IX: Obama’s Triumph of the Will: The 2008 Primaries 313thinking those who have naturally been subjected to a weakening of their forces of resistance rather
than in converting those who are in full possession of their volitional and intellectual energies.”
(Mein Kampf, vol. II, chapter 6) Lukacs comments: “Hitler’s propaganda technique is closely
related to one of the few honest points in his entire world outlook: he is a passionate enemy of
objective truth and fights against objectivity in every aspect of his life.” (Lukacs 631) Hitler also
commented: “The masses are like an animal that obeys its instincts.... I have been reproached for
making the masses fanatics and ecstatic. In the opinion of these wiseacres, the masses must be
soothed and kept in apathy. No, gentlemen, the reverse is true. I can lead the masses only if I tear
them out of their apathy. Only a fanatic mass can be swayed. A master this apathetic and dull is the
greatest threat to unity.” And he continued: “At a mass meeting, thought is eliminated. And
because this is the state of mind I require, because it secures me the best sounding board for my
speeches, I order everyone to attend the meetings, will become part of the mass whether they like it
or not, ‘intellectuals’ and bourgeois as well as workers. I mingle with the people. I speak to them
only as the mass. I am conscious that I have no equal in the art of swaying the masses, not even
Goebbels.... And remember this: the bigger the crowd, the more easily it is swayed.... Don’t waste
time over ‘intellectual’ meetings and groups drawn together by mutual interests. Anything you may
achieve with such folk today by means of reasonable explanation may be erased tomorrow by an
opposite explanation. But what you tell the people in the mass, in a receptive state a fanatic
devotion, will remain like words received under a hypnotic influence, ineradicable, and impervious
to every reasonable explanation. (Hitler to Rauschning, Voice of Destruction, 211-212)
SUBPRIME OBAMA
At the same time, Obama continued to run to the right of the rest of the Democratic candidates,
to the right of Clinton and far to the right of Edwards, if the latter’s speeches could be believed.
Even some writers for The Nation began to realize that Obama was an apostle of right-wing
economics, especially in refusing to halt foreclosures; their shortcoming was that they failed to see
how destructive Obama’s economic approach would actually be: ‘Only Obama has not called for a
moratorium and interest-rate freeze. Though he has been a proponent of mortgage fraud legislation
in the Senate, he has remained silent on further financial regulations. And much like his broader
economic stimulus package, Obama’s foreclosure plan mostly avoids direct government spending in
favor of a tax credit for homeowners, which amounts to about $500 on average, beyond which only
certain borrowers would be eligible for help from an additional fund. “One advantage to the tax
credit is that there’s no moral hazard involved,” one of Obama’s economic advisers explains.
“There’s no sense in which you’re rewarding someone for taking too big a risk. If you lied about
your income in order to get a bigger mortgage, then you’re not qualified. Do you really want to give
a subsidy to the guy who wasn’t prudent?” Obama has used similar language on the campaign trail.
“Innocent homeowners,” he has promised, those “responsible” borrowers “facing foreclosure
through no fault of their own,” would get help restructuring their loans. But no such luck for those
“claiming income they didn’t have” or “lying to get mortgages.” “There’s been less emphasis from
the Obama campaign on the really dysfunctional role of the financial industry in the subprime
mess,” says Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute. “Edwards and Clinton talk much more
about regulation of the financial industry going forward, and to the extent that blame is placed, they
tend to place it on the lenders for steering people into loans they couldn’t afford.” Obama’s
disappointing foreclosure plan stems from the centrist politics of his three chief economic advisers
and his campaign’s ties to Wall Street institutions opposed to increased financial regulation. David
Cutler and Jeffrey Liebman are both Harvard economists who served in the Clinton Administration,
and they work on market-oriented solutions to social welfare issues. Cutler advocates improving