Europe Baffled
By Midterm Defeat of 'Bloodless' Obama
"They're
crazy, those Yanks! That's what they're whispering in Europe. After all, who
can make sense of it? Illuminated by Obama's bright light, Washington had only
just reemerged from eight years of political darkness. … Europeans must first
understand that America is just plain different - and different from what
they'd like it to be."
They're crazy, those Yanks! That's
what they're whispering in Europe. After all, who can make sense of it? Illuminated
by Obama's bright light, Washington had only just reemerged from eight years of
political darkness. The smart Black president achieved great things. First he
saved the world from sinking into a global depression; then he gave his nation
historic health reform. But for this, and precisely for this, his people are
now punishing him - with a disaster in the congressional elections. No one can
possibly understand this level of ingratitude, at least not on the European
side of the Atlantic.
The midterm elections turned
into a referendum on two years of Obama - and the Republicans triumphed - in
other words, the party that was supposedly being led around by the nose and
pulled to the right by the Tea Party movement. And most of the figures in the
front row - this much has filtered through to the Old World - are absurd
characters. Hysterical anti-government types who see the state as the source of
all evil, mass unemployment included, and conspiracy theorists, who interpret
any and all measures against climate change as a plot to destroy the American way
of life.
Germans have reacted
especially strongly, which is understandable when they hear an Alaskan senator-to-be
[Joe Miller] recommending the East German model for dealing with illegal
immigrants at the Rio Grande to his countrymen, shoot-on-sight orders included.
Or when we see photos of a candidate for the House of Representatives who likes
to play war games in his off-hours back in Ohio - wearing the uniform of a
Waffen SS division that took part in the Holocaust. But what's overlooked by
many Europeans is the fact that neither man was elected on Tuesday.
Still, from such anecdotes,
many Europeans, too many, paint themselves a caricature of an America that is confused
and has lost its way. Only this distorted image is inaccurate. Europeans must
first understand that America is just plain different - and different from what
they'd like it to be. Second, as every autopsy of Tuesday night's mass demise
of Democrats shows, the right didn't achieve this victory under its own power.
Rather it was brought about by the collapse of the Obama coalition - because
the president lost the backing of America's mainstream.
In Western
Europe, Obama still enjoys an almost messiah status with an approval rating of
80 percent. In his own country, however, the prophet must be thankful for
opinion polls that are even half as sympathetic. The Germans, French,
Portuguese, or Swedes probably have the hardest time understanding Obama's
problems. Nowhere on this earth are the worth of his reforms seems as more
self-evident. Reforms like universal health insurance for all, an activist state
and environmental and climate protection are seen as ways to play catch-up to
Europe, a simple normalization. On the other hand, millions of Americans view
this government-sponsored agenda as bold, even revolutionary. What Obama
prescribes as modernization is experienced by many as a failure of the system -
and as un-American.
The fact that Obama's new
government is too slow and has produced too few successes has been politically
devastating. More than $800 billion in public debt was incurred to stimulate
the economy - yet unemployment has held stubbornly at almost 10 percent. And
while Obama saved Wall Street and Detroit's rusty automakers from bankruptcy
with government funds, this year alone has seen a million U.S. families are in
danger of losing their homes to foreclosure.
Now Obama expresses regret
and talks about constraint. Two years ago, we were energized by this same man's
vision. Today the same man often sounds strangely bloodless. Back then we were
impressed by his cool, self-assured serenity. Now this same character comes
across as cold, arrogant even, and yes, even elitist. The right may will put on
a shrill performance and stand in the media spotlight. But this president was
never going to win votes on the right anyway. Obama's historic victory in 2008
was made real by the center of American society - the independent voters and
suburbanites in their suburban bungalows. Now this center has abandoned him.
Obama needs to reinvent
himself now. Gone are the days of his “transformative presidency” which would
plow a new furrow with major reforms that the country and later descendants
would compare to those of the eras of a Franklin D. Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan.
Projects like an ambitious
energy-savings law or a new immigration law will be impossible with the new
majorities. “Obama 2.0” will be an unstable operating system in
Washington.The president will be
obliged to maneuver carefully - between cooperation and confrontation with
Republicans. America is threatened by a blockade of reform. That won't do the
nation justice, nor will it satisfy the world. The rest is vague hope - hope
for an early resolution of the unemployment crisis and for another change in
2012. If Obama learns from the damage done on Tuesday night, he might look like
a hero again in two years - not just among Europeans, but among his own
Americans.
