Obama: Challenging the Left, Pleasing the Right, Changing Little

Watching America.com has posted one of the most interesting foreign articles to date about Obama and what he represents not just for American politics, but for politics of both the left and the right in Europe and Latin America. The piece is translated from Spain’s Eldiario Exterior. It’s a must-read

It is surely the case that any conflict or division can only truly end not only when the victimizers stop victimizing but when the victims give up their victimhood and all that they gain from it. According to this excellent analysis, Obama’s success could threaten one of the major claims on which many left-wing parties around the world draw – that racial identity precludes equality of opportunity and social mobility.

Specifically, Obama is making the European left distinctly uncomfortable since his very existence as a serious presidential candidate challenges its own assumptions (self-righteousness?) regarding prejudice in American society.

Contrast the attitude of those Americans that are willing to elect Obama to President with the conditions that drove the communities of North African origin to violence in the outskirts of Paris recently. And has Scandinavia ever begotten at any time something comparable to Obama from the minorities that the State tends to treat so generously so long as they do not make too much noise?

The European and Latin right, counter-intuitively perhaps, like Obama because a) of what he will not be able to do …

the next President is going to have very little room to maneuver. He (or she) will have to stay in Iraq, intervene in the conflict between Israel and Palestine on the side of Israel, and confront global warming. If Obama can change things it will not be by the political decisions he makes, but by what he is

… but more importantly b) for the shift beyond racial division (which is a pet issue of the left) to a kind of post-racialism that he represents:

… the candidate “does not burden himself with the history of racial discrimination” with which other black leaders burden themselves, and … “he is not one of the enraged leaders from the civil right’s era.”

This huge leap “forward” in the United States would really raise the bar for those abroad who identify themselves as guardians of their own progressive societies. So much so that…

Perceiving that the racial mobility implicit to Obama’s personal history is almost too good for American society, the Latin American Left-wing has tempered its enthusiasm for the African-American senator

While the plethora of articles translated by Watching America over the last month clearly indicate that the world is incredibly excited about America’s “returning to the fold” of liberal (as opposed to Liberal) democracy were Obama to be elected, his symbolic power is great enough that he could redefine progressive politics, and therefore politics in general, in countries far from these shores.

Read the full analysis here on Watching America.com