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Bringing Barack Back Down to Earth: His Support Base Borders On Creepy

Nicholas M. Guariglia - 8/11/2008

There was an episode of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm –– one of the better shows on television –– where Larry David begrudgingly brings his wife to the beach. “I don’t get it, I don’t understand people’s fascination with the beach,” David wryly says. “Don’t you feel calmer being here, by the ocean?” his wife innocently asks. “I feel aggravated that I don’t know what other people are getting,” David replies in classic Seinfeldian form.

This is analogous to my own feelings about Senator Obama. A buddy of mine, who supports Obama, recently wanted to know why this was the case. “Nick, don’t you like hope?” was his literal inquiry.

“No, I like despair.”

But after putting the sarcasm aside, the sincere spirit of his question wasn’t lost on me. So I pressed on, wanting to know specifically what it was about the Illinois politician that gave my good friend so much “hope.”

“He’ll change things around.”

“Like what?”

“Everything. But it doesn’t really matter, Nick. The fact that he is inspiring so many young people like me… people that weren’t ever interested in politics before. That is the change. That’s the hope. That is what’s so great about him.”

I didn’t dig too much deeper. Fair enough, I thought. This seems to be a prevalent opinion amongst Obama’s supporters, and not just younger voters either. Apparently, the three-year senator has the ability to change people’s views not just about vital issues, but about themselves and their perception of their own self-worth within a democracy. Thus you have tens of thousands of adoring fans at Obama rallies, wildly cheering his every other word. His followers applause and chant enthusiastically. It is a scene to see, to say the least.

While trying to talk about the Iranian nuclear program, or some other issue of modest importance, teenage girls often interrupt the candidate and shout “Barack, I love you!” to which Obama inclines himself to respond “And I love ya’ll back” (followed by more wild applause). Sometimes he has to ask his crowds to quiet down a bit so he can hear himself think.

On occasion, Obama might co-host a night at the Apollo with Chris Rock, or talk about his pen pal e-mail exchanges with Scarlett Johansson, or fist bump his wife, or mimic rapper Jay-Z, or make some other hip reference to a matter of pop culture –– to which the crowd uproars in He’s-just-like-us comedic approval. (One might be reminded of Sonny, the intimidating mob boss from De Niro’s film A Bronx Tale: “You see how all the guys feel compelled to laugh when I tell a joke? I know I’m funny. But I’m not that funny.”)

Rather than have smaller, intimate town hall meetings where attendees, concerned citizens all, can question and challenge and debate one-on-one the candidate who must earn their trust and respect, Obama’s audience members do not normally speak, but are spoken to, as they listen attentively –– in widespread concurrence –– to the teleprompter-delivered inspiring words of speechwriter Jon Favreau (of “Yes we can” fame).

Makeshift poster cards help with the reinforcement: “We are the change we’ve been hoping for,” “We are the hope we’ve been waiting for,” “Change we can believe in,” “Hope we can hope in,” “Hope that we can change,” “Believing we can hope and change,” “One hope with one purchase of change,” “Free coffee and doughnuts for everyone,” etc. –– the frenzy is so frantic, so odd, and yet so genuine, that people periodically faint (if you think this is an embellishment, YouTube it).

The political hybrid of Beatlemania-like audience behavior, Hare Krishna-like transcendence, and Jim Jones-like adoration is really quite fascinating. The campaign’s paraphernalia is borderline messianic. On t-shirts, Obama’s face rests at the forefront of an African sunset; on others, his gaze embodies that of a sanctified Che Guerra.

On the campaign trail, we are consistently presented with examples of subtle arrogance, self-referential greatness, presumption, and indignation.

Obama’s campaign, for instance, temporarily replaced the official presidential seal with a make-believe look-alike seal to prop up on podiums for the Chicago messiah to speak in front of. Instead of “Seal of the President of the United States,” it reads “Obama for America” followed by the senator’s website. Rather than “E Pluribus Unum” –– “Out of one, many” –– the modified Obama seal reads “Vero Possumus,” Latin for “Yes, we can.” On Obama’s presidential seal, the stern-looking eagle, reminiscent of the eagle on the actual presidential seal, is carrying no shield but rather the Obama campaign’s logo (which is interpreted as a long road traveling its way to the horizon to meet what is either a giant “O” for Obama… or a large sunrise, which, someone should tell the senator, is extraordinarily similar to the insignia of Imperial Japan).

In Obama we trust, I suppose. Who needs elections?

In just over a year of campaigning, Obama has become an iconoclast… of himself. Mere curiosity as to why equates to heresy first, sympathy second, and proselytization third. Just how can I be missing out on all of this? Don’t I like hope?

I hesitant to go so far as to imply a definite cult of personality, but it does amount to an almost eerie I’ll-follow-you-anywhere support base. Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle even pondered the possibility that Obama might be an “enlightened being” in a recent column:

Barack Obama isn’t really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway…

Dismiss it all you like, but I’ve heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who’ve been intuitively blown away by Obama’s presence –– not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence…

Many spiritually advanced people I know… identify Obama as… that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

An actual adult wrote this. Barack Obama, it turns out, apparently exudes an “attuned” aura not just in the figurative sense, but in a “spiritual” and “intuitive” sense. He is bringing about a “new way of being on the planet” in this “bizarre earthly experiment” –– life? –– and his “sheer presence” soothes our souls and enhances the well-being of our spirituality. He is helping us genetically and emotionally “evolve.” Philosopher. Peacemaker. Socratean. Aristotelian.

And all this from a 40-something community organizer from Southside, Chicago, no less. Who knew? Mr. Morford, ironically, is fully comfortable with the admission that all of this whoopla speaks “not just to reason.” No kidding.

As citizens, we should require more of ourselves than simply preferring a manifested personality –– in this case, a smooth-talking, suave Chicago politician –– due to freshly discovered avenues of self-empowerment. After all, this is a nation-state, not a Billy Blanks workout video. National interest, not self-enlightenment, ought to be our moral compass; “change” that makes our country stronger and more prosperous is the standard. Whether or not it makes one a more aware voter or cognitive citizen is merely a beneficial byproduct.

What, then, is to explain the quick ascendancy of a recently relatively unknown young man? Of course, there is much sincerity in his support (my friend, for instance). But a large share of this pandemonium can be attributed to iconoclasm and a frenzy of psychosis.

That someone else’s orating abilities and skills as a rhetorician might actually alter one’s own acuity and conception of the world –– that one might actually allow that to be possible –– is something that individual must admit to him or herself, come to peace with, and reconcile with internally.