My second cycle as a cult member. Interesting times.

[madfloridian]

It really got heated here in 2003 and 2004. A talking point went out from "somewhere" that Howard Dean's supporters were cult-like. That we were fringe. That Dean was fringe. That we drank the kool-aid, that we were young, idealistic, and absolute worshippers. In fact the majority of Deaniacs were well past the prime age of "cultism." I know I most certainly am.

But you see, facts did not matter then either. "Cult" then as it is now was a word to conjure up mindless enthusiasm, idolatry, and general lack of intelligence. I left one website because that theme continued well after 2004, just being used as an insult.

The same thing is happening now to the supporters of Barack Obama. I am not sure of the source of the talking point, but I have a pretty good idea. It is popping up here at DU on a regular basis. It is usually in the form of expressing concern about the "harm" being done. Just like in 2004.

Well, perhaps there should be "harm done". Harm to a system that uses ugly talking points against people who dare to be enthusiastic, and who dare to show that they are inspired.

James Carville gave us a clue to the source when he went on CNN and said Howard Dean was building a cult at the DNC.

I have watched the exciting rallies for Obama, then I come here and see the putting down of these people who are feeling real inspiration again. I see the posts expressing concern that Obama supporters will harm the candidate or the party.

I found this blog today. It is addressing that very issue.

The Cult Topic

The blogger says the cult thing is about fear of passion. This blogger has a fine way with words.

Whether it was the "war on Gore's earth tones" campaign of 2000 or the "you're just so angry, Howard Dean" bullshit of 2004, the pundits largely disdain people who get all het up about politics. It's just strategy, moving pieces around the board, what this camp said to that camp, it's all fairly bloodless to them. In their eyes, the first person to raise her voice loses the argument and I can't even tell you how crazy that is, because honestly, the person who gives more of a shit about this is the person who's at a disadvantage, really? We're all supposed to be too cool for this sort of thing, too hip for the room? It's uncouth, isn't it, somehow, this rabble of shouting and cheering, this whole thing where we actually get excited. It's so nonconfrontational passive-aggressive, it's so completely full of shit, but they've laid down the rules: You get involved, god forbid you get emotionally involved, and you've lost the thread.

The blogger is right. It wasn't always this way. I have my own ideas when it started but that is not the point of this post.

It didn't used to be that way. The journalists I admire most are the ones who wrote so you could hear their voices thundering in rage, the Jimmy Breslins and William Evjues and Brian McGrorys, the Miriam Ottenbergs, the people who tore up the page, such that you had to take a deep breath after reading, such that your breakfast got cold while they held your attention. It used to be a mark of excellence, the strut and power of your words. It used to be that you wrote what you wrote because something was wrong and god damn it, you were gonna scream about it at the top of your lungs until somebody was gonna do something. It used to be about a mission, fucking hell, it used to be why we got up in the morning.

Suggests that in some way it might go back to 9/11, when Ari Fleischer told us to be careful what we said. Or perhaps fear of criticism, fear of losing to the great God Bush. (Ok, that last was my idea).

What happened to that? Twenty years of shrieking that passion was bias, that advocacy was crusading, that objectivity was evenhanded treatment of assholes and insects as though their wankery mattered, but I think in large part people in media got bored, in 2000, and scared, after 2001. It became okay, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, to refrain from talking too loud or saying too much, it became okay to tell other people they ought to shut up. The minute that happened, all the rest of it followed, freedom fries and supporting the troops, swift-boating and spy-outing, all of it became okay because anything was acceptable so long as it didn't happen with too much pizzazz. Wouldn't want to draw attention. Wouldn't want to make a splash. Wouldn't want, for the love of God, to stand up and speak because you saw what happened to people who did that. They were called crazy. Sit down, write about how awful it is that Code Pink yelled at Donald Rumsfeld and some blogger has breasts. I hear Edwards once hired someone who swears.

So we're all bloodless now, and along comes a reason for us to get flushed and excited, for us to stand up and wave our arms and shout and cheer. Along comes the passion we feel we've been missing in American life and in politics, and we throw ourselves at it like prom dates two minutes to midnight. Can you blame us? It's not just Obama, or just blogs, where I find the thundering power and might of the righteous voice these days.

And this paragraph is the perfect end to this rant about the cult thing.

It's not just one candidate over another. It's that for too long we've been told to sit down and shut up and that it's rude to give a damn, and that isn't living, that isn't life, that's not even death, not even that honest. That's slow suffocation by superiority, that's what that is.

I love that phrase. It puts no blame, it just comes out and says it. It is the "slow suffocation by superiority."

So it is my second term as a "cultist". So be it.