Cult of Personality

People on both left and right are trying to figure out what to make of Obama-mania. Glenn Beck made a good point about the latest breakout of the 'cult of personality' while discussing the "Che" flag that ended up in an Obama HQ. He said that Mussolini was popular, as was Stalin, but this is denied now. They had both devoted followers who bought into the propaganda and they had intellectuals who willingly adored their strongman tactics to build the collective state. Yes, they crushed dissenters and couldnt abide real democracy, but they surely cultivated devoted followers. Today, "Che", the mass murderer, is viewed as an innocuous cult figure, by those ready to follow the next hip Leftist messiah; from one 'cult of personality' icon to the construction of another.

Glenn Beck tied it in with his discussion with Jonah Goldberg on Liberal Fascism. Goldberg discussed Woodrow Wilson's actions and the liberal intellectuals or the era, and explained how the Mussolini policies and eugenics were favored by the 'progressives' and liberals of the era. The connection come down to today, to the statement by Hillary Clinton:

"Hillary Clinton said in a speech in 1996, a major address, you know, that was written in advance. She used this line and similar circumstances elsewhere. But she says we as a country need to move beyond the idea that there's anything, there's any such thing as someone else's child. Now, I'm sorry. My child is my child and my wife's child, maybe her child and my child, but it is not the State's child, it is not the collective child, it is not the community's child. "

And what of Obama:

"Barack Obama I think is an honorable and decent guy, but he subscribes to this cult of unity, this idea of that if we just all join hands and march toward the sunny uplands of history and buy each other a Coke, everything will be solved. And that was the same with Hitler, that was the idea of leaders of men in Woodrow Wilson, this idea that we just rally around the spiritual fresh of one man of the nation, all our problems will be redeemed."

The blind followership of 'cult of personality' leaders is what Erich Fromm called
"The Escape from Freedom", who attempted to examine the appeal of authoritarian regimes. Better insight into the mind of the cultic follower was produced by Eric Hoffer in the work The True Believer (see also Sowell's comments on his legacy):

"A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business."

Those with insecurities of different sorts - economic, cultural, whatever - are willing to give up self-determination and freedom to follow a 'leader' who promises everything, if they will only act like sheep.

What we have here is a segment of the populace, brain-dipped in the errors of multi-culturalism and Disneyfied naivite about human nature, ready to write a blank check of left-liberal policies with a man who promises the moon: If only we will sing Kumbaya, and hand over all our Change, we can put our Hopes in the Bright Shiny New Leader. As Bill Clinton put it, in a fit of accidental truthtelling: "This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."

Beware the policies and program that comes from the cult of personality.