Americans Can Stop This Trip to Abilene

The groupthink that is allowing Obama to run roughshod over American ideals can be broken

Most business schools include studies of organizational behavior, and most studies of organizational behavior include the “Abilene Paradox”. As summarized in a Wikepedia entry, the name of the phenomenon comes from an anecdote in an article which management expert Jerry Harvey uses to elucidate the paradox:

On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. The wife says, "Sounds like a great idea." The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time."

The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.

One of them dishonestly says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it?" The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.

The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.

As further noted in Wikepedia, this kind of groupthink:

“…is easily explained by social psychology theories of social conformity and social cognition which suggest that human beings are often very averse to acting contrary to the trend of the group. Likewise, it can be observed in psychology that indirect cues and hidden motives often lie behind peoples' statements and acts, frequently because social disincentives discourage individuals from openly voicing their feelings or pursuing their desires.”

Obama is driving America to an Abilene of disastrous, failed socialism, absolutely antithetical to the American ideal of individual freedom and responsibility under God, and harmful to every citizen in this country, whether he knows it or not. Nobody really wanted to go on this trip with him; and almost everybody wants to stop the car and get out.

But ‘human beings are often very averse to acting contrary to the trend of the group’ and in this case they are seeing Presidential approval polls as the trend of the group. The innocent and simple thought is, ‘gee, if most everyone likes Obama, then maybe I’m just an outlier, and should sit tight’. And ‘social disincentives’—very specifically, the disincentive of condemning ‘America’s historic first black President’—are discouraging individuals from openly voicing their feelings or pursuing their desires. Many are muttering under their breath things like ‘surely Obama isn’t really trying to destroy capitalism’; ‘surely Obama would defend the country’; ‘surely Obama wouldn’t support racism on the Supreme Court’; ‘surely he doesn’t think America is to blame for every problem in the world’ –surely this trip to Abilene will be a productive and helpful ‘change’.

It’s time for America to break free of the Abilene Paradox. Part of breaking free lies in recognizing the fraudulent nature of popularity polls and their disconnect from the unpopularity of what Obama is actually doing. Another is to recognize, just as with the family in Coleman, that there is no one who really wants to be on this trip. Sure, there are a few who want to pump their fist in support of a black President ‘ruling’ the country, but these are not people who have any concept whatsoever of what socialism does to the heart and soul of every human being, regardless of skin color. They are infatuated with a symbol, but the substance of what is happening is slowly killing their spirit. Even most of them know in their heart that Obama’s direction does not feel right, but for awhile longer they are going to keep resolving doubts in favor of continuing on the trip.

But there’s no excuse for the rest of us (especially including Warren Buffett, who of all people ought to know about the Abilene Paradox). We can see where this is leading; we know it can only fail; we know it must be stopped; and here’s a dirty little secret that is Brushfires’ overwhelming intuition: “we” represent a solid majority of Americans, right now. That’s right—right now, the majority of Americans do not want the Obama agenda to continue.

It’s not clear that mainstream Americans have ever faced a situation quite like this, and in the past we have always been in the habit of trusting American traditions and Constitutional protections to enable us to sort it out. We are not the ‘street protest’ types; we are the people who make the country work and usually just look at protesters as people who haven’t got a life taking advantage of the freedom that real Americans fought and died to establish and preserve.

Well, it’s time to break our habits and exercise our rights. We need to take to the streets as never before in American history. We need to stage 24/7 sit-ins at every office of every Senator and every member of the House of Representatives; we need to take tea parties to the level of a march on Washington soon; we need to stand up for the country with more than just blog entries and ‘woe is us’ commentary. We can stop this agenda. Public support for it is in reality almost non-existent; all that really exists is the Democrat Party’s allegiance to what appears to be popular, and Pravda’s determination to make it seem popular. But it’s all a lie; it’s a trip to Abilene built on false premises and promises. Once the Political Class understands that the people have really turned on them, they will turn, too.

There is no time to waste. This is already set to be a summer of massive discontent; the discontent just has to be channeled into clear, focused protests that demand that the will of the people be obeyed.

Americans have the power to stop this trip to Abilene. For the sake of America, and of humanity itself, we need to do it. NOW.

Paul Gable

Posted June 2, 2009