Says France’s Le Monde,
The United States is a country that prides itself on its insistence on the merits of individualism. Nothing is more embarrassing to this country than these great moments of collective obsession (shared, of course, with Superbowl frenzy), where every critical faculty appears to have been abandoned in the service of a universal pursuit.
And the pursuit is a grand one indeed, even messianic. Apparently, the American nation has been hanging out for a reedeemer:
Barack Obama can bring together stadiums packed with 20,000-strong crowds. He fascinates. According to author Shelby Steele, Obama offers White masses the possibility of redemption. “With Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the Whites felt white. Obama cures them of the anxiety of being white.”
Nevertheless, Obamania, it seems, is the name of a new religion in this great land… but not everyone has succumbed, and the piece from Le Monde offers a funny survey of those who haven’t (yet?!) converted.
And what does Le Monde think of it all? With feet firmly on the ground,
This is much too much. Barack Obama is but a human being, after all.
Read the article, translated from French, here on WATCHING AMERICA.com, which has ongoing foreign coverage of the U.S. elections.
Robin Koerner is a British-born citizen of the USA, who currently serves as Academic Dean of the John Locke Institute. He holds graduate degrees in both Physics and the Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge (U.K.). He is also the founder of WatchingAmerica.com, an organization of over 100 volunteers that translates and posts in English views about the USA from all over the world.
Robin may be best known for having coined the term “Blue Republican” to refer to liberals and independents who joined the GOP to support Ron Paul’s bid for the presidency in 2012 (and, in so doing, launching the largest coalition that existed for that candidate).
Robin’s current work as a trainer and a consultant, and his book If You Can Keep It , focus on overcoming distrust and bridging ideological division to improve politics and lives. His current project, Humilitarian, promotes humility and civility as a basis for improved political discourse and outcomes.