Democracy is built on a foundation of self-victimization. What kind of groups lobby? Blacks, women, unions...all groups that claim to be victimized and to need restitution.

Big business (the largest lobby groups are here), religious groups, fringe political groups, lawyers, doctors, teachers, stock holders, bankers, environmentalists, farmers, children's rights activists, poverty activists, etc. The groups that lobby are as diverse as the causes that make people coalesce around them.

These lobby groups are group-goal driven rather than self driven. They are aimed at achieving specific policy changes and have overarching agendas that these policies fall under.

The classic civil-rights movements that have been generated by these haven't been about victimization per se. They were more about extending rights to groups that had been excluded from these rights before.

Democracy in the US isn't quite built by lobby groups as it is in a more corporate model, such as in Germany. Lobby groups are more loosely aligned in the US and function more in a grass-roots style civil society.

Big business lobbies on the grounds that they're taxed too high; victims of redistribution of wealth. Religious groups regularly claim they're being censored in the public square. The fact is that EVERY group you listed victimizes themselves to push their agenda.

Big business and all the other groups lobby for their own interests, pure and simple. Self-victimization would hold little weight in a charged political environment.

That's nonsense. It worked to get Obama elected.

And yes, lobbyists lobby for their own interests, and the most effective way of doing that is to portray themselves as victims.

Obama claimed to be the victim of his circumstances and this helped him climb a perilous and complicated path towards the ultimate American political position? I've read a few books by some pretty neat people, and I've never heard any of them state this kind of scenario. What they tend to speak of is single-minded determination and devotion encapsulated in pure optimism.

Seems to be more self-pride in the people who voted for him. A victim cannot act since a victim is not an agent but a passive recipient of forces done unto them.

Obama claimed to be the victim of his circumstances and this helped him climb a perilous and complicated path towards the ultimate American political position?

“What they’re saying is ‘Well, we know we’re not very good but you can’t risk electing Obama. You know, he’s new, he doesn’t look like the other presidents on the currency, he’s a got a funny name.’”

He also portrayed the middle class as victims and that they'd need to vote for him if they wanted to stop being victims.

I've read a few books by some pretty neat people, and I've never heard any of them state this kind of scenario. What they tend to speak of is single-minded determination and devotion encapsulated in pure optimism.

Then you have the most absurdly, ridiculously biased sampling I've ever heard of. As a conservative, I can confidently say that there's a large chunk of the American electorate and a large number of pundits, I'd wager up to 30% of us, who steadfastly believed that Obama exclusively used lies and promises of reparations to various groups, most ( ... )

I was talking about people who made it to becoming leader at the top of their respective field (mountain climbing, politics, business) and do not mention how they do so on self-pity. Self-pity/self-victimization is something that would hinder such goals ( ... )

Also, I could think of a certain memoir by one Bill O'Reilly that I'd not want to read. It doesn't mean it's a useless book, he has a huge impact on Americans. Then again, so has Obama. They've both obviously "done things" that got them onto the high-impact spot they've gotten to, and that's what memoirs tell you about.

Uhhh, what? Bill O'Reilly wrote that memoir after he'd written multiple other informative books and had an incredibly successful television show for almost a decade. Obama wrote his memoirs before he even became a United States Senator.