the comment by one JOE_BIRDBATH saying "BUT WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH ME?????!!!!!?????????"

it's really a thought-provoking piece. The author points out several interesting points about democratic elections.

She compares the 2008 Obama with the 2010 Tea Party movement and argues that the election campaign is more about carting to

the electorate's infantile anger and emotions.

And she applies theories of developmental psychology to explaining this kind of anger and emotions

and ties it to the narcissistic culture in American culture.

From this perspective, the Obama movement and the Tea Party movement are not that different.

She cites a study that I find rather illuminating: "the study noted that 39 percent of American eighth-graders feel good

about their math skills, compared with just 6 percent of Koreans.

Guess who’s better at math." this really cracks me up. So perception matters more than truth.

The most intriguing part of her view is that her approach reminds me of

Anderson's Imagined Community and Benjamin's materialist historiography.

This narcissism epidemic, she contends, comes from the change in communication technology.

Facebook, reality shows, twitter... are about promoting a "daily Me" culture. And this in turn changes what ppl expect from the politician.

Ppl now are looking for someone they can identify with rather than a great leader that they admire.

What the Narcissism Epidemic indicates is a crisis engendered by a paradoxical feeling of powerlessness and self-importance.

An electorate that suffers from the Narcissism Epidemic is thus an electorate that longs for revolutionary change

and for empowerment in "ME."

Obama and the Tea Party understood this mechanism and profited from it to win their battle respectively in 2008 and 2010.

But it is yet to be seen if they have the temperament to translate the messianic fervor into somethings that would sustain the common good.

It's clear, from the result of this election, that Obama fails to deliver it within the past 2 years.