Is Obama Locked in a Victim Mentality? By Keith Ablow.
Is Obama locked in a victim mentality? By Keith Ablow. FoxNews.com, October 10, 2013.
Dr. Ablow Psychoanalyzes Obama: “He’s Playing the Victim.” Video. Fox News Insider, October 16, 2013.
Fox’s Keith Ablow: Obama’s Grandma “Didn’t Trust People of Color,” So He’s Taking It Out on America. By Noah Rothman. Mediaite, October 16, 2013. With video. YouTube.
Dr. Keith Ablow’s Diagnosis Shows Us Why The Limbaugh Theorem Works. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, October 16, 2013.
Ablow:
President
Obama’s rhetoric is finally coming closer to what appears to be his
psychological truth: Because America victimized him and countless millions of
others, any person or party or movement that opposes his views and does not
yield to him is not just his adversary, but abusive, predatory and even
threatening.
Again
and again, President Obama has described members of Congress who insist on
fiscal responsibility as having taken “hostages,” “demanding a ransom,” using
“extortion,” and threatening to “blow up” the government.
On Tuesday,
in fact, the president used these exact words when speaking to the press, “What
you haven't seen before, I think from the vantage point of a lot of world
leaders, is the notion that one party in Congress might blow the whole thing up if they don't get their way,” he said. Later
he added, “you do not hold people hostage or engage in ransom taking to get 100
percent of your way.”
It is
exceedingly difficult to come to terms with a person who sees you as his
oppressor, his kidnapper, and someone terrorizing him who might well destroy
him. You aren’t likely to consider whether your assailant and jailer and
would-be killer has a few good ideas, after all.
Seeing
Barack Obama as someone who has a victim mentality would explain a lot. That
mentality relies on believing one has been harmed, that one was not responsible
for the injuries that occurred, that one could not have prevented what happened
and that the person’s suffering makes that person morally right and deserving
of sympathy.
As a
young boy, Obama was, indeed, helpless.
He was
helpless to stop his father from abandoning him.
He was
helpless to stop his mother from leaving him with his grandparents.
He was
helpless to stop his white grandmother and caretaker from communicating to him
her fears of black people.
I’m not
sure the president ever got over it.
The
president’s victim mentality could contribute to dissolving the will of
countless Americans who might otherwise see themselves as capable of summoning
internal resolve and creativity to surge out of poverty.
True
victims can’t surge out of anything, because they are hostage to forces outside
their control. They await justice and restitution.
They
don’t, ultimately, see themselves as able to stamp out poverty; they see
themselves as the rightful recipients of food stamps.
They
don’t, ultimately, see themselves as able to take control of their health; they
see themselves as the rightful recipients of free health insurance.
They
don’t, ultimately, see themselves as someone worth hiring and worthy of
investing themselves with education and training; they see themselves as worthy
of 99 weeks of unemployment checks.
And the
president’s victim mentality could have already gone global.
The
apology tour that the president embarked upon after being elected to his first
term in office, apologizing for America’s supposed predatory behavior toward
others, turned his victim mentality viral – offering a pandemic of helplessness
to anyone who wanted to claim that the ills of its nation were due to a
monstrous pathogen called the United States of America.
A
victim mentality would explain why the president immediately allies with anyone
else he thinks might be a victim, too.
This
explains the seemingly bizarre statements he made castigating local police in
Cambridge, Massachusetts for detaining a distinguished Harvard professor and
man of color who they understandably considered possibly to be an
intruder.
It
explains him thinking that if he had a son that his son would look and act just
like Trayvon Martin, an alleged drug user and burglar who was shot and killed
by George Zimmerman, an older man of a different race.
In
fact, the president went further to suggest that, were he 35-years younger, he
could be Treyvon Martin.
If the
president sees himself as a 17-year-old being held at gunpoint by an older man,
then it is too much to expect him to govern effectively.
If he
sees himself as having been taken hostage by kidnappers who want to blow him
up, it is too much to expect him to hear any truths these “kidnappers” might
want to share.
Victims
aren’t expected to lead. They expect to
be rescued.
That
would seem to be our problem as a nation right now.