Obama Dixit*, Or the Indispensable Nation and European Powerlessness

The U.S. is the “indispensable nation.” Out of self-confidence or arrogant impulse, Madeleine Albright, the former foreign policy adviser during Bill Clinton’s presidency — and one of the many political figures of European origin who fled from the tragedy of World War II — popularized that idea: A deep-rooted exceptionalism emanating from the leading elite and from the people of the old world who came to North America when the colonies were founded in the 17th century. Just like other people around the world, the U.S. is imbued with a missionary zeal reflected by the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. The idea of a divine mission to be fulfilled, the creation of a new world as a rejection of the European old world, was a very convenient reason for the 13 British colonies to expand their territory and become independent in 1776. This very peculiar combination of ideals and interests was well captured by Eduardo Lourenço, who said, “America is such an inextricable mixture of realism and idealism that it is always unfair when one reflects on its action in the world.”

For most 18th century Europeans, the American independence was probably a minor episode, a mere colonial sequel of the Seven Years’ War and of the confrontation between France and Great Britain in Europe. But pro-independence settlers saw themselves from the beginning as being imbued with a high mission: to build a new world that was politically and morally superior, as a means of rejecting the corrupt and realpolitik-dominated old Europe. In the classic 19th century essay on the United States by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1830, “Democracy in America,” American foreign policy was depicted as isolationist and lacking passion. Tocqueville wrote, “Not mixing into Europe’s affairs, the Union has, so to speak, no foreign interests to discuss, for it does not yet have powerful neighbors in America. Placed by its situation as much as by its will outside the passions of the Old World, the Union does not have to protect itself from them any more than to espouse them. As for the passions of the New World, they are still hidden in the future.” Not long after this comment on the invisibility of the new world’s passions, the imperial impulse of the young republic – which Tocqueville did not get – became clearly perceptible.

Mexico, from which most Hispanic people living in the U.S. originate, is on a collision course with North American expansion from west to south. In the second half of 1840 there was a military confrontation, and as a result, Mexico lost the territories that are currently America’s Southwest, from Texas to California. Ironically, these regions are being increasingly inhabited by Hispanic people due to migration. That is why Donald Trump is drumming up the specter of a Hispanic/Mexican invasion. He continues through populist appeal and aggressive discourse, Samuel P. Huntington’s thesis (see, “Who Are We?: The Challenges to America’s National Identity,” Simon & Schuster, 2004). Getting back to the 19th century, 1898 was the year of another military confrontation, now with a declining European power, Spain. The U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War allowed it to dominate Cuba and Puerto Rico in Central America and the Philippines and Guam in the Asia-Pacific region. The growing power ambition, which Raymond Aron labeled later in 1973 as a feature of an imperial republic, was celebrated in the press of the time. McClure’s magazine evoked the event with “The White Man’s Burden,” a poem by the British Rudyard Kipling (who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907). The subtitle was “The United States and the Philippine Islands.”

Until World War II, in spite of the rhetoric that rejected Europe’s ideas and corrupt values, the majority of the population — with the exception of the indigenous and those coming from Africa due to slave trade — was originally from Europe. The connections between the U.S. and the old continent, when it came to migratory currents, were a constant until the 1940s. At the time of World War I and World War II, a significant part of the cultural and scientific European elite flew to the U.S., which benefited from this situation. From the 1950s and 1960s, emigration from the old continent gave way to important migratory flows from Latin America and Asia. This deep change in migratory currents modified the North American melting pot, now transformed into one of multiculturalism. It also made society more complex in cultural and political terms. This is of paramount importance to sociology, and has political implications. Today, for instance, the substantial minority in the U.S. is no longer African-Americans but Hispanics. Regarding the traditional component of the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant group, resulting from European emigration, especially Protestant Northern Europe, it has become a minority and lost its influence. Trump plays with WASP/conservative resentment. Due to cultural and political reasons, Europe is becoming less and less interesting to North Americans. Their roots are now in other parts of the world. And so are their interests, especially in the Asia-Pacific.

In Europe, which is a work in progress, the process follows the opposite path. The elections for the European Parliament, the selection of the president of the European Commission, the Council’s meetings – all of these are boring, emotionless and almost irrelevant issues for ordinary citizens. The election for the American presidency, in turn, is interesting, even the primaries. That’s where the power is. It’s a pity Europeans are not allowed to vote. The greater the feeling of helplessness the greater the enthusiasm for the U.S., in particular for its outgoing president. Does the Greek debt crisis threaten the eurozone? Obama said it was urgent to solve the Greek debt crisis and prevent the exit of Greece from the EU. Does the possible Brexit threaten the future of the EU? Obama said the British should stay, otherwise they would wind up at the end of the line. Is the Transatlantic Partnership Agreement stationary? Obama said it was important to finalize the agreement to reinforce liberal democracies and to face China. What should we do with respect to the refugee crisis that is affecting Europe? Obama said Angela Merkel was on the right side of history. What about the speeches of April 25?** The important speech was delivered by Obama at Hanover.

The feeling of exceptionalism and mission rooted in the North American leading elite gives them self-confidence as well as arrogance. What is good for the U.S.is good for Europe and is good for the world. With regard to Europeans, they have no mobilizing utopia whatsoever nor sense of mission. No one knows the ultimate purpose of the European project, let alone is anyone willing to make a sacrifice for a technocratic European Union that is incapable of generating identifiable emotions. Obama dixit* is the panacea to cure the frustration and powerlessness Europeans are feeling. Pure illusion. The U.S. is not just seductive and inconsequential rhetoric, the soft power and the liberal cosmopolitanism of Obama or Hillary Clinton, who is not really interested in Europe. Trump is the other factor, aggressive and nationalist, from the same “indispensable nation.” At the end of 2016, we will see whether the fascination that masks European powerlessness will give rise to anger.

*Editor’s note: “Obama dixit” can be loosely translated as “Obama says.”

**Translator’s note: April 25, 1974 was the date of the Portuguese Revolution.