A Physiological look at the man… Barack Hussein Obama!

Understanding Obama: The Making of a Fuehrer

By Ali Sina

2008/09/22

[This article has been published in more than 1000 sites, erroneously attributing it to Dr. Vaknin. One person even wrote to me accusing me of plagiarism (double whammy?). Those sites are in error. If you find this article attributed to anyone else but me please write to them and correct them. You are welcome to reproduce this article, or any of my articles on Obama, listed at the bottom, in part or in their entirety, but you must provide a link to the source in this site. Thank you. ]

I was not impressed by Sen. Barack Obama after the first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident – a wholesome presidential package. It is so instinctive for most people to want to see blacks succeed. It is as if all humanity is carrying a collective guilt for what the ancestors of blacks endured. However, despite my initial interest in him, I was soon put off, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling.  His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words.

It is surreal to see the level of hysteria in his admirers. This phenomenon is unprecedented in American politics.  Women scream and swoon during his speeches. They yell and shout to Obama, “I love you.”  Never did George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt. Martin Luther King Jr. or Ronald Reagan arouse so much raw emotion.  Despite their achievements, none of them was raised to the rank of Messiah. The Illinois senator has no history of service to the country. He has done nothing outstanding except giving promises of change and hyping his audience with hope. It’s only his words, not his achievements that is causing this much uproar.

When cheering for someone turns into adulation, something is wrong. Excessive adulation is indicative of a personality cult. The cult of personality is often created when the general population is discontent.

A charismatic leader can seize the opportunity and project himself as an agent of change and a revolutionary leader.

Often, people, tired of the status quo, do not have the patience to examine the nature of the proposed change.

All they want is change. During 1979, when the Iranians were tired of the dictatorial regime of the late Shah, they embraced Khomeini, not because they wanted Islam, but because he promised them change. The word in the street was, “anything is better than the Shah.” They found their error when it was too late.

Khomeini promised there would be separation between religion and state. He lied and they did not care to look into his past to see whether he actually meant what he said.

Had they done that they would have seen that he always believed in caliphate and the rule of Islam.  People gobbled everything he told them uncritically.

They wanted to believe and therefore closed their eyes so they did not see what they did not want to see. Eyes welled when he spoke. Masses poured into the streets by the millions, screamed and shouted to greet him. People kissed his pictures. Some saw his portrait reflected on the Moon.

Listening to Obama … it harkens back to when I was younger and I used to watch Khomeini, how he would excite the crowd and they’d come to their feet and scream and yell.

I was amused to hear a listener calling Fox News Radio’s Tom Sullivan Show, (Feb 11)  and saying: “Listening to Obama … it harkens back to when I was younger and I used to watch those deals with Hitler, how he would excite the crowd and they’d come to their feet and scream and yell.”  ( Videos of Hitler’s speeches are available on Youtube.  They are worth a look.)

Equating anyone to Hitler by highlighting the similarities between the two is a logical fallacy.  This fallacy, known as reductio ad Hitlerum is a variety of both questionable cause and association fallacy. I believe it is wrong to trivialize the holocaust and the horrors of Nazism by comparing our opponents to Hitler.

However, Hitler, prior to coming to power had not killed anyone. He was insane, but few could see that. Far from it, he was seen as a gifted man and hailed as the savior of Germany. He was admired throughout the world.  He appealed to the masses of people – the working class and particularly to women, and did not just inspire them, he “elevated” them. Thousands rallied to listen to his passionate speeches. They shed tears when he spoke. Women fainted during his speeches. To Germans, he was not a politician, but a demigod, a messiah. They envisioned him as truly a magical figure of majestic wisdom and glory. They worshiped him. They surrendered their wills to him. He restored their national pride. He projected himself as their savior. He ran on the platform of change and hope. Change he delivered all right, but hopes he shattered.

I think it is fair to say that the Illinois senator puts the same passion in his speeches that Hitler used to put in his, and he evokes similar raw emotions in his audience. This much we can agree. Okay, we can also agree that both Hitler and Charlie Chaplin wore square moustaches. So what?

The Cult of Personality

There are other disturbing similarities. Like Hitler and Khomeini, Obama also likes to create a cult of personality around himself. As stated above, when a large number of a population is discontent, a charismatic leader can seize the opportunity and present himself as the agent of change.

He can create a cult of Personality by associating himself with the idea of change. He convinces everyone that things are terrible and a drastic change is needed. He then casts himself as the only person who can deliver this revolutionary transformation that everyone is waiting for. He portrays himself as a benevolent guide; the only one who cares about people and their needs and can pull them out of their alleged misery. In reality, they have no clue about how to address the problem – have no experience, no track record. But they are convincing because they are self assured.

These revolutionary leaders need foes. They exaggerate the problems. They make everything look gloomy. They lie, cheat and slander their opponents while casting themselves as the saviors of the nation.

Hitler chose the Jews to blame for everything that was wrong in Germany. Khomeini made the Shah and his westernization plans his scapegoats. Obama has chosen President George W. Bush to smear. He can rally people around himself, as long as he can instill in them the dislike of Bush and equate his rival, McCain to him.  Sigmund Freud wrote, “It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggressiveness” (Civilization and Its Discontents).

A cult of personality is excessive adulation, admiration and exaltation of a charismatic leader, often with unproven merits or achievements. It is similar to hero worship except that it is created specifically for political leaders.

Let us read a few of the comments Obama’s fans have made about him. Their unbounded adulation of this totally unknown figure is proof of my claim.

Jon Robin Baitz is the creator of the ABC series “Brothers & Sisters.” He writes:

“Today we saw and heard a preview of our brightest possible American future in Senator Barack Obama’s glorious speech. This, then, is what it means to be presidential. To be moral. To have a real center. To speak honestly, from the heart, for the benefit of all. If there was any doubt about what we have missed in the anti-intellectual, ruthlessly incurious Bush years, and even the slippery Clinton ones, those doubts were laid to rest by Barack Obama’s magisterial speech today. A speech in which he distanced himself from a flawed father figure, Reverend Wright, and did so with almost Shakespearian dignity and honor.”

For twenty years Obama was part of Jeremiah Wright’s racist church and listened to all the hate which that man spewed against the Jews and the “rich White America.” Obama did not object to any of those hateful comments and even donated $20,000 dollars to his Trinity United Church of Christ.

Baitz is willing to overlook all that and, mesmerized by Obama’s speeches, he embraces a man who up until yesterday supported the racist views of his spiritual mentor.

He calls Obama’s speech “glorious,” and concludes he is honest and moral.  How did he come to that hasty conclusion? There is no evidence of that except his “gut feeling.” That observation is subjective. We have not seen any evidence of Obama’s honesty yet. On the contrary, he has been caught with a litany of lies.

Clearly Sen. Obama has a charming effect on his audience, who after listening to him are so moved that they willingly give up their reason and follow their hearts. Let’s see how Baitz adulates Obama to the point of worship.

Barack Obama’s speech, perhaps one of the most important in modern political history pushed us as a people to move beyond race and gender, beyond Democrat and Republican, beyond politics and into reviving the spirit of the nation itself. To talk, to talk at home, at work, at the dinner table. To really finally talk. What a great day, and where else in the world but in the United States? Today I am very proud to be an American.

Remembering the reaction of Iranians to Khomeini’s speeches, this is all deja vu for me.

There is an old adage that says, “Tell me who your friends are and I will tell who you are.” Don’t the quality of Obama’s friends and associates tell us about the man?  Shouldn’t we look at the history of this man to ascertain his truthfulness?   One characteristic of cult of personality is that people become ready to close their eyes. They find excuses and rationalize the sins of their leader.

Another Obama worshipper is Ezra Klein. He is an associate editor at The American Prospect. Klein wrote:

Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don’t even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. The other great leaders I’ve heard guide us towards a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal, and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence.

Obama is not seen by his admirers as a politician but as something holy. Klein says “He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh.” The truth is that Obama is nothing but words! What is scary is that so many smart people are willing to fall for his empty words. Interestingly the same Ezra Klein had earlier said:

Obama is a cipher, an easy repository for the hopes and dreams of liberals everywhere…But if Obama avoided being battle-tested in 2004 by the grace of God, it’s his own timidity that has kept his name clean since.

Given his national profile and formidable political talents, he could have been a potent spokesman for Democratic causes in the Senate. Instead, he has refused to expend his political or personal capital on a single controversial issue, preferring to offer anodyne pieces of legislation and sign on to the popular efforts of others…Indeed, Obama is that oddest of all creatures: a leader who’s never led.

There are no courageous, lonely crusades to his name, or supremely unlikely electoral battles beneath his belt. He won election running basically unopposed, and then refused to open himself to attack by making a controversial but correct issue his own.”

Quite a shift I would say. What did exactly Obama do, for Klein to change his views so drastically? Nothing!

Obama has won this man’s heart only by the power of his mesmerizing words. He is making his conquests, through the sheer power of his oratory. That is how Hitler won the hearts of the Germans.  As Obama’s life story shows, his words don’t have any bearing on reality. Words are powerful, but when they are not backed by any substance they are empty rhetoric.

Todd Gitlin, is professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University. He is another worshipper of Obama. This is what he says about his leader.

“This speech was a triumph on so many levels, does one dare hope it will turn the trick for hordes of parsing skeptics and listeners whose eyes did not water? First, Obama took the high road, which is also the long and demanding road. He refused to “move on” with a cursory acknowledgment that “mistakes were made.” He did not acknowledge. He preached and he reasoned.”

Let us pause here and examine what this professor of journalism and sociology says. Obama was a close friend of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and listened to his racist sermons for twenty years.

Wright is a man who has intense hatred for the Jews, for whites and for America.  This clip shows some of his remarks made from the pulpit. Here is a gleaning from his sermons:

• We [The White controlled America] have supported state terrorism against Palestinians and Black South Africans … Because of the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back to our own home front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.
  
• No, no, no! Not God bless America. God damn America. That is in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America.
  
• Government lied about Pearl Harbor. They knew that Japanese are going to attack.
  
• They [Government] purposely infected African-American men with syphilis!
  
• What is going on in White America, U.S. of KKK?
  
• Black men turning on Black men? That is fighting the wrong enemy. You both are primary targets in an oppressive society that sees both of you as a dangerous threat.
  
• What we [America] is doing is the same thing Al Qaida is doing, under a different flag.
  
• Oh I am so glad, that I got a God who knows what it is to be a poor Black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by and run by rich White people.
  
• Yes, 911 happened to us, and so did slavery happen to us. Yes the World Trade Center happened to us, and so did White supremacy happen to us.
  
• “Barack knows what it means to be a Black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich White people.”
  

When all these came to light, at first the Illinois senator denied having heard them.  That excuse was not believable. Wright was Obama’s spiritual mentor and the most influential man in his life. And yet he expects us to believe he listened to his sermons for 20 years but did not pay attention to what he was saying?

So he changed his position and admitted to having heard them, but he categorically condemned them. Obama went one step further. He did not just condemn the racist remarks of his Pastor, but he preached and he sermonized how bad are they are.

Now, this requires some audacity that only a narcissist can muster. Instead of apologizing and recognizing his error, Obama turned the table and preached to others.

How can we understand this? The man himself is the sinner but instead of acknowledging his sins, he preaches to others about the vices of there sins. The answer can be found in the description of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).  Narcissists will never admit being wrong. They are always one step ahead of you.

Prof. Gitlin continues:
“The Reverend Jeremiah Wright,” he [Obama] said, “had spoken in an ‘incendiary’ manner,” but Obama offered himself as the man who rises from flames and invites you to rise from your own.

He took a grievous embarrassment and moved his lesson to the plane of prophecy. Talk about hope; talk about audacity. Tears came to my eyes. I don’t think I’m especially hard-hearted, but I cannot think of another time when the speech of a presidential candidate watered me up.

It is amazing to see to what extent people are willing to go to eulogize another human being.  It is this excess that constitutes the cult of personality. The difference between admiration and cult of personality is in the degree of adulation.

Is it not fair to say that Obama has the same effect on his fans that Hitler, Khomeini or other famous demagogues such as Joseph Stalin or Mao Ze Dong had?
I am not equating Obama to those mass murderers. Obama has not killed anyone (at least not yet). I am only comparing their effects on their audience, particularly prior to their rise to power.

Obama’s speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history. Never a politician in this land had such a quasi “religious” impact on so many people. The fact that Obama is a total incognito with zero accomplishment, makes this inexplicable infatuation alarming.

Obama’s speeches are grandiose. They are other worldly. He may talk about the war in Iraq, taxes or social security. It does not matter how mundane is the subject, he makes them sound transcendental and his audience is moved to tears.

His worshippers do not go to listen to his plans. He has yet to offer any that are workable and different. They go to bask in his glory, to get high. Obama presents himself as someone with a unique vision and grasp of the entire problems affecting, not just the nation but the world, a pretense that is incommensurate with his track record.

When in a meeting with House Democrats waxing lyrical about his trip to Europe, he concluded, “this is the moment, as Nancy [Pelosi] noted, that the world is waiting for.”

The world is waiting for Obama, according to Obama. In one of his rallies he reiterated this delusion of grandiosity and said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” This sentence is logically absurd. What actually Obama wanted to say, which he masked with fake modesty is “I am the one the world has been waiting for.”

When you fall for someone to the extent that Obama’s followers have fallen for him, you surrender your reason and individuality to him willingly.

When millions of people surrender their hearts and their minds to one person the result can be catastrophic. This is what happened in Germany with Hitler, in China with Mao, in the Soviet Union with Stalin, in Cuba with Castro, in Iran with Khomeini, and so on and so forth. Today, we think these men were monsters, but that was not what millions of their worshipers thought. Those people loved them.  Dictators can’t dictate, unless peole are willing to be dictated.

Here is what Wikipedia says about Cult of Personality:
“A cult of personality or personality cult arises when a country’s leader uses mass media to create a heroic public image through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are often found in dictatorships but can be found in some democracies.

“A cult of personality is similar to general hero worship except that it is created specifically for political leaders. However, the term may be applied by analogy to refer to adulation of non-political leaders.”

The third and fourth editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of 1980 and 1994 and the European ICD-10 describe NPD as follows:

An all-pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration or adulation and lack of empathy, usually beginning by early adulthood and present in various contexts.  Five (or more) of the following criteria must be met:

• Feels grandiose and self-important (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents to the point of lying, demands to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
  
• Is obsessed with fantasies of unlimited success, fame, power or omnipotence, unequalled brilliance (the cerebral narcissist), bodily beauty or sexual performance (the somatic narcissist), or ideal, everlasting, all-conquering love or passion
  
• Is firmly convinced that he is unique and, being special, can only be understood by, should only be treated by, or associate with, other special,  unique, or high-status people (or institutions)
  
• Requires excessive admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation, or failing that, wishes to be feared and notorious (narcissistic supply)
  
• Feels entitled.  Expects unreasonable or special and favorable priority treatment.  Demands automatic and full compliance with his expectations
  
• Is “interpersonally exploitative” i.e., uses others to achieve his or her own ends
  
• Is devoid of empathy.  Is unable or unwilling to identify with or acknowledge the feelings and needs of others
  
• Is constantly envious of others or believes that they feel the same about him or her
  
• Is arrogant, has haughty behaviors or attitudes coupled with rage when frustrated, contradicted, or confronted
  

According to Vaknin, Obama displays the following behaviors, which are among the hallmarks of pathological narcissism:

– Subtly misrepresents facts and expediently and opportunistically shifts positions, views, opinions, and “ideals” (e.g., about campaign finance, re-districting). These flip-flops do not cause him overt distress and are ego-syntonic (he feels justified in acting this way). Alternatively, refuses to commit to a standpoint and, in the process, evidences a lack of empathy.

– Ignores data that conflict with his fantasy world, or with his inflated and grandiose self-image. This has to do with magical thinking. Obama already sees himself as president because he is firmly convinced that his dreams, thoughts, and wishes affect reality. Additionally, he denies the gap between his fantasies and his modest or limited real-life achievements (for instance, in 12 years of academic career, he didn’t publish a single scholarly paper or book).

– Feels that he is above the law.

– Talks about himself in the 3rd person singular or uses the regal “we” and craves to be the exclusive center of attention, even adulation

– Has a messianic-cosmic vision of himself and his life and his “mission”.

– Sets ever more complex rules in a convoluted world of grandiose fantasies with its own language (jargon)

– Displays false modesty and unctuous “folksiness” but is unable to sustain these behaviors (the persona, or mask) for long. It slips and the true Obama is revealed: haughty, aloof, distant, and disdainful of simple folk and their lives.

– Sublimates aggression and holds grudges.

– Behaves as an eternal adolescent (e.g., his choice of language, youthful image he projects, demands indulgence and feels entitled to special treatment, even though his objective accomplishments do not justify it).

Ali Sina is the author of Understanding Muhammad: A Psychobiography of Allah’s Prophet
and the founder of Faith Freedom International, the movement of ex-Muslims created to eliminate hate through knowledge and foster amity among all mankind.