"Owning" negative characterizations is an "outsider" thing, not well suited to a majority mind-set

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Outsider groups frequently take ownership of negative characterizations. For instance, the "Fauvist" painters took their name from a very negative review of their work, saying it looked like it was the work of animals (fauves)

Black ownership of the N word and gay ownership of 'queer' are obvious examples.

But the Obama movement cannot take ownership of "cult" as an ironic badge of defiant group identification because the whole idea is that the Obama movement is supposed to be a majority, not an insurgency.

Some of what overtook Howard Dean (only some) was an inability to scale the psychology of a defiant group proud of their outsider status up to a majority.

The "Republican revolution" also faced some of that... the organizing principle of the movement was that it was an insurgent minority, and they never did figure out how to govern.

So, as fun as it might be, the ironic "proud cultist" thing is probably at cross-purposes with opening up the movement.

[TheDonkey]

1. The cult meme is not cute

It is marginalizing like the Deaniac labels in 04. I agree that Dean was never able to break out of that underdog/anti-establishment mold and that is what sunk his campaign.