PrintNovember 3, 2009
An O-Care Victory Will Make Him More Narcissistic
O-Care is an awful idea for all kinds of reasons. It's a monstrosity. But one reason that has not been discussed is the problem of giving Obama -- a narcissist who has surrounded himself with thugs -- a crucial psychic victory.
Narcissists have a problem with reality. They are absolutists of a kind, and their absolute ideal is themselves. So a defeat makes them feel utterly enraged because it strengthens their gnawing self-doubts...but victory supports their messianic self-image. When Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize that in a way made him the laughingstock even of the international Left, he snapped it up without a second thought. He just thinks he deserves it. Just think about that for a second. What kind of a man gets a Nobel Peace Prize on the strength of no accomplishments, and accepts it as his just due without a second thought? Obama.
That is why defeating O-Care is so important for the survival of the Republic. Obama badly needs to experience his own limits. He will keep expanding his assaults on Constitutional government until he runs into a brick wall. So far, there haven't been many brick walls. A defeat on O-Care will enrage this White House, but it will also teach it some limits. Out-of-control, spoiled-brat kids need limits. A conservative victory in 2010 is absolutely crucial.
When he got into Harvard Law, it's a good bet that Obama went on an ego rampage for years. But that wasn't good enough; he had to get the biggest bauble, the editorship of the Harvard Law Review. Because those inner doubts are never satisfied. Obama of the Hungry Ego must keep conquering new worlds. Today the Nobel PC Prize; tomorrow the world.
The very worst thing that could happen therefore is a big victory for Obama on O-Care. It would feed his greedy ego and make it psychologically necessary for him to go for the Next Big Thing. Like Napoleon, one win is never enough. Napoleon couldn't stop himself. He had to go aggrandizing his ego, until finally he ran into the Russian winter and Waterloo. Victories only encourage hungry narcissists. Their egos demand imperialism. Look at any imperial conquest of the past and you find an ego-hungry narcissist at the center of it.(Think of Mohammed, Napoleon, Lenin, etc.)
Obama got control over GM and the big banks by Blitzkrieg tactics: hit 'em fast before they know what's happening. If he gets O-Care, Obama will want to drive through carbon taxes as soon as possible. That will give him the biggest clout over the US economy and the American people that anyone has ever had. FDR in World War II was a piker by comparison.
To this White House, any criticism is seen as a devastating attack on Obama's self-esteem. A major narcissist demands worship or else. That's why the White House has to attack Fox News and Limbaugh and Beck. That is why Obama is so hypersensitive to criticism.
Notice that the Afghanistan Dawdling Seminar at the White House makes Obama the star again. That's his psychological need. Making proper decisions on Afghanistan is secondary. It's the grandiose show that counts. Same thing for the Nobel PC Prize acceptance speech. Watch for another Citizens of the World! speech, like his mass rally at the Berlin zoo.
Because such people can be dangerous, psychiatrists who treat them are caught in a bind. They know they should not validate the client's swollen ego. But contradicting the client will result in major raging fits and may break the client's confidence in the doctor, which is crucial for progress. Narcissists are notoriously difficult to work with. Their character pathology is locked in concrete. So the therapist is facing a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" choice. A good therapist waits for a crisis to arise in the client's life -- when reality stops flattering his huge ego -- and then gently probes why it happened. Defeating O-Care will be a therapeutic crisis for this president. It won't stop his imperial quest, but it will make him more cautious.
I know a business-owner who is the perfect narcissist. He cannot tolerate contradiction. His employees are afraid of his rages, and some of them bitterly hate him. They feel trapped. They know that nothing will change the boss. When something goes wrong, it's always somebody else's fault, and the boss strikes out at the nearest target.
Everybody must know some raging narcissist in their own lives. It's a couple of percent of the population. They are attracted to politics because they think of themselves as geniuses who can do no wrong. Well, just think of that man or woman in the White House, acting like Obama.
The American Republic is designed to play one ego against another one. The Founders knew people like Obama. They had read their Tacitus and their Book of Kings. Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was published between 1776 and 1778. It's all about the same thing. The Founders knew all about European aristocratic arrogance. Big narcissists like Obama have always tried to establish utopian cults in America. So the Founders knew about those personalities. They exist all over the world.
Well, human nature hasn't changed since 1776, and that's why the Founders designed the Constitutional system the way they did.
It's up to us to make it work again.
