Fake Fanaticism, Real Rapture or Just Heat and Lack of Hydration?

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“folks faint all the time at my events.”
President Obama at recent campaign rally

Fake fanaticism or real rapture?

Either way would be kind of disturbing.

During 2008, Michael Medved on his radio program brought to my attention a strange phenomenon of people fainting at Barack Obama campaign rallies. It was still happening in 2009, 2010; and, well, it is happening again in 2012:

For President Obama, the fainting spells are back.

A woman listening to the president discuss his energy policy in Maryland on Thursday fainted among the standing-room-only crowd.

At a rally at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Md., Mr. Obama had veered off his prepared remarks to attack his Republican critics when he interrupted himself to alert officials that someone had fainted. Before returning to his message, he dispensed a little advice.

“Remember next time, if you’re going to stand for a long time, you got to eat,” he said to laughs from the crowd. “It’s true. You got to get something to eat. You got to get some juice.”

More like, ease off drinking so much of the kool-aid. :p

A New York Times reporter at the speech said another person had collapsed, but he could not say whether that person had fainted.

It is the third time this month that someone has fainted during one of the president’s speeches.

What is the deal, here? In 2008, pundits like Michael Medved and James Taranto speculated whether any of this is staged, given the frequency along with senator Obama’s stock response. Taranto is disturbed just as much if this isn’t staged and people are in fact swooning over the cult of personality that is Barack Obama.

Christina Wilkie writing for The Hill explains the occurrence as “parade ground syncope” where a person stands still for too long on a hot day and the blood does not get pushed back upward toward the heart due to leg muscle inactivity.

But is this really what’s at work here with the frequency in which these fainting episodes seem to occur around the rock star celeb president’s appearances and speeches? It also just seems suspiciously weird how so many of his responses sound so similar (I suppose when something happens often enough, you begin to develop stock phrases).

Anyone have any logical explanation here?

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Is it just his campaign speeches that cause people to faint? I don’t remember hearing of any incidents during his regular presidential speeches……

I’ve been to many political rallies and speeches by candidates.
Food and water were widely available at every one of them.

BUT…..
Obama does NOT allow any food OR WATER into his events.

Obama has also developed a habit of arriving late to many of his events.
Obama also tends to drone on and on and on.

I think there is something to the idea of standing still too long without nutrients or water.
There’s an old movie, Bridge on the River Qwai, where soldiers were made to stand still a long time with no food or water and some fainted.

Not everybody can take it.
Even Obama himself was described as having to be carried all slumped into a back room right before some campaign event.
Here is one account:

Obama comes in…he’s been there already right. Several practice runs…fired up the teleprompter, going over the stage marks…all the typical sh-t. When he’s out practicing…the family is all there, right? But when he’s in the back area…no family. They are…they are in different areas. My friend – he thought that was a bit odd.

But…then…later in the back area. Like a meet n greet area…and an adjoining room. Private. Closed off. So my friend is back there…some others too – they are hoping to catch the candidate coming in. You know…everybody wants to shake his hand. All that sh-t.

Yeah – like I said…draggin’. He’s…he looks wiped. Wiped out. His color is all off. His eyes…he barely…my friend says…my friend SAID…he looked right through them. Like his eyes couldn’t focus enough to see them…and a big fella…Black guy…he was…it looked like he was holding Obama up. Making their way to the-the room…the private area.

Yeah…it’s maybe 20 or 30 minutes later……you got about…there’s a ton a people now waiting to see the…to see Obama make his way out into the hall. The ceremony is firing up…you can hear the enormous crowd in the stadium…whatever worries there might have been…people mighta just forgot them. Easy to do in that kind of environment. It’s a f-cking rock concert you know. A convention…that last night…the build up…an amazing thing. Like a drug those moments. You get a taste of it…you want more.

Another five minutes or so and out comes Obama and a few others – the big fella from earlier, the woman who went in after them, and now there appears to be a couple of Secret Service alongside them.

…so out of that room they come. Everybody is excited…including Barack Obama. It’s like…it’s like one man went into that room and another one came out. An entirely different man walked out of that room than went in. That is how…that’s how he told it to me. A different man walked out. The change…that…the transformation was stunning. He seemed taller. His eyes were…there was an energy to him. Powerful. He was smiling and joking, shaking hands, talking real fast…the suit – the one you see on television…every detail was perfect. Everybody was rushing to shake his hand, tell them they loved him…but my friend…he was shaken up. It was too damn weird, right? What the hell happened in that room? How could one man walk in and another man walk out? We’re talking two extremes here…Obama was just about carried into that room…and he comes out…he’s bouncing off the f-cking walls.

[Obama] didn’t recognize…my friend…he had been introduced to Obama not more than a day before. He was helping organize the whole fu–ing event there in Denver. He spoke to the president…to the nominee…probably for about ten minutes. And there was nothing odd at that time…Obama seemed like what everybody saw in public. Not what my friend saw go into that room…or what he saw come out of that room. And Barack Obama – my friend was very…he made a point of emphasis there – Barack Obama did not recognize him in the hall. Not a clue. He smiled down at him, shook his hand…kept repeating thank you over and over again…and his eyes were always blinking. Fast.

Maybe a case of misery wants company?
Obama has a habit of making himself look better by comparing himself to those worse off.

Maybe he is just an oxygen thief!

Could there be free, no co-pay, smelling salts mandates on the horizon now?

What does anybody expect ? Obama’s ego sucks all the oxygen out of the air.

Meh, under certain circumstances, excited girls faint when near their Idols. It’s just a biological thing. Watch any newsreels of famous acts and celebrities, and you’ll see it happen; take a historic look at the Beatles, Elvis, Sinatra, both Kennedys and Adolph-freakin-Hitler. What do you see? Fainting girls, usually 16-26 years old. *Shrug*

Reminds me of a North Korean Dictator’s funeral. Way to close a comparison given 0-bama socialist approach.

Given the cult of personality around the President, a para-religious explanation might be in order. People have been lining up to be “slain in the spirit” at many “revivals” since way back in the sawdust-trail, camp-meeting days. I’m not capitalizing that second “s” and I wouldn’t care to meet this particular spirit in a dark alley, but it sounds suspiciously like religious hysteria.

I don’t see what the surprise is – I feint when I hear Obama speak all of the time.

No wait, I think the technical term for what happens to me is called “falling asleep.”

@Wordsmith: What heat?

@ThunderGod: A list of examples with links please

Interesting, every time I hear Barry (which I try to avoid at all costs) I just want to throw up.

This happens when folks get their health insurance premium increases due to Obamacare in the mail.

Good rule of thumb here is to never open your mail at an Obama rally…

I think of two causes, one is cult of personality, the other is Triumph of the Swill.

I think that OBAMA is drinking a substance which enhance his brain power and memory to make him happy
against his will to stand in front of a crowd he does not care about do to a speech he learned and does not believe in,
I bet many would like to know that drink and what’s in it,

Neo
hi
do you mean OBAMA SUCK THE CO2 OUT OF HIS CROWD, BY COMING LATE LETTING THEM WAIT
IT IS UNCARING FOR HIS CROWD, HE COULD NOT CARE AT ALL WHAT HAPPEN TO THEM,
NO WATER NO MUNCHING AND YOUNG CROWD BREATHING THE SAME AIR IN AND OUT BACK IN AND OUT, BACK IN AND OUT UNTIL OBAMA SHOW UP TO AN INTOXICATED WITH STALE AIR YOUNG CROWD
BYE