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Politics

Did Nationwide Stockholm Syndrome Get President Obama Elected?

Jun. 6, 2012 9:17pm

Keith Ablow, MD is one of America's leading psychiatrists. He is a graduate of Brown University and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, an assistant […]

Keith Ablow, MD is one of America's leading psychiatrists. He is a graduate of Brown University and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, an assistant professor at Tufts Medical School, and is board certified in adult, adolescent and forensic psychiatry. He is the author of numerous books on overcoming depression, anxiety disorders and other psychological challenges and serves as the FOX NEWS expert on psychiatry and as a contributing editor at Good Housekeeping.

[ x ]

info@keithablow.com

Author's Website

Nations make decisions based on psychological factors, just as individuals do. In the same way that a single traumatic event can shape the course of a man’s life for decades, so too can a single traumatic event shape the course of a nation.

The election of Barack Hussein Obama, in my opinion, was a direct result of the trauma of 9/11. When the World Trade Center was destroyed, I believe Americans were shocked into behaving like children in a family subjected to sudden violence in the home. “We” figured it had to be our fault, somehow. We had brought it on ourselves, by not being “lovable,” by being selfish, by being bullies. To think otherwise would mean we had enemies who were not only irrational killers, but able to destroy skyscrapers. That was too frightening for us. Because if our true and good nature was the very thing hated by the 9/11 terrorists, we would be locked in a life-and-death struggle. We preferred to believe that we could control the situation by becoming less hateful. That would make us safe.

We conspired to elect someone who would make us more palatable to those who had attacked us, as if that would protect us. And that man was Barack Hussein Obama.

Like passengers on a hijacked aircraft, who unconsciously adopt the ideas of their captors, in order to be less odious to them and less likely to be murdered (a condition known as Stockholm Syndrome), we adopted the hatred of America that had crystallized in the horror of 9/11.

I believe President Obama’s credentials were essentially these: He was not entirely Caucasian, hence his being our leader seemed to make us potentially less a focus of the rage of Muslim extremists (who are also generally people of color). He mirrored our own willingness to believe we were bad and deserved to have our buildings destroyed and our people killed. After all, his own pastor and the fellow who had christened his daughters had said the words, “God damn America!” His wife confessed she had never been proud of America. He had fraternized with terrorists in the past like Bill Ayers, and seemed well-liked by them. He was campaigning on a theme of “change.”

Seen this way, the questions raised about whether Barack Obama was even a real American citizen did not, in the minds of traumatized Americans, disqualify him from serving as President, but were (to our collective unconscious) one of his most compelling credentials. If we were to elect someone to lead America who was not even perceived by some to be American by birth, wouldn’t that be enough to convince our enemies we had reformed– that we knew we were unlovable and fully intended to join the loving greater family of man?

President Obama delivered what so many Americans seemed to want: A mea culpa to the world for our shortcomings and a pledge to reform. A living embodiment of our self-hatred. He went on an apology tour to foreign nations. He suggested we cede developing oil reserves to countries like Brazil. He cozied up to foreign dictators and bowed to princes. He moved the country away from capitalism, toward socialism.

The central psychological question of this presidential election is whether Americans are emerging from Stockholm Syndrome and are ready to reclaim their national self-esteem, despite the fact that our national character–loving freedom, celebrating autonomy and believing in the power of a free market economy–will indeed make Muslim extremists and foreign despots despise us.

A moment of epiphany is called for. A moment of psychological awakening. A throwing off of our national Stockholm Syndrome, in favor of national pride. It may be at hand, or it may be a bridge too far. We will know soon enough.

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Comments (18)

kcinco
Posted on June 10, 2012 at 6:48pm
Um, not quite sure who the “we” is Ablow is talking about? Nor do I take kindly to him claiming I was suffering from any sort of collective guilt after 9/11. I suffered from anger and frustration at how our national security was breached by these America-haters who then proceeded to mass murder thousands of our citizens. I personally never would have voted for obama; when I saw him on stage backed by the gaudy roman pillars and listened to his oratory, I knew we were in for trouble. His cadence and lofty promises of change, AND the fact that he’s white-black, was what the lost souls and ideologues voted for. They saw the gravy train comin’ round the bend.

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dailyfiber
Posted on June 10, 2012 at 12:46am
So the American People elected President Obama because he is the embodiment of self hatred that they empathized with? That is the most ridiculous theory I have ever heard in my life.

They voted for him, overwhelmingly, because he was not a Republican who had Sarah Palin as his running mate. And his election victory, if representative of any one event, had much more to do with the Global Financial Crisis just months prior to the Presidential Election than the 9/11 attacks that happened seven years prior.

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CulperGang
Posted on June 9, 2012 at 3:58pm
Psycho babble=yech. No, barry was elected because people have been manipulated via drugs, t.v. and a deliberate marxist program of dumbing down. Blaze why don’t YOU start exposing from WHENCE …..all this alleged non existent Stockholm syndrome is coming from. Start with the MEMBERS of the BilderB cabal.

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KAS_Wolf
Posted on June 8, 2012 at 4:19pm
Now, that made me LOL. No – ignorant sheeple got Obama elected.

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chicago76
Posted on June 8, 2012 at 2:30pm
America has had Stockholm syndrome since the Civil Rights era and maybe before that. Especially white Americans have tried everything to be more lovable by minorities. Even though blacks show their contempt and hate of whites through crime and the ballot box, whites have practically given away the country from guilt. The Civil Rights Act itself is a guilty plea by whites even though hate crimes by minorities far outnumber hate crimes by whites. Especially Democrat white Americans but many Republican whites feel it too. Just the idea that whites saw Obama as the great black hope says it all. Talk to any politician about it, and the first thing he admits is the evil of white America and how it must be controlled thru the civil rights act, and that abuse of minorities must be stamped out while they say nothing about the alternative. This guilt is not Christian. It is tribal. Christians forgive and do not dwell on past wrongs but learn by them. Tribes never forgive and never forget. They hold onto evil done to them forever and remind everyone of the hate and guilt and use both as a weapon.

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- DimmuBorgir
  Posted on June 8, 2012 at 4:24pm
  /agree
  
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Noonien_Soong
Posted on June 8, 2012 at 7:36am
A good majority of people who ensconced Obama as our leader had no forewarning of things that came. The shock of a world event would make an initial reaction to do things in a way not unlike a mass exit after a fire in an auditorium. The only way to quick comfort is to settle on the easy excuses and leave reasoning of complexity to later times.

Stockholm Syndrome is the easy way out for individuals to sanctify or legitimize an instant sanity to events too difficult to comprehend at the moment. This is what happened to Patty Hearst when she was abducted by the Symbionese Liberation Army

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raderby
Posted on June 8, 2012 at 6:29am
I agree. BUT I PERSONALLY WAS WAS NEVER FILLED WITH SELF-GUILT. Problem is, there are too many idiots in this country that believe garbage.
At the base level – we got attacked, and we are at fault? Yes, I know many were/are deluded into that thinking.

The same idiots thought that voting for the Black dude would finally show that we are indeed NOT a racist nation. Whoops! How did that work out?

I know that many believed propaganda catch phrases like “new and improved” or “hope and change” and “Bush is bad, stupid and can’t talk, and Cheney is Darth Vader”

All the propaganda worked, again, proving propaganda is a tactic that works.

So where did the MEDIA and LEFTISTS take us in 2008?

Exactly where they always do, and always will. Into the pit of hell. Shake it off, USA, the enemy is within ourselves, and the only way to walk tall is to never trust any media for moral or political guidance.
Would you buy a used car from a communist? If you would, then close your eyes and go back to sleep.

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grownup
Posted on June 8, 2012 at 4:07am
This theory doesn’t fit us at all. However, it might fit liberal (communistic) educated folks, you know, the kind that never grew up or learned to think for themselves. The ones, emotionally speaking, stuck in the sixties. The ones whose emotional growth was stopped when they were emotionally childish yet and still blamed themselves when things went wrong. Self centered, egotistical, sociopathic, addictive folks. The ones who think the world revolves around them. The ones who think the rest us are their pawns in the game of life. The ones who, if you give them some of your power, will use it to enslave you. But these people are sick, and are in the minority. The rest of us, even some of us sick ones, see through this left wing garbage. We don’t have the hate. The meanness. Adolph knew very well, down in his mean little soul, that things would not turn out well for him in the end. He just meant to cause as much carnage as he could ,as long as he could.

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FEMALL
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 8:28pm
With all due respect Dr. Ablow–sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. People voted for him because:
They are elitist and hated George Bush
He’s “black”
They are “good” Democrats (Hillary supporters)
They were ignorant of his socialist/marxist ideology
or
They knew exactly what his ideology is and were(and still are) all for it.

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- The Third Archon
  Posted on June 8, 2012 at 12:32am
  Or maybe we just prefer leaders who believe evolution is a scientifically sound theory…to cite just one positive of Obama over Bush.
  
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LaBelle
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 3:04pm
I like Dr Keith but IMO this is waaay off, for most people it all amounted to two things, people were tired of Bush and the ones who did vote for obama wanted to prove that they weren’t racist, it’s as simple as that.

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The Third Archon
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 12:30am
“The election of Barack Hussein Obama, in my opinion, was a direct result of the trauma of 9/11. When the World Trade Center was destroyed, I believe Americans were shocked into behaving like children in a family subjected to sudden violence in the home”
Is that why we elected Bush to a second term too? Question–why did we wait until TWO elections down the line and almost a DECADE after the fact to suddenly get “mass Stockholm syndrome”?

You have an M.D.?! And THIS is the worthless tripe you present as “scientific”?

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oohisis
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:39pm
You forgot to mention that Obama has also signed an executive order called L.O.S.T, law of the sea treaty, which gives the UN control of our waterways ans coastal water…
Very interesting theory. Always love hearing your thoughts!

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SuperSuineg
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:17pm
Amen…

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OlderCowGirl
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:15pm
Hmmmm…this actually makes sense in some morbid way. I however, do not feel guilty at all about being an American. I know there are many greedy fools living as Americans, but these folks are not the “core” of America. Americans are more than cities and suburbs. There are a lot of us out there not making any noise who understand what being an American really means…and understands that freedom is an idea, a concept of freedom…not a “right”. You can take away someone’s “rights” but you cannot take away someone’s ideas or thoughts. You have to love America (her Constitution) in order to understand what it means to be an American..

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- The Third Archon
  Posted on June 7, 2012 at 12:40am
  “Americans are more than cities and suburbs.”
  Although that IS where the vast majority of Americans ARE.
  
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- drbage
  Posted on June 7, 2012 at 10:44am
  Agree with your ideas, however, when you look at what is being “taught” in our schools today, you question whether the next generation will have the same pride in our country.
  
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