Obama the Enigma

Obama’s Christmas gift to the American people was his reform of the health care system, something that had not been achieved by any of his predecessors. He could have done better, but his star was beginning to wane. Let no one be of the opinion, however, that this reform will establish a public health system in America similar to that in Europe. Clinics, doctors and medicine will remain private. The only change is for those who cannot afford a health insurance policy; they will receive government assistance based on income and the number of relatives. This is an extension of the current state aid system, which has left both sides dissatisfied. The left criticizes the bill’s failure to set up a real public health system. The right claims that it will cost a fortune and the government has no funds to pay for it. For the 30 million Americans without medical coverage, however, it is a blessing. Obama prefers a small reform as opposed to nothing. What this shows, along with his attitude towards the war in Iraq, is a clearer picture of his ideals.

To conservatives, Obama is a dangerous socialist who intends to destroy the “American way of life.” To liberals, he is the one who will transform American society. Neither view has been proven completely true. Obama did not come to change the American system; he came to fix it as much as possible. He is not an ideologue but a pragmatist who works with what he has. He does not set unreachable goals but those that are reachable. He makes pacts and concessions but does not forget his objectives. He does not follow dogmas but principles.

This has been the case throughout his life. Only during his election campaign did the idea of changing the United States and then the world develop. Perhaps this came about because he is black, but Obama is not exactly black. He is a mulatto who has spent his life among whites, feeling his blackness. In any case, he is a mixture of races and cultures, a crossroads of formulas, the only way out of which is consensus. He is not an anti-system revolutionary but a system corrector who seeks to improve the United States while respecting its identity. In that sense, President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain is the exact opposite, bent on remaking everything in Spain, beginning with its history.

Zapatero and his experiment face the risk that they will ruin the country. Obama faces the risk of disappointing not the extremists but those who saw him as the man who came to solve America’s problems, from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the bankrupted economy. Obama knows, though, that these are problems with no short-term solutions. They can only be mitigated. It is what it is. For any other president, this would suffice, but more is expected from him. This is the price of having inspired so many dreams and illusions.