Obama Symbolizes the Threat of Globalization

The punishing vote that President Barack Obama faced at the midterm elections is somewhat inconsistent. In 2012, Americans re-elected him to the White House despite the long overdue economic recovery. Two years later, the U.S. economy is beginning to grow and create jobs again. Since the crisis, the unemployment rate in the United States has decreased from 10 percent to 5.9 percent. These facts have not been enough to persuade the American people to support a president that Republicans describe as unfit to run the leading world power.

Barack Obama has made his fair share of mistakes. He failed to invest enough political capital to avoid the disastrous launch of the website that was supposed to complement his health reform, for example. As Americans say, he doesn’t have the “schmooze,” the ability to socialize with members of Congress to convince them to accept his political vision. However, he is paying the price for his political style because he has transformed the way in which the United States’ role in the world is perceived. He probably deliberates too much sometimes, but he rejects the simplistic mechanism of using force systematically, something Republican Sen. John McCain defends.

While dealing directly with Iran in order to avoid a war, or with Cuba to try to normalize relations with Havana, Barack Obama talks to the enemy. In his eyes, there is no sense in the blind isolation of Tehran or the anachronistic embargo on Cuba in such an interconnected world. His philosophy is simple: America’s power will always have military attributes, but from now on American power must diversify more through the economy and free trade agreements with Europe and Asia, as well as through science and education.

This vision is more transformative than one would think, even if its effects will not be felt in the long term. That is the reason for its destabilization, at a time when brute force is devastating Eastern Ukraine or causing the decapitation of American journalists in Iraq. Sanctioning Barack Obama — who, in truth, cannot share his vision with the American people like Bill Clinton could — and handing the reins of the country to a Republican Party that is in tatters and lacking a program, is a way of avoiding the world’s complexity and serves to only slightly reassure ourselves. Barack Obama embraces globalization, but the phenomenon remains synonymous with instability for a majority of the electorate.