Previous lesson we watched a documentary called “Right America: feeling wronged – some voices from the campaign trail.” Alexandra Pelosi, the film maker, took a road trip around the USA prior to the presidential election to interview some of the conservative voters. In Europe Obama is looked upon as a hero and world leader. We easily take it for granted that he is likewise popular in the USA. However, this is not the case, according to Pelosi’s documentary.
58 million Americans voted for John McCain during the election 4th of November 2008. In “Right America: feeling wronged” we learn that some of the republican voters had a stronger opinion behind their vote than others. They have several reasons for rejecting Obama and some of them appear extremely engaged in the election. As it was a matter of life and death. Republican voters even cry and claim that Obama as a president will mean WW3. It is therefore important to take account of the fact that this documentary only shows the extreme “NObamaism.”
Many of the conservative voters are quite religious. They do not support homosexuality or abortion and believe Obama’s views on these topics are too liberal. Some quotes from the documentary are: “I hope there are enough Christians in the world to save us” and “We need a pro-life who is for the unborn”
It seems like the anti-Obama voters mostly represent people living in the country. In the documentary, they claim that Obama does not represent the average American at all. Obama attended prestigious schools such as Harvard University and has lived his whole life as a city boy in Chicago. People living in the country have the general opinion that Obama cannot rule USA when he does not know the what they claim to be “the real Americans.”
It is also a strong belief that Obama is an enemy among owners of small businesses. Obama’s fiscal policies involve levying higher taxes on the owners of small businesses. This is a part of the new health plan. A strong opinion throughout the documentary is that this will ruin many of the smaller businesses.
Objections to Obama as a president also involve the view that Obama’s foreign policies will not protect the USA properly. The conservative voters in the documentary claim that Obama’s role as a democratic world leader will weaken his emphasis to protect the American people from the threat of terror.
Personally, this documentary surprised me a bit. Obviously, there has to be millions of people who do not adore Obama to bits. Still I had never thought that there were this many people who object Obama to that extreme extent. T-shirts, anti-Obama songs, and massive petitions and demonstrations were held. There are also web pages such as http://www.hellnobama.com/, http://nobama.com/ and http://www.nobama.tv/ in existence.
I do not know whether this extreme protestation is unique in terms of dissenting presidents. However, I do believe all president candidates meet severe resistance, though in different areas and groups of people.
If you want, you can watch the whole documentary here:
part 1part 2
Nice commentary Ingrid. There are a lot of issues covered in this documentary that are scary to think about. Nice touch to mention the other web-pages too. There certainly are a lot of different views in the US, and it is easy for us to forget it since Obama is so popular in Europe and Norway in particular!
SvarSlettReally good post, yet again. However, it seems to be very much based on the documentary, rather than a general comment on Obama's status in the US. I suppose that's what Mrs. Michaelsen asked you to write, but nonetheless, I find it less interesting. It appears to me that the documentary shows the extremists (tin foil hats, Bible-huggers and Republican white trash). And no, I haven't seen it, nor do I intend to.
SvarSlettAt the same time there is a more serious criticism of Obama, and he has started losing support in the Senate. What the lunatics say really doesn't matter; what is interesting is what the general public thinks. Americans are conservative, in the word's correct meaning - they don't like things changing too fast or for the worse. They are also afraid of cumulation of powers, which is why their political system is more fragmented than any other I can think of.
They have federalism, two chambers in the assembly, a president with veto (who isn't even directly elected), a policial judicial branch with various interpretations of the constituiton and so on. The supreme court is particularly conservative, as the judges sit for decades. Few other states are even close to being this paranoid about their governments, although it's probably for historical reasons.
Obama won the election by promoting change (ironically), but now they are limiting his ability to change things. Americans have a strange, historical tendency to have presidents and assemblies in "different colours", which reduces efficiency and makes changes occur more slowly. Honestly, it's not very surprising if this happens to Obama, as the health reform can be seen as quite radical, along with the increased public spendings.