The public image is paper thin. His family background is eerily similar to Bush I: there's deep CIA involvement on both sides of the Obama family, and Obama worked for a CIA front group prior to his political career.
This sounds rather conspiracy ish
As for the rest, most american's, and most democrats, aren't socialists, they aren't democratic socialists, they aren't social democrats. A minority of democrats are "progressive" at best which from what I can tell is just a mix of economic populism and social liberalism that doesn't really address the fundamental structure of our economy and just want's healthcare, jobs, and stuff cheaper with no underlying ideology.
There's a certain amount of anger towards people like Obama on the far left that feels a little misdirected. It's not that Obama is a fake people love for image reasons who is actually supports policies they hate, Obama really does represent to a large extent the policy preferences of a lot of Americans. They wan't more military spending, they want careful changes to the healthcare system that doesn't disrupt what they have now, many american's fear wide-scale change, many Americans while not particularly liking banks support the system we have that requires banks to operate.
I'm just generally spewing some thoughts right now but I do think the far lefts hatred of Obama, Clinton, and other democrats is more an expression of anger at the american public for being far more right wing than them than it is a real criticism that they don't represent the people. They do represent the people ultimately.
Perhaps you could say that they have been tricked or brainwashed, but ultimately I would say that 90% of people don't really think about politics in a deep philosophical way, they don't hold consistent views in support of or against capitalism, the military, or a variety of other policies. They are just people who have a few particular things they support like more jobs, more healthcare, more freedom, being able to be a bigot, anti-bigotry, etc. there isn't any underlying cohesion to their views. If there were then I really don't think interest groups would be able to push politicians to grow the military, but because people want jobs and are unhindered by any consistent world view defense companies can build lots of plants everywhere and leverage the jobs they provide to get congressmen to do things.
Ultimately that's why identity politics are such a fundamental part of american politics. Someone has an interest in a set of policies because of the group they are in that those policies effect. You can play to a set of groups by supporting policies and they wont care about whatever else you do since they don't have a consistent feeling about other issues. Republicans play up white and christian identity politics, democrats play to minority identity politics, and that's not a reflection of their cynicism but a reflection of how most Americans think about politics and their interests.
We have, more or less, the politicians we deserve. People fear change, even when the change is ultimately far better than where they are now.
Ultimately I think the 10% or so with deep ideological commitments have to either find a way to work within the system, or organize a revolution and impose their views undemocratically until they become the norm.
p.s. I just wen't on a complete free form tangent so it's not really a comment on any particular poster.
My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.