The Reinvention of Obama

After his defeat, it is worth noting the self-criticism of the U.S. president, which should be imitated in Argentina.

On rare occasions, the loser comes to terms with the blunder, admits his mistakes and as if it is nothing, congratulates the winners. This is what has occurred in the midterm elections in the United States. The defeated is the president of the United States. Hours after the fiasco of his Democratic Party, for having ceded complete control of the House of Representatives and having managed an adjusted majority in the Senate, Barack Obama was not ashamed in assuming the responsibility: “You know, there is an inherent danger in being in the White House and being in the bubble,” he said.

It isn’t a mere formality that whoever is the most powerful man on Earth — beyond the democracy of America, where the system of checks and balances keeps the power well-distributed — admits that sometimes “the responsibilities of this office […] and in the rush of activity” has made him [and past presidents in similar situations] “lose track of the ways that we connected with folks that got us here in the first place.”

Neither is it a mere formality that, as a politician, he hasn’t lost his manners to ruthless critics, generated from the ultraconservative tea party movement, among whom there is no lack of either distrust of his place of birth or of their religion.

Against the attacks, Obama acknowledged that he shouldn’t call his Republican opponents “enemies” — rather, “adversaries.” It was late. A critical mass — overwhelmed by economic problems, among which includes first-quarter unemployment — was ready to vote against Democrats [and lean] more in favor of Republicans, as a form of expressing their disappointment with the White House reforms of bold initiatives, like health and financial reforms.

Like Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, among others, the current president paid the price of having invested without thinking of the overwhelming political capital in the first two years of his administration. He has now — as the others did, as well — the possibility to rectify that and, above all, to be more attentive to the concerns of his people.

In one gesture of nobility that does credit to democracy, the defeated neither distorted the history nor looked for subterfuges to hide it. It is called a “shellacking,” and there is no mistake.

In Argentina, the president and her Peronism sector have undergone a similar adverse outcome in the legislative elections of June 28, 2009. A day later, the president appeared in public to carry out a rigged vote and avoided any self-criticism about the decline experienced by the ruling party. She seeks to change the INDEC so that the Argentinians may look at her in another way.

This isn’t the case and, after more than a year of this fiasco, there is no reason to be surprised by these types of attitudes. The problem is that it is incorporated into the social fabric by mistake, and finally, we think that a gesture like Obama’s is impossible in countries other than the United States. This is not true. Michelle Bachelet, the most popular president in the history of Chile, did not have any problem with congratulating and supporting the winner of the last presidential elections, Sebastián Piñera. Neither did the defeated candidate, Eduardo Frei. And as it is often said, we keep moving forward like nothing ever happened.

Americans are not the only ones unhappy with the progress of their country. The difference is that people can express it by voting, without disturbing their democratic culture or harming institutions, and the victim — in this case, [no one] less than the president — does not see himself obligated to find scapegoats or cheap excuses to paint the cloudy horizon with a radiant sun.

It is impressive, in any case, the speed with which a political leader who had emerged as the embodiment of change after those eight tragic years of George W. Bush has been battered in the law. The good — if such a thing is possible — is that he has made a note of his errors, and with a modesty that illuminates with its own light, he has proposed to reinvent himself like Reagan and Clinton, two of the most successful and loved presidents of the United States. What would be foolish, after a defeat, is to make the same mistake twice.