You can almost picture the wry smile of ‘I-told-you-so’ hanging on the faces of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the entire Fox network for that matter, as the rest of the American media once so entranced by the idea of Obama stimulated change begins to firmly question whether he isn’t simply another incarnation of the classic Presidential hypocrite who marches into Washington on the back of strong words and immediately succumbs to the internal pressures of backhanded Washington old boys.
Estute political observers are even warning the public against allowing Obama to wriggle free from criticism with a trademark flourish of his flawless rhetoric. But while a critical public is central to the proper functioning of the democratic state, in this case the world should be more discerning than to place the bill for inactivity at the feet of the figurehead for change, and instead look to the ideal of Americanism that is stifling its own political sweetheart.
This may sound a touch simplistic, when attributing blame for America’s lack of progress don’t blame the President, blame the entire nation.
But what lays at the heart of this is an attempt to understand why change is something American Presidents have always struggled to bring about.
Americans hate socialism.
It doesn’t take the disingenuous comparisons Fox commentators have made between Obama and Stalin to know this, it’s in their history.
The Cold War and McCarthyism will always be a spectre haunting any genuinely socialist ideas in America, but the anti-red sentiment runs deeper than that. It’s rooted in the ideal of Americanism that colours their culture from Hollywood films, to music, to advertisments.
It is in a word (albeit a hyphenated one) self-determinism.
Those who take responsibility and work hard will succeed in a country that is truly free (and try telling an American they’re not free).
This was for a long time a convenient idea for Americans, since theirs was the most affluent, successful and influential nation on
earth then it followed that this was due to the people that comprised it. The American way of life was therefore lauded and exported as the key ingredient in the recipe for the good life. And the rest of the world bought it, literally and metaphorically, as American images and culture spread across the globe. We continued to lap it up even as the images should have sent signals of the cracks appearing in the American veneer with acts such as N.W.A. enjoying global popularity and boosting sales of baggy pants to young men everywhere.
But now the cracks that were threatening then, have widen into obvious chasms the world can see.
The ongoing problems with healthcare, obesity, rising unemployment, mounting debt (particularly in the states that enjoyed the heights of global popularity, California and New York) and the global financial crisis spurred the discontent that lead to Obama’s election.
But now the myth of American superiority stands as a roadblock on the path to recovery.
The prevailing attitude in America is that they remain the preeminent society in the world despite their current problems.
Radicalism is therefore a difficult remedy to swallow.
It is tempting to question whether what Obama represents is really a radical shift, but when compared to the how the American ideal translates into politics, Fox’s comparisons begin to look a little less ridiculous. Whether its a legacy of the Boston Tea Party or another manifestation of their ultimate belief in economic self-determinism, Americans don’t view taxes as an inconvenience or a pain, but as an artificial construct robbing them of actual money.
The government redistributing an individual’s hard earned wages into social projects such as schools, roads and police perhaps smacks of communism?
But that’s being too cynical; it’s the idea that upstanding citizens may be footing the bill for the stoned slackers Bill O’Reilly is so fond of mentioning that turns the average American stomach.
Part and parcel with this hatred of taxation and communism, is the rejection of the idea of big government. When faced with a hostile legislature (with a nod to Obama’s problems in Massachusetts) Bill Clinton made the traditionally safe, centre-right shift when he declared that the:
“Era of big government [was] over”.
But Obama’s ambitious plans to reform healthcare prohibit him from making such a conciliatory speech, even though we all know how well he could give one. Some may argue he has dug his own grave, as faith in Americanism rears its head again, “universal health care... is certainly worthy... but peripheral to most Americans, who have relentlessly told pollsters, by huge majorities, that they are happy with the health care they currently receive” (Time, Tuesday Jan. 19, p. 14.)
Essentially the attitude remains ‘we’re the greatest country in the world; we don’t need to take notes from the French on health care, despite what you may claim Mr. Moore’. Obama has demonstrated this year, with his potentially foolhardy commitment to healthcare reform, that he is attempting to lead the charge on change, and despite loudly questioning Obama’s effectiveness a year into his first term, the American public stand in the way.
They want the problems to be fixed, but without big government intervention or even the slightest implication that the American way may have been bested.
We are left to ponder the accuracy of the facetious quip that perhaps U.S. politics is too important to be left to the American public.