Obama

If the reaction of the world media to recent events is an accurate measure of public opinion, then right now we are the happiest species to roam this planet since the dinosaurs discovered recreational roaring and/or ping pong. The reason behind this happiness? A very nice man from America who now has the fabulously quinsyllabic title of President Elect.

I would love to share with you tales of my unbridled joy at this result, but the internet is already awash with millions of these happy anecdotes, so I thought I'd use the medium of this hard hitting blog to voice some pessimism and cynicism that most columnists in major newspapers have found so hard to come by in the last week. Maybe it's that I just enjoy complaining. Maybe I've been made too cynical in my short years to recognise immense positive change when it happens. Maybe I'm just a contrary bastard who enjoys disagreeing with everyone else. Regardless, here are some of the reasons why this change may not be all it's cracked up to be.

I'm not denying that Obama was the best candidate; the spectre of another republican administration was an utterly terrifying one, and he has the potential to be a great president. However there are many factors that lead me to believe this result is nothing more than a small step in the right direction. Obama believes in the death penalty, and showed himself willing on certain issues to opt for a more electable centrist viewpoint (offshore drilling, anti terror surveillance legislation). He could be a breath of fresh air if he chooses to use the power that the democrat majority could now wield to implement genuine change, but if he panders to the right (as he showed at least signs of doing in the above examples) then could be just as big a let down as New Labour in 1997.

The election of Obama is potentially a fantastic thing, and will inevitably be an improvement on the Bush years. That said, I can't help but think that a lot of the jubilation surrounding this is as a result of the election of the first black president of the USA, which (while obviously a hugely important milestone), won't have any bearing on policy in the next four years. There is also the "anyone but Bush" factor; getting rid of that unpopular fellow was always going to be a moment of unbridled joy, and after the neoliberal economic model failed quite spectacularly during the last months of the election campaign, a republican victory was always very unlikely. The oncoming recession essentially equates to the failure of republican economic policy, more than it demonstrates the merits of the democrats economic policy. This is a good example of how it may not be merely the election of Obama that is creating this relentless tide of optimism, more the election of the candidate that was furthest from the Bush regime. Cynical, maybe, but it's sensible to be wary that this euphoria and hope may be based on less substance than the headlines suggest.

He's going to have the longest honeymoon period of any president in recent times, I just hope he uses it to implement radical change rather than petering out with a series of centrist compromises. I'd love to be proved wrong, but I suspect the latter may be the case.


And they say it's a tough time to be a pessimist! Take THAT optimism!