.
All who do not share their belief belong in gulags or better yet slaughtered in the killing fields. There is but one layer of an onion that separates our ‘progressives’ from the savages of isis/isil. Namely, they lack the stomach to do their own slaughtering and need the state to do it for them.
A friend of mine always said that what most people want is “A womb with a view.” That is what the progs offer to those who want that security, that feeling of belonging, and that warm fuzziness. That, IMO, is what Obama seems to offer. He’s soothing, he promises security, he’s never to hot or too cold, and his deep voice has a hypnotic and soothing effect on those who are looking for “A womb with a view.”
Commenters here at Neo’s place may want a womb with a view. Wouldn’t that be loverly? 🙂 But we have long ago recognized that it’s a childish longing. The real world requires adult thinking and responsibility. It requires understanding that government cannot and should not take care of you. People like that us not going to be fooled by Obama very long. Those who are mesmerized by Obama are not of that understanding and may have those unconscious childish longings or as blert calls it, “reptilian thinking.”
I watched the video of Obama’s ISIS speech. I tried to watch it as someone who is a LIV. As someone who doesn’t understand the history and ramifications of Islamic aggression, as someone who just wants to be assured that my life was not going to be disrupted by our actions in the Middle East, as someone that didn’t disagree with every policy Obama has ever proposed, and as a person who doesn’t know how often Obama has lied. When watched with that mind set (a difficult mind game, I’ll admit) I realized that the speech was very soothing and “reasonable.” It was something that would undoubtedly sound okay to the average LIV. The fact that even the MSM is getting a bit wee wee’d up over his reluctant warrior stance may affect the view of some LIVs, but only those who try to read or watch news on TV with some semblance of understanding.
I have a cousin who is quite bright and has lived her life in a conservative fashion, but does not follow current events closely. I sent her an essay by Sultan Knish that examined the situation with Islamic jihadis in the ME. I was astonished when she replied that everything that had happened was Bush’s fault. Her mind managed to twist the message of the essay (which didn’t blame Bush) into “it’s Bush’s fault.” That’s what I mean by not reading or watching news with an eye to understanding the message.
Apropos of blert’s reference to “team thinking”– it occurred to me that one form of team thinking explains why I’m immune to political figures like King Putt– I’m a baseball fan, and that limited field (pun intended) of team loyalty comfortably absorbs whatever need I have to be part of a team. Baseball certainly doesn’t consume my entire life– I’m nowhere near that level of fandom– but it seems to have effectively inoculated me against becoming a True Believer in Obama, the Big Dawg, or any other politician.
Several of the comments above have discussed my initial reaction, that perhaps it helps us understand how someone can follow a Jones, a Stalin or a Hitler.
IMO, one interesting parallel is that Hitler rose out of the political crushing of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles by the allies and the brutal living conditions (hyper-inflation) of the Weimar Republic. Likewise, Obama rose from the ashes of an eviscerated Bush administration. Now one might argue that the Bush administration wasn’t nearly as bad as the left and the media made it out to be (BushMcChimpyHitler, lying liars, Darth Cheney, etc.) and that is quite true. But Obama rose out of a perception of the former administration and offered his own presence as a balm to that turmoil however real or manufactured either the problem and the solution might have been.
Such manufactured perceptions are not new; Remember the Maine!
Yes, sort of. But the liberal person still craves love as well as release from his inhibitions.
I can see the release from inhibitions bit. There are a lot of things that look like lefties cutting loose. There is Lerner and the IRS, there are the college campuses and speech codes, there are all the firings and suspensions over opposing political views. Its like the crazies got a release from G*d to go crazy in public. Mobs are like that too.
Neo, what are your friend’s other friends like. (Wow, look at the virtuoso apostrophe work there ;))
Jay Leno was duped ! He s a massachusetts guy just like Romney. I recall prior to the election he had some
Romney supporter on & there was easy banter back & forth & Leno did not want to be offensive etc
Then he made the remark to the conservative guest
“I just feel Mr Obama is more in touch with the needs
of the average American”
(the *need* to golf, come hell or high water)
For the supporting majority, it was about his skin color. Voting for him was their act of contrition, while simultaneously condemning their neighbors’ prejudice. For the ruling minority, it was simply opportunistic exploitation. Democrats are capable of reconciling diametrically conflicted positions through selective compromise of their morality, ethics, and constituents, while posing community “leaders” as props to maintain an illusion of authenticity.
That said, the competing party offers a better choice in principle, while it is an imperfect alternative in practice. Well, at least they don’t create moral hazards (e.g. selective exclusion) at will for future generations to cope and reconcile; nor do the ostensibly support ignoring the issues which motivate mass emigration from second and third-world nations; nor do they support elective abortion (i.e. premeditated murder for pleasure) of around 2 million Americans annually, at least not in principle.
Anyway, the Democrats are fundamentally corrupt in principle and practice. While the Republicans are better in principle but exceptionally corrupt in practice. Such are the choices in a fallen world.
Neo’s self stated field isn’t therapy or regressive hypnosis. That matters in terms of experience.
The people with the most experience with conscious mind control are interrogators, enhanced or otherwise, or NLP pick up artists.
I remember early on in the 2008 election process, when it was still Obama vs Hillary!, I said that I was for Obama, just to be original, to my black TV journalism friend. He said that another journalist he knew, who was on the Obama plane, said that Obama was one of the most arrogant assholes he’d ever met in his life. This gave me pause.
I later came simply to believe that there is no bottom to the depths of White Guilt, and no “evidence” or rational argument has or will ever have any effect on this.
The additional huge factor, also not subject to rational movement of the mind, is the uncoolness of Republicans. This is overwhelmingly powerful amongst the literary and arts demographic, and the intelligentsia in general, again not subject to rational thought. “Thought” is not involved.
Right now, no matter what Obama does, he retains this “cool” factor, which may not be wholly attributable his being black — but would not endure if he was white — and coolness is the most important thing in the world to those panicky about age (which is rumored to lead to the unthinkable — in other words, death).
Remain immature and you may fool yourself into believing you are, by extension, still young… thus cool and a long way from having to think about the uncoolness of having some fatal disease and — no, it’s unthinkable, it won’t, it can’t happen — ending up lying there childless with your miniature white poodle or your cat as consciousness escapes your ugly old white-privileged corpse.
This seems to support my quandary of many years of how the tall, blond, blue-eyed, Aryan worshipped a short, dark-skinned, dark eyed gnome like hitler….the capacity of deny the obvious is a very dangerous human trait.
It seems if you tell someone something they want to hear, reality itself is no challenge.
The stuttering, incompetent, narcissist jugeared clown – “sir-golfs-a-lot,” seems to have the cloak of invisibility for those who expect something for nothing.
As remarked on by several others, Obama fills a need in his followers. An emotional need. I think they feel deep down that something is wrong with the world, akin to David Foster’s story about the researcher with Nazi friends.
The world has become too complex, and corrupt at the same time, but nothing can be done.
They have bought into the interdependence dogma, and have lost part of their agency as a result. Like the crowd that stood about after the Lee Rigby murder.
If they didn’t need community so much, or at least if they had the community of a church as a bulwark, maybe they wouldn’t have fallen for Obama.
But modernity did away with religion, and replaced it with crass consumerism and cheap thrills. These are not the stuff of moral courage.
The followers cannot bring themselves to admit they were wrong, or that Obama is a failure. That would be admitting they are failures.
The feeling they have deep down is cognitive dissonance. The feeling that the world MUST be X, and yet their senses tell them that it isn’t X.
Obama is like the boyfriend that’s bad for you, but you keep going back to him even though there’s a “nice guy” available (the GOP, kinda). It’s a deep, dark emotional appeal that can’t be reasoned away.
The usual way to get past that requires hitting rock bottom.
Many trenchant comments – lack of community, rootlessness, intellectual and spiritual dryness – all lead to a need for something to cling to, some authority to soothe and eliminate the need to make decisions. Many feel that life is too complicated for them, some have the experience that they make bad decisions. Have you noticed the online ads on blogs? “Obama wants moms to go back to school”, “Obama wants to help you with your mortgage problems”. I am constantly amazed, coming from a old culture that said you should never trust a politician or an advertising man… That way of thinking seems to have disappeared completely.
If it’s not obvious at this point that Obama doesn’t care about anyone or anything but himself, there’s no use trying to convince. For whatever reason, some people cannot distinguish a good person from a bad one, a truthful one from a con-artist, and to make matters worse, will even invent excuses to forgive horrible actions and behavior that completely refute their beliefs.
Maybe it’s genetic, since it cuts across gender, race, age, etc. An extreme example is battered women. You would think it would not be hard to convince a person who’s health or life have been threatened by repeated beatings, that their spouse is not really a good person. But it’s very difficult in many or most circumstances to do that. The abused often believe the person administering the beatings is really trying to be good, and didn’t really mean to hurt them, and in some perverse circumstances, that the abuser actually needs them.
Which goes to show you that a lot of people are screwed up nitwits who will let a guy lie and disappoint them regularly, because they believe it’s for their own good.
Thus ends my compassionate and highly informed clinical explanation.
waitforit… Krauthammer was fooled..? And… Mitch McConnell isn’t a “real conservative”..?
I don’t recall Charles the Great being fooled on anything regarding The Boy King. Mitch, at least the last time I checked, had a pretty peerless conservative record in the senate. Help me, will ya. Thanks.
NCS…
Mitch is the ultimate anti-Tea Partier.
Too many links to list.
Has been the primary bane of every GOP conservative in every primary for 3,000 miles around.
Many famous/ infamous quotable quotes.
He’s an institutional Republican that is entirely open to open borders, almost Cantor’ish.
If the scales ever fall from their eyes the deep revulsion will be something to behold.
A friend of mine who used to praise Obama with light in her eyes visited last week and, to my surprise, complained about Obama and claimed that at least she hadn’t voted for him. A couple years ago she proudly claimed she had voted for him. Quite a change.
southpaw…
Intra-familial violence is sky high in Black and Samoan families by White standards. Both ethnics are all over the police blotters — everywhere. And incomes don’t matter.
You’d be shocked as to how many times it’s the wife that initiated the combat. This may take the form of a rolling pin against a sleeping husband.
Since no man wants to shame himself by reporting that he suffered a beat down at the hands of a woman — let alone his wife — the emergency room report will read that he had a bar fight or something really went awry in the garage or on the steps to the basement.
Consequently, when wife beats man — absolutely no reportage. And they sure do get their licks in.
I knew one guy who lost his front tooth to a frying pan and a howling mad spouse. In her case, she made such a ruckus that neighbors called the cops.
As you might imagine, if the wife does not inflict killer blows, the husband may well trash her. In which case, she’s the only victim for reportage purposes. His bruises are assumed to be consequent to his battery of her — not the other way around.
In the Rice v. Rice fight: she admits that she initiated the whole thing. Ray knocked her clean out because — enraged — he gave her ‘game-day’ treatment. At every level, he was not thinking. It was his reptilian brain doing the ‘thinking’ for him. (She spit in his face more than once.)
To be sure there are gals who have what can only be described as a masochistic bent. For they have hooked up with a bonafide psycho.
In such a case, both parties need professional psychiatric interventions.
And then there’s the impact of drugs and booze. Somehow the players always seem to be in altered states of consciousness.
All of the above means that it’s dangerous to draw conclusions from what are irrational, drugged, psychologically damaged souls. For neither party is functioning much beyond feral, and logic and norms have been kicked to the curb.
Such incidents harken back to our animal past, no doubt.
blert…I’ll look more, but Mitch being “not a conservative” is news to me. I know he can make some of our cons(apparently you, too) gnaw their fists, but I also recall that he’s got a rock solid conservative record in the senate. And, needless to say, in deepest ‘alpha sleep’ he’s 70-times smarter than Feckless Harry.
I think neo has referred to another reason in the past: Liberals think they are “good” and conservatives are evil.
Nobody’s played to that theme as Obama did. Thus, anything he does is “good” in a moral sense, irrespective of results. Results mean little to libs anyway, but with zero, everything he does is larded with “good”.
Thus, supporting Obama allows one to be “good”, unike those mean old conservatives and republicans.
And, even if results are brought to a lib’s attention, it will be awfully difficult to give up a way to remain “good”.
Richard Aubrey
I don’t recall Charles the Great being fooled on anything regarding The Boy King.
That’s cause people think he is a Black Hole, aka lacking a spine. He has a Need to believe, so he will believe.
NCS:
“Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has defeated tea party opponent Matt Bevin in the Republican primary for this year’s Senate race in Kentucky, the AP reports. The McConnell-Bevin race was viewed as another prime example of the split between the GOP establishment and the more conservative tea party candidates; a split that John Boehner today denied is really there.
Last year McConnell said Republicans should push back against the “utter nonsense” being pushed by outside conservative groups, and back in March, McConnell gave an interview in which he declared that Republicans like himself would “crush” tea party challengers all over the country.”
http://www.mediaite.com/online/mcconnell-beats-tea-party-challenger-matt-bevin-in-gop-primary/
%%%%
http://www.redstate.com/diary/dhorowitz3/2013/05/21/mitch-mcconnell-supports-schumers-amnestyimmigration-deform-bill/
“Earlier today, McConnell told The Hill’s Alex Bolton that he will support the motion to proceed with debate on the amnesty bill, noting that “the status quo is not good.”
So even as the Senate Judiciary Committee votes to allow criminal aliens to receive amnesty and for them to collect billions in refundable tax credits McConnell is OK with it.
So even as Obama is embroiled in the worst scandals of his administration, McConnell plans to bail him out with his second biggest legacy victory.
So he praises the Gang of 8 without mentioning one concern from the dozens of problems in the bill?
Mitch McConnell voted for the 1986 amnesty bill. Seldom do lawmakers have the opportunity to rectify the same mistakes in such a dramatic way. Instead he is opting to roll over and genuflect before The Schumercare Democrat Voting Act of 2013. This is endemic of McConnell’s approach to follow from behind instead of lead from the front.
He knows that Democrats have the votes to strike down all GOP amendments to put real enforcement triggers in the bill. They have already done that on a committee level.
Once the debate proceeds, there is no way to stop the runaway train. Failing to filibuster it now is nothing but a rubber stamp on the bill. And despite McConnell’s carefully choreographed statements, that is exactly what he wants.”
NCS this ^^^^ is what animates the anti-McConnell crowd.
Mitch has got strange priorities in other areas that have made news, but are all secondary to his enthusiasm for de jure amnesty.
For a veteran of the Senate, he acts as if he doesn’t know how Reid plays the game.
With only 45 votes at his back — McConnell HAS to play the filibuster early and often. He also has to provide openings for enraged voters to press Democrat senators for consideration.
It’s the opinion of many that he’s too much of the go along to get along nature — when his opponent is totally partisan and unprincipled.
Witness Harry’s atomic attack on the filibuster, itself.
This signature move may end up actually destroying the one-way momentum of Big Government. The REAL reason that Reagan couldn’t get any shrinkage was because of the Democrat filibuster — over thirty-years ago.
(Reagan also had a ‘House problem’ that is skipped past when his conservative credentials are impugned… by Libertarians and Progressives.)
&&&
When you remember how pro amnesty Cantor was — and how pro amnesty Boner is… you can see why Mitch was a focal point for those defending America.
NCS…
?
This dangerous susceptibility in human beings has its true name: idolatry, pure and simple, or looking for inspiration, care and protection in all the wrong places. This is what secularisation and paganism of the modern culture enevitably boils down to.
NeoconScum:
The most reliable site for grading conservatism is Heritage Action Scorecard, IMO:
http://www.heritageactionscorecard.com/
McConnell is rated at 69%, which is only slightly better than their rating for the Senate Republican average of 62%.
For more in-depth coverage of what conservatives think about McConnell, I would recommend doing a name search on Redstate:
http://www.redstate.com/
From what I’ve read, blert is correct about McConnell.
He’s a Rasputin-like figure that manipulates things behind the scenes, with a network of connected cronies. He has a public face that is more conservative than what he really believes.
The best way to describe him is: one of the main players in the D.C. establishment, willing to sell out many others in order to maintain control and enrich his followers.
He was one of the main players (behind the scenes) in the Cochran debacle in MS.
Blert & Matt…Thanks, Guys. Much appreciated.
Blert…(?) Inside dizz for the putz right above your 7:41pm. Not, I promise, for youse.
I knew some otherwise smart, educated people in 2008 who told me “But we’ll be better liked around the world and we’ll get free health care if Obama wins.” Seriously. I tried to explain simple economics to them about how the latter was impossible, but they simply hand waved my arguments away. As to the former, well, you can’t argue away stupid.
Let’s move forward to the present. A majority, probably a large majority, of those fooled in 2008 still insist that Obama has made everything better: the economy is improving, everyone has free healthcare and foreign policy is getting better all of the time, with -maybe- a couple of hiccups.
You think I’m kidding. I’m not. The ability of so many to be able to reject objective reality is a real problem. Of course, it does explain how Obama was able to win a second time. Well that and the media lying nonstop for him.
Obama has managed to cover up the truth with the aid of a corrupt bureaucracy and the media.
I’m convinced that economic data coming out of the government is faked when it’s important.
People can continue with their fantasies because they never have to confront reality. There were always few people willing to buck the trend, and nobody will listen to them while they don’t have to.
When the big economic hits come, they will be a surprise to many.
I’m expecting there to be some fireworks between the end of quantitative easing in October and the 1st interest rate hikes in 2015.
It could be really bad.