Posted on 06/04/2010 11:52:09 AM PDT by Braak
A crowd of twentysomething true believers followed Obama from the campaign to Washington. But 18 months in, the "Yes We Can" crowd is losing faith.
Joe Boswell quit his job at Camp David. But first, he played a tennis match with Michelle Obama. Her second chief of staff, Susan Sher, is an avid tennis fan, and Boswell, her assistant, was game for a doubles match. After a straight-sets victory, he leveled with the first lady of the United States. “I was tired of going through the motions,” he remembers. “She told me to go out and save the world and come back.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Hopey Changey!
The difference between the 15 million who voted the first time in 2008 and the tea party members is the system construct. Both could be considered Complex Systems. The difference lies in what motivates the members of the system and how the systems are connected.
In the Dems case, it is a centralized motivation surrounding one man. Think of that as a hub and spoke system. Such a system is not particularly robust because it rises and falls on the success or failure of one man. This goes to the second point. The system is primarily centralized, which weakens it, because it's focus is on an individual.
In contrast, the tea party members are motivated by personal conviction. Specifically, fear and anger. Fear for the financial future of the country - especially for their children. Anger at elected officials who have violated the sacred trust of representative government. These convictions are tightly and individually held and are not easily moved. In fact, the attacks on the tea party only strengthen them. The system itself is extremely decentralized with thousands of small pockets across the country. That makes it resilient, robust and powerful.
From a computer system stand point, the Dems are client/server and the tea party is peer to peer.
As with any Complex Adaptive System, there are emergent properties that develop that cannot be observed at the scale of individual members. We have seen such emergent behaviors in the tea party movement in the growth of participants in marches. On April 15, 2009, 3,000 march in DC. On 9/12/2009, 1 million marched. That is exponential growth. We also see emergent behaviors in the "unexpected" election results in VA, NJ and MA.
I have seen a lot of people try to describe the tea party in linear terms. They try to understand it but they are using incorrect system descriptions. For example, Ed Rendell says that it is weak because it doesn't have a national infrastructure, not realizing that the decentralized nature of the movement gives it tremendous power.
My father was talking about such dynamics 20 years ago as it applies to everything. He is still talking about it at http://29thday.org.
Go out and write that bestseller kid: “Fear and Loathing Clinging to the Axle Under Obama’s Bus”
Speaks volumes that his supporters give up at the first sign of boredom.
Stupid young idiots. They probably destroyed the country by voting for the mu*lim.
Rich college kids understand that you only have to elect a black president once to pat yourself on the back and declare proof that you’re not a racist.
The Barry generation...its all about ME ME ME and when its not I get bored an quit. Well, its nothing the 2x4 of reality won’t eventually solve.
I think Obama finds being president boring since he's realized that he can't rule by diktat and is (gasp!) criticized by those who oppose his socialist schemes to destroy our great nation.
Didn’t know that, ah well, it’s still fun to watch even the “loyal Obama Jugend” flee and tell everyone it’s burnout and boredom. Uh, yeah, right. You just don’t wanna be there for the A$$whooping!
Jon Favreau is a 20-something?
Everybody thought checkered tennis shoes looked cool so they all bought checkered tennis shoes. Most bought more than one pair.
All the retailers stocked up on checkered tennis shoes because they couldn't sell anything else.
The fad lasted until somebody pointed out just how stupid you looked wearing checkered tennis shoes.
The retailers were stuck with crap they couldn't even give away.
Brilliant post.
We need to talk...
“Such a system is not particularly robust because it rises and falls on the success or failure of one man.”
Hitler, Mussolini, Emperor Hirohito, and Mao, would like to talk to you. :)
Did they all fail eventually? Sure. But it can and will get much worse before it gets better.
Did they all fail eventually? Sure. But it can and will get much worse before it gets better.
What we are talking about right now is success or failure in our political system, which is a different system than tyrannical rule. If we shift to a system from the WWII Axis or the Great Leap Forward, then the tea party system will change, too, and the power will be driven by how much ammo every one has;)
Free gardener and babysitter. The article doesn't say, but they might be (unpaid) interns.
or Illegal Interns =)
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