Trump's Cult 45 vs Obama's Cult of Personality

Trump supporters have gone from "deplorables" to cult followers.  At least that's what cult/mind control expert Steven Hassan seems to think. He even wrote a book about his theory- "The Cult of Trump."  So do journalists like CNN's Brian Stelter who cited several others who believe that we Trump supporters have joined the Cult of 45. Just google and you'll find a slew of commentary (from both left and the never-Trump right) surmising that the enthusiastic support for a man who has been vilified from before he took office amounts to brainwashed, cult-like behavior.

People have conveniently forgotten- or were never aware of the fact, to begin with- that the man who truly developed a cult of personality was Trump's predecessor Barack Obama. Some saw through the thin veneer of a charismatic politician with no substance, but not many.

In 2008, journalist Lisa Lerer wrote about "Obamamania verging on obsession" in a Politico article.

"He walks into a room and you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere," George Clooney told talk show host Charlie Rose.

"I'll do whatever he says to do," actress Halle Berry said to the Philadelphia Daily News. "I'll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear."

Welcome to the cult of Barack Obama.

Over the years, there were many who actually likened him to Jesus Christ. At the Soul Train Awards in 2012, actor Jamie Foxx introduced Barack Obama as "our Lord, and Savior..." The Rev Al Sharpton on the Tom Joyner Radio Show in 2014 compared him to Jesus Christ.

Even a Danish editorial from Politiken in 2009 opined: "Obama greater than Jesus- The U.S. President- the practical savior of our time". You can't read the whole article unless you dish over 1 Kroner, which I did not.

There's also a blog from back in the Obama days called ObamaMessiah with links to many articles worshipping the man.

Barbara A. Thompson wrote a book titled "The Gospel According to the Apostle Barack". For sale on Amazon, it has an 88% 1 Star rating. 6% 5 Star. The book apparently compares Obama to Jesus. Thompson happens to be a university professor in the Agriculture Department at Florida A & M.

New York contemporary artist Michael D'Antuono depicted Obama as a crucified Christ in this portrait he painted in 2009 titled "The Truth" although he has stated he was not comparing the two.

Obama was idolized far more than Trump by celebrities, media, and ordinary folk. Remember when MSNBC's Chris "tingles" Matthews felt "this thrill" running up his leg when Obama spoke in 2017? And then he shared this:

“I’ve been following politics since I was about 5,” said Mr. Matthews. “I’ve never seen anything like this. This is bigger than Kennedy. [Obama] comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament. This is surprising.”

The New Testament?

Obama with halo effect

In early 2008, will.i.am was inspired to write a song- "Yes We Can"- using the words of Barack Obama's "concession" speech. I'm not sure who he was conceding to, or if will.i.am just misspoke, but you can cringe watch it on YouTube.

It also features John Legend and other celebrities including Nicole Scherzinger, Scarlett Johansson, and several others that I don't recognize.

And get a load of this flag with Obama's face flapping in the wind at the Lake County Florida Democratic Headquarters for several months in 2012 until some local veterans complained and it was eventually removed.

Then there were all those creepy indoctrinated kids singing Obama's praises.






And his Youth Brigade.



And anti-Trumpers talk about his narcissism, but remember when Obama was selling his special limited edition U.S. flag with his logo in place of the stars and stripes for $35.00?

Speaking of narcissism, dating back to Franklin D Roosevelt every former president has built a presidential Library to house donated collections of historical papers and memorabilia (both public and private) from their time in office. Although the libraries themselves are funded by the individual the facility is run by the federal government's National Archives. But Obama isn't building a library, no, he's building a Center because a library would probably be too pedestrian for the likes of a narcissist. According to the Washington Examiner Obama's future facility allegedly will not be like all the others:

There will be no books, no presidential papers or documents, nor printed matter of any kind related to the Obama presidency, except for, presumably, what’s on sale at the gift shop.

There will be no cables, no memoranda or manuscripts, no official records of the presidency it’s designed to celebrate. The Barack Obama Presidential Center will not be a historical archive, scholarly resource, or even museum, so much as a vast, 33-acre monument to Obama, spread over multiple structures and a manicured landscape.

Not sure if that's quite accurate, but if you want to see what Obama is focusing on, check out the list of artifacts they're asking the public to donate to the museum. It includes materials starting with his formative years.

Our goal for the Museum collection is to preserve and activate a rich and multifaceted record of President and Mrs. Obama’s lives and legacy in order to share the lessons of history and to help inspire, connect, and empower people to change their world.

We need your help to ensure a diverse range of stories and perspectives are represented through the artifacts we collect.

Your material does not need to be one-of-a-kind or of high monetary value for it to have historical significance. We are interested in materials that tell the stories of the communities and individuals that helped to shape or were impacted by the Obamas’ unique journey and time in the White House.

So this isn't just a monument to commemorate his time as president, this is a vanity project to pay homage to his whole darn life. If that isn't the definition of narcissism, I don't know what is.

However, not everyone was thrilled about having his private center built on public land in Chicago South Side's Jackson Park. In fact, there was a lawsuit filed claiming a bait and switch, and likening it to an "illegal land grab."

A federal lawsuit filed by a Chicago nonprofit in an attempt to block the Obama Presidential Center from being built in Jackson Park accuses organizers of pulling an "institutional bait and switch" by shifting the center's purpose away from being a true presidential library.

Protect Our Parks Inc. also claims in its lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court on Monday, that the Chicago Park District and the City of Chicago don't have the authority to transfer public parkland to nongovernmental entity such as the Obama Foundation.
[snip]
The plaintiffs accuse the Obamas of committing an about-face on original plans for the Jackson Park site to be home to a national presidential library that would hold historic documents and archives from Barack Obama's presidency under the National Archives and Records Administration's supervision.

But the Obamas prevailed.

There is a major difference between Trump supporters and Obama sycophants. Yeah, there are those who revere Trump like the vast majority of Democrats revered Obama without conditions, but the rest of us support him in spite of his faults. We support him warts and all because this country is thriving like it hasn't done for years, and because we are fully aware of how the devious Democratic Party in tandem with the complicit media has been trying from day one to get rid of him. We have witnessed how Hollywood elites along with the #resist movement Twitterati have vilified and called for his resignation and impeachment from before he took office. We are cognizant of the fact that the majority of Social Media Platforms and tech companies have targeted his base simply because we support him.

Hugo Chavez To Be Displayed In Glass Coffin, Forevermore

UPDATE: 3/14/13: Chavez will not be embalmed after all.

So the Venezuelan people "will always have him", Hugo Chavez's embalmed corpse will be placed in a see-through glass casket and permanently displayed at the Museum of the Revolution. So says, Vice President Nicolas Maduro, who is now acting Prez. That way his doting, now mourning, Chavistas, Hollywood elite- the likes of  Sean Penn, Michael Moore and Oliver Stone- and people like Jimmy Carter, who admired him can have look-see whenever they want.

He will join other communist luminaries in being publicly displayed. In perpetuity.

The tradition of displaying socialist leaders began with Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet Union, upon his death in 1924.

The practice was repeated with his successor, Joseph Stalin, in 1953, though the Georgian strongman’s body was later removed removed from Lenin’s tomb in 1961 at Premier Nikita Kruschev’s urging.

Other communist leaders such as Mao Zedong in China, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and both successive patriarchs of the “Kim Dynasty” in North Korea (Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il) have also been put on permanent display.

Not unexpected for a narcissist. After all, if he placed his image on cans of tuna that he shipped over to Peruvian quake victims back in 2007, he would make sure he was remembered forevermore.

Florida DNC Flies An Obama 'Face' U.S. Flag

If you were disgusted by Barack Obama's logo flag limited edition print he's selling on his website, check this out. This goes back to March, 2012, but it's still relevant.

The Lake County Democratic Headquarters in Tavares, Florida, was flying a Stars and Stripes with Obama's face plastered in the area normally saved for the stars. Sure, they had a regular one as well, but the arrogance.

Local military vets were outraged, and demanded it be removed.

"It's absolutely disrespectful," Jim Bradford, a 71-year-old veteran who participated in the Bay of Pigs Invasion said. "It's totally ridiculous. To put somebody's picture there, to me, it's a disgrace to do that."

Bradford, an organizer with the Veterans Memorial at Fountain Park in Leesburg, Florida, snapped photos of the flag and distributed them to fellow veterans and friends. By late afternoon, he and several other veterans delivered a copy of the federal flag code to Nancy Hurlbert, chairwoman of the Lake County Democratic Party.

"We read that to her, but she would not accept that," Bradford said. "The discussion finally got a little bit heated."

There was an apology and it was finally removed.

You can buy one of those face flags for $24.95.

Iran's Fars News Plagiarizes An Onion Report Claiming Whites Prefer Mahmoud To Barack

Iranian media keeps using The Onion as a source of news information with no clue that it's simply satire.

Tehran-based 24 hour English Language PressTV used an Onion video claiming that Facebook is a CIA front, and that Mark Zuckerberg is a CIA operative, as a source for their own report. The latest bit of stupidity has the state run Fars News Agency plagiarizing, no less, an Onion piece that said rural white Americans prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama. It was edited (they left out the bit about Mahmoud being a holocaust denier who executes political prisoners), but the bulk of the original Onion piece was published  without giving credit to the source. They even used the same headline  "Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama" which they posted along with a link to their version of the article on their Twitter account.

The N.Y. Times 'The Lede' said:

Although the dateline for the news brief says that the reporting was done in Tehran by Fars, the first sentence is identical to the earlier Onion parody:

“According to the results of a Gallup poll released Monday, the overwhelming majority of rural white Americans said they would rather vote for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than U.S. president Barack Obama.”

The second sentence of the Fars report, however, changed “have a beer with Ahmadinejad,” to “have a drink with Ahmadinejad,”[snip]

The final two sentences of the original Onion report, quoting a fictional voter in West Virginia who prefers Iran’s president, were published unchanged by Fars:

“He takes national defense seriously, and he’d never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does.” According to the same Gallup poll, 60 percent of rural whites said they at least respected that Ahmadinejad doesn’t try to hide the fact that he’s Muslim.

The only other difference between the two versions of the fake report is that The Onion used a more flattering photograph of Mr. Ahmadinejad, showing him with a broad smile.

It was the third most "important" story on the homepage until Fars finally removed it  after the NY Times contacted the Iranian Mission to the  UN.

It was also published on Hayat and Mehr news site. So now the Iranian people think the vast majority of whites would prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama. You have to love the narcissism and ego of some of our world leaders, including Obama. But no, Mahmoud, we don't prefer you to Obama.