Obama a Victim to Merciless
Fate of Most 'HopeCarriers'
"Obama is through - completely
finished. The unmitigated joy with which millions of people embraced the first Black
president of the United States is gone. … hope is the first thing that dies.
He who doesn't deliver immediately is out - excuses don't count."
"A star burns out, and the
world keeps on turning; nothing in life stays as it is. The march of time will
dry your tears, too, even if you'll never quite forget." (Bergfeuer, A Star
Burns Out)
Obama is through - completely
finished. The unmitigated joy with which millions of people embraced the first Black
president of the United States is gone. Shortly before the impending elections
on his second anniversary in office, not even half of Americans think he's
doing a good job. The Arab world has turned away disappointed. Europeans are
still standing - but the Obama sticker on the bathroom mirror is peeling and
the little flag from election night has long been disposed of. The “world
president” has lost his magic.
FAILED
OR OVERESTIMATED?
Of course, the change has a
lot to do with Obama's policies, which in many respects have failed. But it
also has something to do with us, voters and citizens. A star has faded because
we've turned on the lights. The Financial Times
Deutschland archive returns 1,093 results for the phrase “hope carrier.” According to the archival software, that's too many to display, so only
the first 100 are shown. Among those is included the cancer drug Erbitux as
well as the sequel to The Lord of the Rings. But above all, the results
include many politicians who carried our hopes and for shorter or longer
periods, sparkled on the political firmament: Tony Blair shone brightly and tenaciously
before irrevocably vanishing. For a few weeks, barely detectible in the sky was
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
Experts can't agree on
whether or not the appearance of Environment Minister
Norbert Röttgen was an optical illusion. The archive spits out names that have
long been digested: Matthias
Platzeck (Kurt Beck:
“We don't need a Messiah, we have Matthias”). There are those that were
pioneers and are recognized only with binoculars: Lawmaker Friedrich Merz is one of
those. And there are those who became hope carriers, because no one else was
around at the time: [SPD
Chairman] Kurt Beck; [Bavarian President Horst Seehofer; [Education
Minister] Annette
Schavan.
An ideal hope carrier, however, is different: Like [Defense Minister]
Karl-Theodor
zu Guttenberg [photo, right]. Most of all, they are attractive. Genes help
but are not decisive. It is his seemingly effortless elegance that sets
Guttenberg apart, “from other Bundestag members who look as if they slept in
their suits,” as the magazine Cicero explained it. One just loves to
show someone like this off to the audience.
Also vital is the supposed
distance from politics of the hopecarrier and an elegant aura of
independence. The less he seems involved with the actual business that makes him
such a hope, the better: He should be the man who came from nowhere - and can
be newly discovered. The fact that Guttenberg has sat in the Bundestag since
2002 is no contradiction to this. No one really noticed he was there.
On
top of that, if he's a straight talker that says little, his ascent is almost guaranteed.
Because for us voters, it isn't about he details. We're all searching for him:
the politician we can trust. He who penetrates what is too complex for us and makes
the right call. Or he who chooses the right people for the job. Or come to
think of it, we're not searching for all that. It's entirely sufficient if he makes
the world better. Somehow.
Fan research offers findings
that can be applied to politics. Fans are convinced that their star won't disappoint
them. They tend to see the stage image of their star as authentic. He's often regarded
as a friend even though he's a stranger. However, there are also studies claiming
that people who are at peace with themselves don't need idols, and that fans are
usually particularly anxious, suffer from depression more often, and are less well-adjusted
socially. So roughly, they mirror the mood of us voters.
FRIGHTENED
VOTERS
Because in fact, we're not
disillusioned with politics, we're scared. If "we're" vanquished, will there soon
be a Muezzin call from every
minaret? Will capitalism perish (bad) - or not (even worse)? Or specifically: shouldn't
Obama's $800 billion stimulus package have been much larger to stem the crisis
(as Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman says), or for once and for all, is someone engaged in running the
country into the ground (as Republicans say)?
Someone who doesn't get
depressed about such questions must be a Schalke fan (A German soccer team with a record of failure). And that's why we
need a hope carrier.
Or, better put, many of them.
Because hope is the first thing that dies. He who doesn't deliver immediately is
out - excuses don't count. The fact that the powerful president of the United
States can do little without a Senate majority is his problem. After all, as a
rule, we have lots of checks and balances so the beacon of hope isn't the only one that has to shoulder responsibility.
A politician today is “put
through the wringer more than was the case 20 years ago,” said Ole von Beust as he retired
from politics. One escapes this only by dying in time (Kennedy), having the
good fortune of a missed opportunity (Joachim
Gauck), or by never having given anyone cause for hope (Merkel).
It seems a paradox. The next
generation in politics (interchangeable with the economy, culture or the arts)
is dramatically missing talent - but never hope carriers.
What are you doing, Faust! Faust!
- With force
He seizes her, the form dims
in its course.
He turns the key against the
youth, and then,
Touches him! - Ah! - Gone, in
a moment! Gone!
(An explosion. Faust falls to
the ground. The spirits vanish in mist.)
