President Barack Obama's supporters have marginalized upstart protesters by referring to them as angry Astroturf mobs doing the bidding of talk radio and Big Pharma. Yet, there is, in fact, a radical, divisive, mass movement on the march -- on the left.In his seminal work on mob behavior, "The True Believer," Eric Hoffer provides a compelling analysis of the conditions necessary for a revolutionary movement to attract a mass following. He writes:
"For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power. They must also have an extravagant conception of the prospects and potentialities of the future. Finally, they must be wholly ignorant of the difficulties involved in their vast undertaking. Experience is a handicap. The men who started the French Revolution were wholly without political experience. The experienced man of affairs is a latecomer. He enters the movement when it is already a going concern." [Emphasis ours.]