Obama and the OctoMama

A key paradigm for psychohistorians monitoring current politics is the tripartite role leaders are cast in by the public’s subjective wishes organized into collective fantasies. Psychodynamically, leaders are assumed to deliver unspecified emotional goodies and perform sacrificial rites, especially when outcries for scapegoats arise after the promised bounty fails to arrive. The leader has three options: two good and one not so good. He can (1) locate for sacrifice external enemies to reassure the public of their own inner goodness or else (2) point fingers at domestic enemies. Failing these, he

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(3) becomes the sacrificial victim. Thus, Reagan’s Evil Empire and Bush’s Axis of Evil, bolstered by a grab bag of Islamist fascists, kept the focus external. Bill Clinton’s failure to target external or internal enemies that terminated in his unsuccessful impeachment is a lesson to this effect. Taking no chances, Karl Rove and Tom Delay provided backup by demonizing Democrats (see Paul Krugman, “Tea Parties Forever,” The New York Times, April 13, 2009, p. A19). The fact that the hurling of shoes at Bush by an Iraqi journalist in the fall of 2008 made him a hero and scarcely garnered any outrage revealed Bush on the fast track to sacrifice. In the election, McCain played hide-and-seek with Bush’s image and ended up taking the rap anyway.

But before Bush left office, the financial meltdown had begun. His $700 billion bailout was the first of several major rescue and incentive packages that Obama continued in the early weeks of his presidency. His holistic and reaching-out approach favors cooperation over confrontation, besides brotherly roundtables over bullying allies and enemies alike into submission. Dropping the phrases “War on Global Terrorism” and “enemy combatants,” he holds out the olive branch to the Middle East, declaring the U.S. would never wage war against Islam, and envisions a nuclear-free world.

All well and good. But wait: where is the public’s need for enemies being addressed? True, there have been a few domestic targets floated: mostly anonymous bankers and lenders; a few CEOs like Rick Wagoner of GM; the Ponzi schemers, notably Bernie Madoff; and Rod Blagojevich, the former Democratic governor of Illinois who allegedly put Obama’s Senate seat on the auction block. But when Obama spoke of putting aside childish things in his inaugural address, he apparently meant shunning the political habit of demonizing opponents.

Can he get away with it? Already Rush Limbaugh has called him a “Chicago thug” and hopes he fails; others on the Right are labeling him “Marxist/Socialist,” murmuring he

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is a closet Muslim and even the anti-Christ ushering in the End Times (see my article, “Violence Solves Everything,” Journal of Psychohistory, [2009] 36:4, pp. 328-332). Yet to date, Obama enjoys high approval ratings along with fledging signs of optimism about the economy. Has the country outgrown the paradigm of sacrifice? What seems to be changing is the makeup of the former enemies lineup; a new cast of characters is yet to appear onstage as the natives grow ever more restless.

As harbinger and stand-in for collective wrath, I have taken the phenomenon of the OctoMom, Nadya Suleman, who gave birth to octuplets in late January and instantly became a media celebrity (see her entry in Wikipedia). At the time, she was divorced, the 34-year-old mother of six other children (all 14 from in vitro fertilizations), living on worker compensation benefits for a 1999 back injury while working in a hospital. Appearing on talk shows, she spoke vaguely about supporting herself by acquiring an MA in counseling. A history of depression has been reported, but her public image projects an enthusiastic, buoyant young mother, thriving in all the attention. She hired a publicist, who left after receiving death threats and was replaced by two other PR firms, who also bailed out. She has entertained book offers and her own reality TV show.

But the public’s fascination has quickly turned sour. Death threats were made, protesters showed up, her property was vandalized, and she had to go into hiding. Health officials hedged on her bringing babies into a house overrun with germ-ridden media vultures. In keeping with her new role as delegate of national dysfunction, her house was found in mortgage default and set to be auctioned off in May; her parents had filed for bankruptcy in 2008. Her father, Edward Doud Suleman, is a native of Iraq, where he plans to return as translator and driver; her mother is a retired teacher, who objects to being saddled with multiple childcare. Though off

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the TV screen, Nadya has not been forgotten. In early April her minivan was vandalized. Over all, she continues to embody many of the country’s sore spots and grievances.

Above all, she has become a poster girl for flagrant excess, blithe unaccountability, and piggybacking on a system running amok. Investing in new babies without being able to support the older babies became her own Ponzi scheme. Like our view of the recklessly credit-driven economy, she got in way over her head, and the rest of us, through no fault of our own, have to bankroll her overindulgent lifestyle. It is no stretch, therefore, to surmise how she might be chosen to embody national malaise and to serve as prime scapegoat to siphon off rage from the current leader in the White House. However, just as in primitive cultures one twin was often selected for sacrifice, the OctoMom offers subtle affinities with Obama. Both are of mixed race with foreign-sounding names. Obama’s walnut complexion displays Caucasian features; Nadya’s olive complexion displays stereotypical Negroid features. Moreover, Obama’s Kenyan father was Muslim, and Nadya Suleman’s Iraqi father would likely be Muslim or so-perceived. She may thus qualify in fantasy as Obama’s demonic double. In any case, for now we’ve found a suitable scapegoat. Thank you, OctoMama; love you, Obama.

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