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The Cult of Obama: Drink the Cool-Aid

By Publius

This blog has previously broached the topic of the growing Church of Barack, Obamania, etc. etc.

But once again Youtube/Google, despite its frequent cave-ins to autocrats like Pakistan and China, is still the best place for interactive commentary.

This video, succinctly and wittily, makes the point the media's been missing the whole election cycle--Obama has the aura of a cult leader about him.

With the help of the well-done image synch and song choice, the video makes the point that the MSM (main-stream media) has yet to really wrap its head around Obamania.

The Senator from Illinois is, on paper, underqualified, out-of-touch, and woefully unprepared for the campaign ahead against the GOP machine that has used race-baiting (Jesse Helms), terrorist insinuations (Max Cleland), liberal-as-a-slur (Kerry, Dukakis, Mondale, McGovern...) and lost only 3 of the last 10 Presidential Elections--and only to moderate Southern Governors.

Obama-As-the-Great-Black-Hope mystique is very dangerous for Democrats who are finally in a position to win the White House and control both houses of Congress. The phenomenon is deeper than the "cult of personality" or hope-mongering impulse. It is, in short, an unusual coalition of the willing-to-believe.

If you look at the list of Democratic congressional endorsements for Obama and Clinton you'll see Obama has united the doctrinaire liberal ideologues (George Miller, Ted Kennedy) with Red State Dems (Lloyd Doggett, Stephanie Herseth, Gov. Kathy Sebelius) who dream about Obama's cross-appeal and probably know the words to Obama's 2004 Convention Address by heart, "there are church-goers in the blue states, and atheists in the red states."

The Machine politicians and Clinton Loyalists have, unsurprisingly, stuck with Hillary. They owe their positions to Bill and are pragmatist, moderate liberals (Tauscher, Bill Nelson, Feinstein).

Young, hip Hollywood's abandonment of the Clintons is telling. These stars have never been deep political thinkers, or even pragmatic-goals oriented movers, and instead like to seize on the symbolism of Obama's race, meteoric rise, and hope-mongering. (Listen to the new Will.i.am Video's celebrity belief that Obama will bring "a healthy planet to live on")

The linkage of these two constituencies is important but problematic for Democrats. By linking their fate to the Obama-landslide potential, Red State Dems think they can create consensus for change and improve the discourse toward tolerance for "progressive" positions in conservative places -- a ground shift much like Reagan's ability to make conservatism a legitimate alternative to the two variants of liberalism in post-war America, Republican and Democratic liberalism.

But the risk is that Obama could be swift-boated with much more devastating effect since the Hope Cult (TM) has largely insulated him from serious attacks on his wacky church, lack of experience, possible instances of plagiarism, leftist positions, and the Rezko scandal. If the Obama flood brings Dems in from Red States, if it ebbs and they've tied their boat to him, it could also put them out to sea and erase all the gains they've made without him.

For doctrinaire liberals, the risk is two-fold: Obama could either abandon them to keep his "unifying" image alive and blunt the attacks described above or he could simply be ineffective and get nothing done.

Carter's domestic agenda was scuttled by leftists from the '74 Revolution because he tried to play the middle ground, and then got hit from conservative Dems when he tacked left to appease his liberal compatriots--all of which paralyzed his administration domestically. On foreign policy, Carter again seems the model to look to, but maybe with different results.

He came in with "principles" and a strong rejection of Kissinger's Real Politik but quickly found that his own camp was divided about what "principles" Carter has stood for. Anti-anti-communists wanted a soft line on the Soviets, while idealists and some crypto-realists demanded confrontation with a happy face. It all ended poorly and Democrats haven't had a foreign policy since.

Obama-ology, then, will have need an Eccumenical Council before its ready for the fall, to resolve its political direction, unite behind something more than slogans, and set out a theology. The problem with all religions is when they set forth an active agenda, it often results in schism.

Full post as published by Expressio Unius on March 07, 2008 (boomark / email).