I awoke the morning to a newspaper with more than one columnist discussing if Obama's campaign is a cult.
Sorry if this has already been commented on here, but I want to share my shock at the question.
More below.
The basis for saying the Obama campaign is 'cult like' appears to be the enthusiasm of the man's supporters. He has a great deal of strength among the young, who are naturally enthusiastic, and among those who yearn for a message of hope after 8 years of fear-mongering. On February 11, Paul Krugman lamented that Obama's campaign was
"dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality.
Many others quickly jumped on that bandwagon, and Jason Linkins at Huffington Post quickly tried to rebuff it, but the narrative was unfolding: the Obama campaign represents a cult that separates its members from reality, seduces the unaware and victimizes those who sign on.
The question this triggered in my mind today was, when did hope become illegitimate? That is, after all, Obama's attraction -- he offers a message of energy and hope as a counterpoint to the fear hawked by the government over the last eight years, and tremendous energy as counterweight to Hillary's relatively uninspired claim of 'competence'.
Obama is not the perfect candidate by any means. He has yet to flesh out his policy positions in an understandable way. But that is not what he has built his campaign on. It is a campaign of youthful energy, optimism, hope and fearlessness. All the qualities that transfixed the nation in the campaign and presidency of JFK. For this I give him tremendous credit, for few are the people who can pull off such inspirational leadership.
What we are seeing, in this attack narrative, is the deligitimizing of hope. The rejection of inspiration as a leadership quality. George Bush Sr. called it 'the Vision Thing', and suggested it was unnecessary for a president to offer a vision of what how we might become better. His son went on to prove that true leadership consisted in craven corruption and cowardice.
And now it seems as though the punditry and news media is carrying that black flag. But I keep recalling my political heroes: George Washington, Abe Lincoln, FDR and Winston Churchill. Most of them were not all the 'experienced' in government. All of them had their competence questioned. But in the end, what mattered most was that they were able to inspire people to dream, to hope, to overcome a gloomy present with a vision of a better future. And in that inspiration, they brought people together and mobilized the nation to achieve their vision.
Without Churchill's rousing oratory, Britain might have fallen during the blitz. Without Washington's strong and inspiring presence, the American Revolution would have been lost. FDR rallied a stricken and frightened nation to perservere in the face of overwhelming hardship. And Lincoln, with his energy and faith in the people, held the Union together.
Our current president ran and hid on the most calamitous day America had faced since Pearl Harbor. When he finally emerged to speak, he told us to be afraid. His administration has continued to hawk fear as their naked power grabs have eroded the foundations of the nation.
I, personally, think we are overdue for some inspiration; some in-your-face hope raising, for a dream and a purpose beyond our own safety again.
Obama may not be the man I vote for, but by the heavens, he's got what I'm seeking in a leader: courage, energy and hope.
Let's not let the media turn hope into a false religion. Their own cult of fear and loathing will destroy us if they do.