The Magic of Crowds and Power

There are things at work which most people never even consider...

For this post, I’m going to quote an entire article. I don’t often do this, but this article is exquisite in it’s detail, and capturing of the emotion, and logic (or sometimes lack thereof) of the “Obama Movement.”

There is something odd -- and dare I say novel -- in American politics about the crowds that have been greeting Barack Obama on his campaign trail. Hitherto, crowds have not been a prominent feature of American politics. We associate them with the temper of Third World societies. We think of places like Argentina and Egypt and Iran, of multitudes brought together by their zeal for a Peron or a Nasser or a Khomeini. In these kinds of societies, the crowd comes forth to affirm its faith in a redeemer: a man who would set the world right.

As the late Nobel laureate Elias Canetti observes in his great book, "Crowds and Power" (first published in 1960), the crowd is based on an illusion of equality: Its quest is for that moment when "distinctions are thrown off and all become equal. It is for the sake of this blessed moment, when no one is greater or better than another, that people become a crowd." These crowds, in the tens of thousands, who have been turning out for the Democratic standard-bearer in St. Louis and Denver and Portland, are a measure of American distress.

On the face of it, there is nothing overwhelmingly stirring about Sen. Obama. There is a cerebral quality to him, and an air of detachment. He has eloquence, but within bounds. After nearly two years on the trail, the audience can pretty much anticipate and recite his lines. The political genius of the man is that he is a blank slate. The devotees can project onto him what they wish. The coalition that has propelled his quest -- African-Americans and affluent white liberals -- has no economic coherence. But for the moment, there is the illusion of a common undertaking -- Canetti's feeling of equality within the crowd. The day after, the crowd will of course discover its own fissures. The affluent will have to pay for the programs promised the poor. The redistribution agenda that runs through Mr. Obama's vision is anathema to the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and the hedge-fund managers now smitten with him. Their ethos is one of competition and the justice of the rewards that come with risk and effort. All this is shelved, as the devotees sustain the candidacy of a man whose public career has been a steady advocacy of reining in the market and organizing those who believe in entitlement and redistribution.

A creature of universities and churches and nonprofit institutions, the Illinois senator, with the blessing and acquiescence of his upscale supporters, has glided past these hard distinctions. On the face of it, it must be surmised that his affluent devotees are ready to foot the bill for the new order, or are convinced that after victory the old ways will endure, and that Mr. Obama will govern from the center. Ambiguity has been a powerful weapon of this gifted candidate: He has been different things to different people, and he was under no obligation to tell this coalition of a thousand discontents, and a thousand visions, the details of his political programs: redistribution for the poor, postracial absolution and "modernity" for the upper end of the scale.

It was no accident that the white working class was the last segment of the population to sign up for the Obama journey. Their hesitancy was not about race. They were men and women of practicality; they distrusted oratory, they could see through the falseness of the solidarity offered by this campaign. They did not have much, but believed in the legitimacy of what little they had acquired. They valued work and its rewards. They knew and heard of staggering wealth made by the Masters of the Universe, but held onto their faith in the outcomes that economic life decreed. The economic hurricane that struck America some weeks ago shook them to the core. They now seek protection, the shelter of the state, and the promise of social repair. The bonuses of the wizards who ran the great corporate entities had not bothered them. It was the spectacle of the work of the wizards melting before our eyes that unsettled them.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the late Democratic senator from New York, once set the difference between American capitalism and the older European version by observing that America was the party of liberty, whereas Europe was the party of equality. Just in the nick of time for the Obama candidacy, the American faith in liberty began to crack. The preachers of America's decline in the global pecking order had added to the panic. Our best days were behind us, the declinists prophesied. The sun was setting on our imperium, and rising in other lands.

A younger man, "cool" and collected, carrying within his own biography the strands of the world beyond America's shores, was put forth as a herald of the change upon us. The crowd would risk the experiment. There was grudge and a desire for retribution in the crowd to begin with. Akin to the passions that have shaped and driven highly polarized societies, this election has at its core a desire to settle the unfinished account of the presidential election eight years ago. George W. Bush's presidency remained, for his countless critics and detractors, a tale of usurpation. He had gotten what was not his due; more galling still, he had been bold and unabashed, and taken his time at the helm as an opportunity to assert an ambitious doctrine of American power abroad. He had waged a war of choice in Iraq.

This election is the rematch that John Kerry had not delivered on. In the fashion of the crowd that seeks and sees the justice of retribution, Mr. Obama's supporters have been willing to overlook his means. So a candidate pledged to good government and to ending the role of money in our political life opts out of public financing of presidential campaigns. What of it? The end justifies the means.

Save in times of national peril, Americans have been sober, really minimalist, in what they expected out of national elections, out of politics itself. The outcomes that mattered were decided in the push and pull of daily life, by the inventors and the entrepreneurs, and the captains of industry and finance. To be sure, there was a measure of willfulness in this national vision, for politics and wars guided the destiny of this republic. But that American sobriety and skepticism about politics -- and leaders -- set this republic apart from political cultures that saw redemption lurking around every corner.

My boyhood, and the Arab political culture I have been chronicling for well over three decades, are anchored in the Arab world. And the tragedy of Arab political culture has been the unending expectation of the crowd -- the street, we call it -- in the redeemer who will put an end to the decline, who will restore faded splendor and greatness. When I came into my own, in the late 1950s and '60s, those hopes were invested in the Egyptian Gamal Abdul Nasser. He faltered, and broke the hearts of generations of Arabs. But the faith in the Awaited One lives on, and it would forever circle the Arab world looking for the next redeemer.

America is a different land, for me exceptional in all the ways that matter. In recent days, those vast Obama crowds, though, have recalled for me the politics of charisma that wrecked Arab and Muslim societies. A leader does not have to say much, or be much. The crowd is left to its most powerful possession -- its imagination.

From Elias Canetti again: "But the crowd, as such, disintegrates. It has a presentiment of this and fears it. . . . Only the growth of the crowd prevents those who belong to it from creeping back under their private burdens."

The morning after the election, the disappointment will begin to settle upon the Obama crowd. Defeat -- by now unthinkable to the devotees -- will bring heartbreak. Victory will steadily deliver the sobering verdict that our troubles won't be solved by a leader's magic.

This way of thinking applies as much to Obama, as it does to Trump now.

People are looking for a savior – and they shouldn’t be. No politician is going to save anyone. That’s a very dangerous belief. It’s not a wise position to put oneself in.

Don’t project yourself onto other people, and imagine that their wishes are your wishes. It’s not realistic, and will nearly always lead to disappointment.

Do I think that Trump is going to do some good things (as it relates to the American citizens) yes. But I also think he’s going to put in place some measures that might prove very damaging in the future. Precedence is a dangerous thing. Sure it might be (set / used) to remove damaging policy right now, but it might also be used to instate damaging policy at a later time.

We’re witnessing a perfect storm of illegitimacy. None of the branches of government are actively doing what they are supposed to do.

The SCOTUS is ruling in ways that do not truly uphold The Constitution. (Obamacare / the ACA) was rewritten by Chief Justice Roberts – to make it legal. Why? It was bad law, everyone knew this. Anyone who looked at the mechanics of it knew that it was not Constitutional (Roberts proved this by rewriting parts of the legislation).

Repealing the ACA never happened. This was not by accident either. Why is Obamacare still law?

Why have most people stopped talking about it?

Why did Trump praise the COVID-19 vaccines during Biden’s State of The Union Address in 2024?

How is it that the war in Ukraine is the least-televised and least-broadcast in history? I remember watching the Gulf War on cable TV each night in the 1990s. They even made fun of it in movies at the time.

Video game footage was said to be real — and this was echoed by the Ukrainian Military.

CLAIM: Video shows the Ukrainian air force shooting down a Russian air force fighter jet in Kyiv.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The footage is from the video game Digital Combat Simulator, according to the YouTube user who uploaded the clip on Feb. 24.

THE FACTS: Social media users on Thursday misrepresented footage from a video game showing close combat between two fighter jets, claiming the clip showed the Ukrainian air force shooting down a Russian fighter.

“Footage of a MiG-29 of the Ukrainian Air Force shooting down a Su-35 fighter jet of#Russia’s Air Force over Ukraine’s capital#Kyiv today,” reads one false tweet.

The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine’s official Twitter account also shared the clip with the false caption.

Now we have Starlink, 24/7 Internet, phones with cameras built-in, and yet there's very little known about what has really happened in Ukraine – outside of "officially approved” channels. Why is that? There was more known about Vietnam. But this modern war, not much of anything. Where are all the independent journalists? Where’s Geraldo Rivera to draw military movements in the sand? Doesn’t it all seem a little odd?

Things are not what they seem – know this.

What are the answers to all this? I don’t know. I just know that we’re being led down the primrose path from every angle.

Don’t succumb to this belief that everything is going to be OK. It’s likely not. Does that mean it’s the end. Of course not. Things always ebb and flow.

We (free thinking people) haven’t “won.” Things are just changing again. Navigating all of this will be insanely complicated, but simple things still work.

We’re now in a time of competing manipulations, or manipulative abilities. It’s a war of manipulation, because the people who truly want control know that they can’t do it without willing participants. Ever wonder how so few rule so many?

Convincing people doesn’t work fast enough. There’s history involved, it gets complicated, so people have to be corralled much more quickly now. Don’t give people time to think – force them into reaction.

Just as the Internet freed people, and allowed for the free flow of knowledge – knowledge that overcame the previous manipulation(s) – now the Internet is being used to limit knowledge – to further manipulations.

It’s not a new concept, it’s an old concept, it just has more reach, and can manipulate people on a mass scale – much more quickly than at any other point in time. Don’t let politicians (on either side) convince you that they believe in your ideas – because they don’t. The only people who might are people on the street – and they’re not likely to come to power anytime soon.

If I had any advice to give it would be this. Enjoy the good things, but notice the bad things (and most importantly how they came about). Don’t become stuck. Keep your eyes open – don’t become caught up in nonsense – because nonsense is going to come from all sides now, and it’s going to come fast and hard.

Don’t fall prey. Go outside and talk with your neighbors. Talk with the people at the grocery store.

What do you think?

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If you enjoy my writing, you might want to check out my original blog WindUpRubberFinger.com. I have decided to mirror my posts on Substack, and WindUpRubberFinger.com. I will work on moving older posts over to Substack as references for newer articles.