Obama's Demagoguery is Dangerous for Democracy

Because Oregon's elections are done by mail, I have my ballot in my hand right now. I've carefully examined all of the presidential candidates' names and thought carefully about who I think is the best choice to lead America right now. I looked at my son, knowing this election would help set in motion how his life will be lived. Without pause I voted for Ralph Nader. And I know I will sleep tonight.

As the media rushed to declare Barack Obama's campaign as historic, some other element of history came to my mind. In my political science studies, we learned about demagogues who drew crowds of supporters but in the end were shown to be shams. Early on I said to myself, Barack is a demagogue. Why does no one see this? Here's the Webster's definition:

Demagogue: A leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.

In history, demagogues were successful precisely because they knew how to tap into deep emotional fears and anxieties. They were wizards at manipulation, but in the end, all revealed to be crass manipulators for their own gain. Most of Barack's claims have already proven false but the hypnotized crowds still march for him. Evidence of his reversal on most of his primary promises haven't made a dent in his popularity - which I see as proof his support isn't based on anything rational.

In the primary he took many prominent stands, defending each on grounds of his moral superiority - and this is why people said they supported him.

• He said he was for public financing and ridiculed Sen. Clinton for big spending;
• He said he was for a quick withdrawal in Iraq;
• He claimed he was deeply religious, talked glowingly about his spiritual advisor who had guided his life and his family;
• He claimed to be against FISA which would give Bush more authority to infringe on our constitutional rights;
• He said he was non-partisan (although his record showed he voted with his party more than 90% of the time);
• He was against drilling in our oil reserves;
• And more than anything else he wooed people with the claim that if he'd been in the Senate he would've voted against the Iraq war resolution. 

Now he's reversed each of those positions he took on such moral highground. The biggest of all was the war, the wrench he used brilliantly to take the primary from Sen. Clinton - yet he voted for every war resolution since coming to the Senate and is now talking about sending more women and men to die in Afghanistan and to bomb Pakistan.

But the crowds are running away with themselves now and no facts to the contrary will stop them. Their support of Barack was never rational and it can't be understood with appeal to reason. His supporters tell themselves they believe in him because he will be different and better, yet he's proven to be just as sleazy and hypocritical as many politicians.

The crowds are angry - they won't tolerate dissent nor any type of discussion. It's "you're with us or you're against us" and somehow our way of being depends on crushing you. Barack has them where he wants them and he can say and do anything now. This isn't good for democracy.

Thomas Jefferson warned of the dangers of direct democracy and there's a reason our founding fathers instead formed a representative democracy. They knew the dangers of the types of mobs we're seeing now. The Barack-mania on the internet is close to mob hysteria.

But make no mistake - the anger in this mob was fueled early on by deep sexist fears. Barack and his hatchet-man Axelrod brilliantly manipulated our fears of a strong woman and the mobs were only too willing to go along.

His mass manipulations are working on our darker levels. That's like "movement" fascism. He's getting away with false race baiting and rank sexism that self-proclaimed liberals and progressives are eating up. They're licking up every last morsel and hungry for more. If fascism is "nation above individual," then Barack's movement facism is "movement above individual, and common sense."

Recently I heard an NPR radio program interviewing an author who wrote about Freud. He talked about how we all have dark feelings in us and the appeal of fascist leaders is they allow us to vent those dark feelings. Barack and the media made it okay to take our frustrations and fears about changing roles of women and men by kicking Sen. Hillary Clinton to the curb. There, kick her a few more times - doesn't that feel good? This is dangerous for democracy.

As the British New Statesman has accurately called it, Barack's campaign is a new form of McCarthyism ("Hating Hillary" 5/22/08). Speaking of the media's "gloating, unshackled sexism of the ugliest kind" during the primary, Andrew Stephen wrote:

History, I suspect will look back on the last six months as an example of America going through one of its collectively deranged episodes - rather like Prohibition from 1920-33, or McCarthyism some 30 years later....The chief victim has been Senator Hillary Clinton, but the ramifications could be hugely harmful for America and the world. ...

Hillary Clinton (along with her husband) is being universally depicted as a loathsome racist and negative campaigner, not so much because of anything she has said or done, but because the overwhelmingly pro-Obama media - consciously or unconsciously - are following the agenda of Senator Barack Obama and his chief strategist, David Axelrod, to tear to pieces the first serious female US presidential candidate in history.

Stephen reveals how Barack, "characteristically, pronounced himself 'unhappy' with the vilification carried out so methodically by his staff". Barack's smearing and false race-baiting caused Sen. Clinton's hard earned support by blacks to plummet from above 80% to barely 7% in a matter of days. After that, the black superdelegates who supported Clinton were targeted, harassed and threatened. Stephen added:

Obama and Axelrod have achieved their objectives: to belittle Hillary Clinton and to manoeuvre the ever-pliant media into depicting every political criticism she makes against Obama as racist in intent.

Obama just offers a new democrat smear machine. Woo hoo. How great. We have our own Karl Rove. Is that good for the party or for our democracy? Obama's a purer, darker form of Rovism. Obama is not as clever; he doesn't have to be. Crude is working. A Barack presidency won't change the rancor in Washington - he introduced a rancor never seen in my lifetime into the democratic primaries that the party may never recover from. Characteristically, he and the media tried to blame the rancor on the Clintons - but they're long gone and the crude rancor from Barack and his campaign continue.

The primary danger of Barack is he makes people think they're progressive when they're anything but. He and the media not only annihilated Sen. Clinton, but they tainted anyone who dared defend her.

Blacks are fooling themselves if they believe the bitter young white men who patrol the internet political sites are progressive or would support real civil rights reform. They're supporting Barack simply because he saved them the emasculation of a female leader. All the reasons they claimed to support him in their angry, sexist emails to my blogs, are positions Obama's reversed himself on.

Black men have stalled in their quest up the corporate ladder along with women. Barack pitted one against the other - an age old political move - with the white men who run the media laughing all the way to the ballotbox. How many of those black faces recruited by CNN to sit up front during the campaign will linger after the election?

As Barack woos crowds by claiming other politicians were peddling the "politics of fear," he's brilliantly unleashed his own politics of hate. That's bad for democracy.

Anyone who thinks women or democrats HAVE to vote for him are fooling themselves. I won't hold my breath waiting for his landmark civil rights legislation. He'll be desperate not to be a one-termer, and will be even less likely than his record shows to do anything remotely controversial.

Besides, the election now is about the economy, as it should be. About the average American's ability to get by - have the security of health insurance; provide quality education for their children. Barack has zero experience or training on economic issues. He has shown no interest in his past in taking on big issues and taking the heat from that. There is nothing in his record that says he will do anything but take milquetoast positions and cast about for other peoples' good ideas to take credit for. I'm not willing to bank my son's future on Barack's empty promises.

The McCain/Palin ticket is very attractive.  John McCain says what he thinks - he's a refreshing straight-shooter who unlike Barack, doesn't need a fake Southern accent to sound authentic because he is authentic. McCain was tested in a way few in the country ever would be as a POW and he proved that his ethics and morals are above reproach.  McCain, like Sen. Clinton, has worked with and gained respect on both sides of the aisle and I have every reason to believe he would continue that bi-partisanship in the White House.  Sure McCain's made some mistakes, but we all have - that's the human condition. At the end of most days, I trust that McCain follows his gut to try to do the right thing. Gov. Sarah Palin is a talented leader with a record of making bi-partisan appointments and getting things done. She has a commanding knowledge and experience of energy and infrastructure issues that would serve our country well. This ticket promises real bi-partisanship and a Democratic Congress would protect the Supreme Court. 

My only concern is what McCain/Palin would do with the federal agencies. The sad thing is with my usual reliable and objective news sources completely throwing their hat in the ring for one candidate, there's no where to turn for reliable information on the kind of people McCain and Palin are consulting and would be appointed to their cabinets. I've even turned to reading the Wall Street Journal instead of the NYT because the WSJ's vaunted news staff has still managed to be the most objective.  But with a move and a new baby, I simply don't have time to do this research, and so I will go with a candidate whose background I know and trust.

I'm voting for a candidate with a proven track record of taking on corporate interests - even if that makes him unpopular. Nader tried to tell people in the 2000 race that both major parties supported corporate interests -- a fact that should be obvious now after the bailout led by Pelosi and the Democratically-controlled Congress. (As a progressive friend calls them, "the damn, dumb dems.")

Interestingly, polls show that this time Nader is drawing more votes from McCain than from Obama. People are falling for Obama's empty promises of reform.  I spent the last four years working for an elite banking consulting firm. I can tell you that the banks control the regulators, and not the other way around. We need someone who will break the hold the financial industry has on Washington.

We also need a candidate that talks about the needs of working class Americans.  Democracy Now's website has an article noting that neither major candidate talks about the working class - one-fifth of the population.  Nader pointed out earlier in the campaign that blacks would likely be disappointed in a Barack Presidency since he's shown no background or interest in changing policies that affect blacks in poverty and inner-city neighborhoods. 

In scant media coverage of his campaign, Nader was quoted as saying that Obama doesn't represent real change and warned, "This guy is the biggest con artist in our generation by far." I think Nader is right and that's why I've voted for him.  Nader's spent his life working and fighting for consumers. We need a president who appeals to our better side, not our darker side.

Comments

[Ali]

Another brilliant piece, Lisa. The Freud reference was spot on and disturbing. The pure vitriol that has surfaced during this election - it didn't come from nowhere. Rather, Obama and Axelrod encouraged the hatred to surface.

And I respect your choice to voter for Nader - it makes sense, although I'm sure you know he has no chance of winning. I have decided to vote for McCain and this will be the first time I have ever voted Republican. Thanks, DNC.

[Amused]

I find your blog amusing. You don't reference anything that senator Obama has said or done that justify your claims that he is sexist or that is race-baiting.

John McCain served the country admirably in the war, but should we make every good soldier the leader of the state?

Please if you're going to make such claims, at least back them up with policy positions. You say that McCain is a "refreshing straight-shooter". Yet, he often changes his positions. Just recently (and this is what I mean by giving an example)he supported the bank bailout package and then backtracked and vented against excessive earmarks and government spending. To top it off, he attacked Senator Obama for supporting the very same bill that he also supported. Why don't you talk about things that are true; the things that matter?

I'm not angry or fearful. And I think you would be hard pressed to find anything in my response that could be taken as sexist.

I know that you've started rejecting all the posts that disagree with or undermine your position, and I know you wont post this one. I would appreciate it though if you email me your honest response to this criticism. I would just like to know where you really are on this issue.

You're beginning to sound like many of the worst conservative commentators. And I'm not sure if it's just part of a larger to ploy to increase readership or something. I don't believe that you really believe in the things that you're saying.

[Lisa Nuss]

To Amused:

I don't post comments that are insulting - which most Obama supporters' comments to my blog are. They've followed his lead and decided it's fair game to call women emotional and to question their credentials - I mean look, he's about to be elected for doing exactly that.

I'm trying to create honest dialogue that isn't controlled by responding to swamps of insulting sexist stuff, or by women-apologists like Maureen Dowd.

I've posted yours in case any readers would like to respond.

As for your comment "I don't believe that you really believe in the things that you're saying," - Gosh, you're right. I'm taking time away from my baby and settling into my new house and a demanding job to write things I don't believe in. The Philadelphia Inquirer and the San Francisco Chronicle and the London Guardian pay me money for my political opinions because I write what I don't believe in.

Following your insult to its illogical conclusion, perhaps you can see why I don't want to post comments like these.

Lisa

[Alison]

"You're beginning to sound like many of the worst conservative commentators."

That makes no sense and I find many who are hateful to those who don't automatically get into the Obama line use this standard insult - accusing one of being Republican or conservative. It's tiring and so lacking in insight.

[Alison]

Wow. A very, very sad day for me. Well, whatever destruction Obama causes this country, the blind supporters of this man will have to bare responsibility.