The American Patient

Barack Obama bobbed up and down throughout his summer of discontent. In the eyes of his countrymen, he’s not leading, he’s not fighting and he’s not coming to grips with anything. But the president is just a reflection of the decay that is taking over America.

Last Thursday, Barack Obama sent out another letter to thousands of his supporters. In it, he asked party members to promise to go to the polls in November and to promise, here and now via mouse-click, to vote. There was a time when Obama didn’t need to resort to wringing promises from his supporters because they mobilized themselves without being asked.

The notable thing about Obama’s call to the polls is the inspiring anecdote with which he prefaces his appeal. Eighteen years ago, according to Obama, he led a get-out-the-vote campaign in Chicago that taught him a lesson: people were more likely to do something if they had previously promised to do it.

The president should have cast a critical eye toward his own promises before he begins lecturing others. Wasn’t he the politician who, in his State of the Union speech in January, promised jobs, jobs, jobs? Wasn’t he the politician who promised to heal a politically deeply divided nation? Wasn’t he the politician who promised to close Guantanamo within a year? Wasn’t he the politician who promised a revolutionary environmental policy and the modernization of America? Wasn’t it from his mouth that the slogan Re-power America came — green power, energy and jobs for the nation?

A politician and the promises he failed to keep: Barack Obama bobbed up and down throughout his summer of discontent. Only 45 percent of Americans now approve of the job he’s doing, down from 69 percent right after his inauguration. Such a decline, while unusual for a president so early on in his administration, still isn’t catastrophic. The president should concentrate his efforts on the five areas that still concern Americans: in the five politically most important areas — immigration, national debt, Afghanistan, economy and healthcare policy — voters still only give him far less than 40 percent approval. The statistics show what the people think: the president has exited the political stage, he’s not leading, he’s not fighting, and he’s not coming to grips with the problems.

The Patient in the Recovery Room

But the president is only a reflection of the decay that is taking over in America. In the summer of 2010, the USA is going through the healing pains that a post-operative patient always suffers. Eighteen months after Obama’s inauguration and three months before the midterm elections, the effects of the anesthesia have begun to wear off; the patient is coming to. It won’t be long before the surgeon will have to give him the gloomy prognosis: the operation wasn’t successful and further surgery is necessary.

America may be suffering from a myriad of diseases, but it would be a mistake to write the patient off completely. The discussion of America’s decline, its fall as a superpower and the new distribution of world power is an academic one. It is a discussion that takes place when America’s power is considered and discussed, but it by no means signals its decline and demise.

Yet there is a new phenomenon that can now be seen that differentiates the 2010 malaise from earlier catastrophic scenarios. Until now, it had been external enemies gauging America’s strength, enemies allied by the goal of becoming America’s military equal. This time, America is its own worst enemy.

Asleep at the Wheel

A virus of unease gnaws at the nation’s innards; it has attacked society and damaged perhaps its greatest strength: the ability to modernize. Barack Obama isn’t just the president; he’s also the best example of the new despondency, the paralysis that has gripped the nation.

The most important indicators for America’s modernization deficit are economic data. They show how seriously the economic crisis has impacted America’s structure. The economic indicators leave little room for optimism: massive unemployment, stagnation, the decline in industrial output, depressing export figures and timid consumption.

Americans are pessimistic about their economic future, households are too deeply in debt, and the doomsayers await a double-dip recession. The crisis has shown that American industry, especially the manufacturing sector, slept through the bell announcing technical innovations. Too much economic expertise migrated into the financial sector — but a superpower can’t nourish itself by increasing the importation of cheap consumer goods and exportation of its national debt. The solemn promise made by every generation to the next has been broken: today’s children won’t have things better than their parents did.

The Green Awakening Ends at the Sidewalk

The deficit in modernization is most painfully apparent in America’s environmental and energy policies. America’s green awakening ends at the sidewalk. America’s dependence on oil and its unending hunger for more energy team up devastatingly with abundant ignorance of climatic and ecological matters. Obama’s helplessness in the wake of the Gulf oil pollution disaster should serve as the writing on the wall for the lack of action.

This paralysis is largely due to an atmosphere that, after the economy and the environment, is the third example of why America suffers such a modernization deficit. Stoked by a media industry prone to exaggeration, political Washington has completely lost touch with common sense. While Congress laments legislative logjams, its own procedures are just about as anachronistic as the shorthand machines still in use in both the Senate and House of Representatives.

As far as foreign policy goes, America increasingly restricts itself to a management role. The most current manifestation is the notion that terrorism can’t be defeated so America needs to emphasize diplomatic threats. That formula only represents a new, resigned isolationism.

Obama the innovator is nowhere to be seen in all this. The man who came on the scene as a reformer and redeemer is now perceived as particularly polarizing to the extent that he is keeping a low profile in the run-up to the midterm elections. His presence no longer attracts votes. The charisma appears to have evaporated and he has not succeeded in making a reputation for himself as a political craftsman. Obama is a loner, not a team player who creates legislative successes and enjoys blind loyalty as Bill Clinton once did.

The president urgently needs to wake up. He needs to put past failures behind him and show some courage — and he needs to do so before the coming elections. Only then will the current bleak picture change into one of promise. Only then will the moment of his election become one of special healing in America’s history.