I like it when other people have already written a detailed account of how I’ve been feeling:
No, what really put me off Barack Obama was the increasingly creepy and pathological tenor of the relationship between him and his fans. I think it was in mid-February, a bit before the Jeremiah Wright story got really ugly, that I started to notice my “Never Again!” nerves tingling.
Why it’s not completely ridiculous to start seriously worrying about the whole Messianic complex surrounding Obama.
Be honest. We have NEVER seen this kind of thing in an American leader, and while it does not necessarily indict Obama as a fascist leader, the necessary dynamic for fascism is certainly present. And that’s a frightening thing. As much as Americans claim to remember the Holocaust and vow to never let it happen again, I don’t think we could actually prevent it. Not because our hearts aren’t in the right place, but because we’ve learned nothing from the “non-stop train of horrors” that is the twentieth century. If there’s one major fault I can project on the American citizenry as a whole, it’s the wholesale lack of historical understanding.
Oh sure, we’re all aware the Holocaust happened. Almost no one is denying that, except the real moon-bats. But we’ve learned to demonize the German people during that time as being horrible people that hated Jews and wanted to kill them. We forget that Hilter was a rightfully elected leader who, rather than usurp power by force, actually used the legislature and the laws in place to wield absolute power. He was essentially given full authority in order to find the terrorists who burned the Bundestadt and restore order– he just never gave that power back. This wasn’t by accident, of course. While in prison, Hilter wrote about his plans for the then outcast Nazi Party:
…Instead of working to achieve power by an armed coup we shall have to hold our noses and enter the Reichstag against the Catholic and Marxist deputies. If outvoting them takes longer than outshooting them, at least the results will be guaranteed by their own Constitution! Any lawful process is slow. But sooner or later we shall have a majority - and after that Germany.
Hilter knew that he needed the hearts of the majority of people behind him in order to really have any true kind of power. Once out of prison, he played on the fears of the people caused by the economic downturn and the negative international sentiment following the first World War that Germany. He promised to put Germany back in her rightful place as the leader of the world and bolster her economic standing. How could you not get behind a speaker with such power and promise of actual change?
I’m not panicked yet, because Obama is still a long way off from behaving like a megalomaniacal nut-job. But if the lives of people like Napoleon, Mussolini, or Hitler show us anything it’s that the road from Obama’s flavor of charismatic leader to tyrant is open, and dangerously seductive to the leader himself.
Certainly, most of his followers will see this as complete lunacy. But anyone with respect for history must be able to look at the current situation, compare it with uber-charismatic and tyrannical leaders of the past, and see why it’s so important that for America to be a land of secure checks and balances. During the presidency of George W. Bush, we’ve already seen a congress that’s willing to transfer it’s power to the president in the name of solidarity and support for finding the terrorists. And the FISA bill, criticized by groups across the political spectrum for enabling the Executive branch to authorize spying on the American people, has suddenly found support from Obama, a man who hopes to find himself at the helm of the presidency next year. Don’t worry though, the Leader has promised he won’t abuse the power.
Again, I’m not saying Obama is a fascist leader. And I’m not accusing Bush of being a fascist either, nor that the need to find the terrorists is anything less than an important one. I’m merely recognizing the elements that must be present for fascism to occur, and strangely enough, we’re seeing a lot of them here. We’ve been lulled into complacency over the years by a fantastic economy, incredible growth, and the general protection that the Atlantic and Pacific oceans bring. The motto of the useful idiot truly is, “That could never happen here!”
Absolutely it could.
No political leader merits uncritical devotion — neither when they are running for office nor when they occupy it — and there are few things more dangerous than announcing that you so deeply believe in the Core Goodness of a political leader, or that we face such extreme political crises that you trust and support whatever your Leader does, even when you don’t understand it or think that it’s wrong.
That sentiment is something that we’re already seeing by a wide, enthusiastic margin among Obama followers.
Tags: Fascism, Messianic Complex, Obama
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