New Themes of an Obama Presidency

Tuesday, November 4 will be long-remembered by many of us. Not only because it marks an end to the fateful government of George Bush, but because of the many faces filled with hope and moist with tears that were captured by the panning cameras at the mass victory rally in Chicago. It was not just about the end of an administration period but of an era.

In effect, since the boycott of segregated buses in Alabama during 1955 and the 1968 Martin Luther King‘s speech, ‘I Have a Dream’, the long road traveled by the United States to accept its diversity and promote equal rights for everyone, regardless of skin color, it was impossible to think that a North American president could be one of African descent. Thus, when the Democratic president Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act and promoted desegregation in schools and buses, the United States began a process that explains the present election.

Johnson’s decision cost the Democratic Party a substantial part of its social base, composed earlier of small businessmen and racist-minded white farmers who feeling betrayed turned to the Republican Party. Since then, with the exception of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, a long Republican period ensued, of which the high point was Ronald Reagan. This period brought together a coalition of Christian right, neo-liberals and the industrial military petroleum conglomerate that has dominated politics in that country since the eighties, and in the last eight years as a caricature. Unilateralism as international policy, a military solution to conflicts, deregulation of the economy, anti-immigration policies, and elimination of affirmative action policies were some of its recurring themes.

In order to return to rule with strength, the Democratic Party had to reinvent itself. In this sense, the election of Barak Obama is much more than the election of an African-American politician, although symbolically, it represents the new era. On the one hand, it represents a coalition that is the United States today, composed of blacks, Latinos, whites, Asians, but also the new faces of the civil rights movements: of women, environmentalists, people of different sexual orientation, “slow food”. It is also an expression of the new North American economy based on communication technologies and the green industry, as well as of liberal intellectuals such as Krugman and Friedman, writers like Roth and entertainers such as Oprah or George Clooney.

What are the new themes that an Obama presidency brings? Well, first of all, the re-evaluation of the role that the state plays as the driving force of development processes. The recent Wall Street bankruptcy demonstrated that de-regulation of the private sector is a recipe for disaster. Second, the idea that even the most powerful states, suffer in the long run without quality investment in education, health or technology innovation. Third, that no victory can come out of wars based on unilateralism, without international consensus, and that talking to everyone is not a sign of weakness. Fourth, that international civil society includes not only the business world, but the environment, labor rights, financial stability, and that these can be only settled in the multilateral arena. Fifth, that the strength of a country lies in building a sense of unity among those who comprise its diversity.