Whither (wither?) the Obama cult?

Not long ago, a friend -- unenthralled by Obama, even though she likes him rather better than I do -- asked me why so many Americans chose (until recently) to see that man as a Messiah and not as a politician. I had no answer until tonight. While revisiting the works of Guy de Mauppassant, I came across this passage in Le Horla:

The populace -- an imbecile flock of sheep, now steadily patient, and now in ferocious revolt. Say to it: "Amuse yourself," and it amuses itself. Say to it: "Go and fight with your neighbor," and it goes and fights. Say to it: "Vote for the Emperor," and it votes for the Emperor, and then say to it: "Vote for the Republic," and it votes for the Republic.

In all likelihood, every person who has ever read those words has fancied himself an exception to de Maupassant's rule. But how many of us truly stand outside of (and opposed to) the mob?

In 1981, a visitor to any American bar could lose teeth by proclaiming that Iran -- run by the hated Khomeini -- was the innocent victim of Saddam Hussein's aggression. Although most Americans did not then know who Saddam was, instinct told them that the enemy of our enemy must be a friend. Then one day, George Bush the elder held up a photo of Iraq's thuggish leader and told the crowd: "Hate this man!" And the crowd responded with chants of Hate! Hate! Hate!

Here's the horrifying part: Each and every hater felt convinced that he had arrived at his view through the independent exercise of reason.

Similarly, each and every Obama cultist reacts with fury whenever someone suggests that he or she has, in fact, joined a cult. Yet a cult it was and is. The Obama internet cult is the most significant American political sect since McCarthyism, and it remains a potent force despite slowly thinning membership.

When William Black lambasted the O team's economic plan (as noted in this previous post), the Kos Krowd reflexively accused him of lying, of functioning as a Republican shill. Black defended himself, and was defended by others, in posts which you can find here and here. The reader commentary appended to one of those posts includes this particularly amusing passage, in which a writer takes umbrage at the term "Obamabot":

"Obamabots" really isn't cool and if you can't find a better one word descriptor use more frigging words instead of being so insulting. The "love diaries" can be skipped. We're talking here about policy issues.

This Kossack pictures himself an apostle of sweet reason, a policy wonk, a thinker capable of Vulcan objectivity. What self-delusion!

You want to talk about insults? Let's.

During the primaries, I endured daily -- sometimes hourly -- accusations of racism. Meanwhile, Hillary supporters (half of the Democratic party) were banned from the pages of Daily Kos by edict of the Head Cheeto himself. The Kossacks called Hillary a murderer, a serial liar, a Republican, a conservative, a thief, a cunt, a racist, a panderer. The Cheeto cheeleaders turned most left-wing sites into gehennas.

And now they act affronted at the term "Obamabot"? Sorry, but I have yet to hear any apologies for their disgusting antics throughout 2008. So fuck 'em. I'll use whatever terminology I please to define the smug puerile pubescent pricks who appropriated the party I once called home, and whatever onomastic low I stoop to won't be low enough.

myiq2xu, a frequent commenter in these pages, wrote an excellent piece on the lingering rage of the O cultists. Apparently, they stalk him with the unnerving persistence of my own hate brigade:

There are currently four or five blogs that exist solely to “oppose” PUMA. I’m not sure what the relationship is between them but they’re obviously connected and it’s basically the same small group of people that post and comment at all of these blogs. I think most of them were originally just frustrated Obot trolls that started their own blogs because our moderators deleted their comments and banned them from here. They not only brag about evading the spam filter and posting troll comments here and at PUMApac, but they also write their posts and comments over there using the basic troll vocabulary.

The posts and comments that they publish indicate that their primary online activity is obsessing about us. They lurk and follow our comment threads, then go back to their blogs to discuss what we say. On a couple of occasions they were literally liveblogging our discussion threads.

Think about this for a minute - these people are strangers to us. They have no real life connection with us, past or present. They aren’t our former employees or jilted lovers, we didn’t give them a bad grade in Econ class, run over their dog or drink their last beer.

They have no monetary claims against us, nor do we have any moral or legal obligation to them that is unpaid. The election is over, and depite our efforts their candidate won. Barring scandal or tragedy he will be POTUS for at least four years and nothing we PUMAs do will change that. But the blogstalkers remain obsessed with us anyway.

They aren’t going to change our opinion of Barack Obama - he alone can do that with his actions. Getting angry at the kid who says the Emperor is butt naked won’t affect the obvious nudity everyone can see with their own eyes.

These sentiments mirror my words of one year ago:

I've received a truly bizarre barrage of anonymous hate comments, and not from my usual opponents. This hate-mail has had no hint of the conciliatory.

These "drive by" comments appear every hour. They never make a detailed argument, and they never make much sense. Judging from the writing style, only two or three individuals are involved. Some of these messages make threats. I've learned to delete these comments (mostly) unread; a whiff is enough to know what the rest is like.

The sheer ceaselessness of the barrage surprises me. I can't help suspecting that money has changed hands.

I think the increasingly inescapable fact of the Emperor's nudity is precisely why the anti-PUMA obsessives have gone nuttier than a box of Goo-Goo Clusters.

Whither the Obama cult? As with the previous Bush cult, soterological propaganda cannot trump the evidence of an incompetent "Messiah." That evidence mounts every day. Soon it will become impossible to rationalize away. What then?

Perhaps the cultists will retreat into de Maupassant's cynicism. Let us complete our quote from The Horla, for these words may offer some insight into our current Lightbringer:

Those who direct it [the populace] are also stupid; but instead of obeying men, they obey principles, which can only be stupid, sterile and false, for the very reason that they are principles, that is to say, ideas which are considered as certain and unchangeable, in this world where one is certain of nothing, since light is an illusion and noise is an illusion.

Today, those "certain and unchangeable" principles include a worship of Wall Street, an abhorrence of nationalization, and a refusal to make financial miscreants take responsibility. The Lightbringer's light is indeed an illusion, as is the noise emitted by his votaries.