The Obama Paradox

In what country do left-leaning candidates distance themselves from a president on the left? The natural answer is in France! President Hollande is so unpopular right now that future Socialist candidates receive invitations to enlist in the service of other leaders. But there is another campaign that illustrates this process even more dramatically: the U.S. midterms. These elections are held during the middle of the presidential term and involve the replacement of part of the House of Representatives and Senate. However, only one Democrat has stepped forward to defend President Obama’s administration. The others are acting like Peter in Caiaphas’ courtyard: They neither know nor have they met their president, all while failing to maintain close discussions about the opposing Republican Party’s themes.

As shocking as this may seem, the situation is not really so surprising: first, because Obama cannot stand again for re-election, and thus, everyone already has an eye on the next presidential election; second, because he is unpopular. This is the case despite an economy that has recovered its dynamism, and is creating jobs and reviving the property sector; young couples are being encouraged, as if there had been no crisis, to go into debt in order to buy a home.

The political assessment of Barack Obama is paradoxical. The president had promised the United States that it would emerge from the crisis, and it has done so. The paradox is that he has not enjoyed any of the rewards of having achieved this objective. Thus, while part of the Democratic Party does not trust him to balance the books and sometimes reproaches him for not having closed down Guantanamo Bay as promised, others see him as responsible for National Security Agency intrusions and for the use of war-based drones. In contrast, the more centrist side of public opinion strongly criticizes his leftist reforms, especially a fundamental one: the health care system.

Above all, throughout Obama’s term – and in this there are parallels with France – no Democrat has defended the president’s administration. This has allowed the Republican Party to impose the idea of a failed presidency. But if one can speak of failure, it would be that of quasi-institutional paralysis. In the United States, the cohabitation of a president of a certain political persuasion and a Congress of another is the most commonplace regime. Bill Clinton, for example, led the country for eight years in the face of a hostile Congress, but Clinton became a master in the art of compromise. Meanwhile, Obama, despite a Democratic majority in the Senate, is strongly influenced by a House of Representatives with a Republican majority that is hostile to any form of compromise – a hostility, it must be said, that is not entirely free of racism. And now, for the two remaining years of his presidency, he must prepare to face a Senate with a Republican majority, and it is this that poses a risk of complete paralysis.

The current Republican Party has radicalized under pressure from the tea party and a profound wave of conservatism that without going any further has led some Democratic candidates to embrace the Republican vulgate. Thus, a storm of alarmism linked to the Ebola virus has spread to the United States. As The New York Times noted recently, the spread of this virus, now present on American soil, is causing “panic” in a country where the risk of the spread can be controlled – above all in a country like the U.S. – and stoicism in countries where the virus is causing devastation – such as those in West Africa. Some Democratic and Republican candidates are requesting that President Obama prohibit access to any African resident traveling to America.

But the weakness of the Democrats in the midterm elections does not in any way guarantee a Republican victory in the forthcoming presidential elections. The Republican Party has veered too far to the right, is not sufficiently interested in minorities who have become very strong – Hispanics in particular – and has difficulty putting forward convincing personalities, something that provides any number of opportunities for someone like Hillary Clinton.

In fact, through the support she is currently providing to the Democratic candidates in the midterm elections, she is already immersed in a pre-presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton hopes to have the majority support from Hispanics, who will amount to 25 million voters in the 2016 presidential election. Sixty-three percent of young people ages 18 to 34 have already pledged their support for her.

But some, like those in the “Dreamers” movement, have been quick to question her on the issue of immigration and are still waiting for Barack Obama to pass and put a Dream Act to a vote. The heart of the problem is the fate that awaits the children, mostly Hispanic, who illegally entered the United States and are threatened with expulsion or have effectively been expelled. Without a doubt, immigration is not the main determinant of the vote, but in this area, as in others, they will demand that Hillary Clinton keep Barack Obama’s promises.