The Psychobabble Bubble

Deepak Chopra is a well known writer on health and wellbeing issues. He began as a Harvard-trained doctor who delved into ayurvedic medicine, the traditional medicine of Indian. From there, he branched out into pop culture and became a guru of the anti-Western spiritualists who attempt liberation from their disappointment with life by fleeing to Eastern thought. Now, Chopra has increased the torrent of psychobabble to an amazing level with a political analysis of the American public. He applies this "analysis" to the upcoming presidential election and predicts that president Obama is unstopable.

Chopra says that Obama satisfies three basic needs of the electorate. First, Chopra announces that Obama keeps the country free of anxiety. In a truly funny statement, Chopra also says "Let's leave aside whether people actually feel more secure." According to Chopra, the American people will reject the Republicans because they are always talking about how bad things are and scaring the public as a result.

This is an unbelievable misunderstanding of reality by Chopra. He needs to understand that sometimes things really are bad and politicians need to talk about how to deal with the problems. In essence, Chopra says Obama will win because he ignores the awful reality.

Chopra next says that Obama satisfies the country's need for achievement by "rooting for the American spirit,...promising a better future and offering economic stimulus and jobs programs." This is truly strange. Normally, one would think that to satify the need for achievement the president would need to achieve something. Apparently, Chopra thinks that being a cheerleader for spirit, making promises that remain unfulfilled and offering programs that fail in dramatic fashion one has reached historic achievements. I think that Chopra will be surprised in 2012 when he finds the verdict of America on Obama's "achievements" or the lack thereof.

Finally, Chopra says that Obama fills the country's need for unity and community. Chopra points out that "to fulfill this need, the President has talked about bipartisanship and the end of crippling divisiveness in politics." This is the worst of the three! Chopra points to what Obama has said on occassion rather than what he does every day. Unity and community! Obama has made villains of the rich, the bankers, the insurance companies, the Tea Party, the GOP and auto executives, among others. Obama has never once engaged in true bipartisanship. Just on an issue like immigration, Obama has done his best to divide the nation into those who support all immigration whether legal or not on the one side and racists on the other. In short, Obama has done more to undermine unity and community than any president in my memory.

There is no question that Chopra lives in the liberal bubble where analysis like his is accepted as accurate and rational, despite the actual reality. Even so, it is hard to imagine that there is a psychbabble bubble where this nonsense is accepted wisdom.