In the United States, Obama’s approval ratings
have dropped from 70% to 45% in little more than a year. In the recent mid-term
elections, a re-energized and radicalized Republican Party gained control of
the House of Representatives and won various state elections, although the
Democrats succeeded in preserving a majority in the Senate. On the Right, Obama
stands accused of promoting an intrusive and costly expansion of the federal
government, which is surreptitiously transforming the United States into a sort
of socialist state. For the Left, Obama’s reforms are timid and insufficient,
while his foreign and security policies – from Afghanistan to Guantanamo – seem
a mild version of the despised and discredited ones promoted by George Bush.
Independents are horrified at the perspective of a further deterioration of
public finances, growing deficits and an ever expanding debt.
There is a place, however, where Obama is still
immensely popular; where he wins Nobel prizes and is viewed with awe and
admiration. That place is, of course, Europe. According to the most recent
Transatlantic Survey Trends of the German Marshall Fund, 78% of the EU
respondents view positively the way Obama handles international policies, down
just five points from a year ago, at the very peak of Europe’s infatuation with
the new American president (in 2007 the percentage of EU respondents viewing
Bush favorably was 17%). Last June, the Pew Global Attitude Survey offered
similar data: in Germany and France 90% and 87% of the respondents believed
that Obama “will do the right thing in world affairs”, down just 4 and 3 points
from the previous year (the percentage with Bush in 2008 was 14 and 13).
Outside the United States, even businessmen seem to be more keen on Obama than
their American counterparts: only 50% of them, according to a recent Bloomberg
poll, consider him anti-business, while among US respondents the number was 77.
More significantly, these data reveal the
strength and persistence of a real “Obamania” in Europe: of a popularity
centered on his persona more than anything else. Obama’s policies – on the Middle
East, Russia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere – are far less admired among Europeans
than Obama himself, as the Transatlantic Survey Trends reveals. Furthermore, at
55%, desire for US leadership is more than twenty points below Obama’s
popularity, completely reversing the data of the Bush period (in 2007 36% of
the respondents expressed desire for US leadership).
Polls are what they are and must be handled
with caution. If anything, these data reveals the high volatility of European
public opinion. They are, nevertheless, quite indicative of Europe’s continuing
love affair with Obama. How do we explain it and what does it tell us of Europe
and, also, America?
Obama’s high ratings in Europe are, at least in
part, simply derivative: they are the consequence of what his predecessor at
the White House did, said and symbolized more than any specific act of Obama.
To put it bluntly: in Europe Obama is so popular simply because he is not Bush.
By being not Bush – politically, culturally, socially, even aesthetically –
Obama is perceived as more like us, more European. His policies, particularly
on climate change and nuclear proliferation, have re-created a sort of
Transatlantic bridge, targeting issues on which Europe has somehow built its
highly ideological self-representation as an allegedly “civilian”, war-opposed
new kind of power. For some sectors of the European Left, Obama is not just the
symbol of a more European (and human) America, but also of a superior America,
far ahead of Europe when it comes to racial diversity, multiculturalism and the
like. Thanks to Obama, and his unique and syncretic biography, the United
States is perceived both as being “in the” world again, and as credibly
embodying and representing “the” world in its entirety. Such a diverse world can be invoked by European leftists opposed
to the domestic policies on immigration, cultural and religious freedom
currently promoted by various conservative governments.
By being not Bush – seemingly liberal,
pro-environment and post-racial – the global Obama has effectively infused new
blood to the old myth of America. We don’t know whether Europe’s “Obamania” is
destined to last; if the alternative to Obama is the Tea Party and the likes of
Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, there is no doubt that the discrepancy between the
European image of Obama and that of the United States will widen even further.
[published in German, on the “Aargauer
Zeitung”, November 9 2010]
