False Messiah

VDH on the “Messianic Style” of the Obama campaign:

The messianic style — the cosmic tug to “change history”, or stop the seas from rising or the planet from heating, juxtaposed with the creepy faux-Greek columns, Michelle’s “deign to enter” politics snippet, the fainting at rallies, the Victory Column mass address, the vero possumus presidential seal, and the ‘we are the change we’ve been waiting for’ mantra — reflects the omnipresent narcissism:  the exalted ends of electing a prophet always justify the often crude and all too mortal means.

For a prophet, he certainly has trouble standing by his sayings (“I will accept public financing,” “I could no more disown . . .”  “Let me be clear . . .
Jerusalemmust remain united”), or even formulating them (“typical white person,” “above my pay grade,” “punished with a baby,” “cling to guns or religion”). 

Some of them seem less than prophetic truth (“I didn’t hear those sermons,” “a guy in my neighborhood”) or reflect a certain self-admiration unbecoming in a prophet (“you’re likable enough, Hillary,” “citizen of the world,” “we give a pretty good speech”).

Some of them have to be clarified out of existence moments after they are uttered (“negotiate without preconditions,” “united”) or have no specific content to begin with (“hope” and “change”). 

Historians are going to have trouble understanding why we thought this guy was a messiah, or how we could have considered someone with no record or experience a suitable Commander in Chief – in a time of war.  We’ll just have to explain that we were out of touch and lost our bearings.

In the meantime, we could read Lori Lowenthal Marcus and then make a few calls.