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Photo courtesy of Joe Crimmings

Huddled around a small TV in my office, I and many others watched the 44th President of the United states get sworn in. For the last year+ I have watched Obama fever sweep not only the States, but Canada and many other countries. It wasn’t until yesterday, seeing an entire office stand still to watch the inauguration, that I realized the social impact of Obama, at least for my generation.

To me, it seems easy to step back and look at the bandwagon that has rolled through our country. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of Obama supporters who like his policies and vision, but there are many who like him for all the wrong reasons. The reason that always bugged me the most was: “I like him because George Bush is stupid” (or some variation). There are just so many things wrong with that statement. I noticed also that the Obama wagon is being led by the “Anti-Bush” wagon, which swept Canada long before the most recent election. If you walk into Sid. Smith and question a random student about American politics, more times than less, the conversation will likely turn to the many follies of the Bush administration.

For the last 8 years, bashing Bush seemed like a common ground between students both politically active, and not. It was a very easy bar conversation to enter because it wasn’t hard to learn about instances where Bush did something horribly embarrassing. I usually tend to avoid political conversations, especially in bars. To me, it seems very difficult to see all the facts when you aren’t actively looking, but it’s very easy to see superficial things and talk about them. There are hundreds of “Bush highlight” videos which showcase his terrible public speaking, but very few that talk about highlights in his campaign. Why? Likely because the latter involves a lot more research and understanding of all the issues at hand (an understanding that I won’t pretend to have). If it seems like everyone hates the guy, why was he elected twice?  If you say, “I can’t imagine anyone who actually likes Bush“, think about the 60+ Million Americans who voted for him in 2004. I think a lot of people forget, or are easy to ignore the idea that if Gore had won 8 years ago, 9/11 would still have happened, Katrina would still have devastated New Orleans, and the American housing/economy crisis would still have happened.*

The Bush administration, in the eye of the media, has been portrayed as a joke. Mass media on the Internet, generated by young, like-minded people, has a generally low opinion of the charisma lacking from Bush. From a nation that used to absolutely idolize their leaders, came a nation that laughed in the face of their leader and turned their back on him (some for better reasons than others). Then along came Barack Obama, a charismatic icon of change and hope. The media, and more so, the Internet, has been flooded with pro-Obama everything. The worst thing I could find on Obama was a fake video of him breakdancing…

When I watched the inauguration yesterday afternoon, and the camera panned through the crowds and showed their faces, I saw something that I haven’t seen in a long time: confidence. America needs someone to believe in, someone to trust while the country rebuilds itself. The fact that reality show stars are more popular than the (now former) President of the most powerful nation in the world is absolutely appalling. The excuse that “the young MTV generation aren’t old enough to worry about politics” isn’t sufficient, as current 15-20 year olds are the ones that will make up the workforce when I leave University.

Amazingly, our generation, the media, and the Internet has latched onto something new. Making fun of Bush is now old and taboo. America, at least about 68% of it, have been instilled with confidence. People are once again excited about politics. Though I previously criticized the Obama band wagon, I feel like it has created excitement for an otherwise boring (to many people) topic. Interest, confidence, and hope are extremely important ingredients to any solution to bail out America from its current slump. For the first time (maybe since post-WW2), it is cool to be American, maybe because they now have a leader whose charisma has been noticed beyond the American borders.

As a final thought, I am left in a bit of conflict. Earlier, I frowned upon the superficial and blind bashing of George Bush, but I am now wary of the resulting easy acceptance of his successor. Obama will not fix the country overnight, contrary to the unfortunate belief of some. He has been handed the keys to a beat up used car and is expected to drive away in a Porsche. The next 4 years are going to be very pivotal in terms of America as an economic superpower, and Canadians will certainly feel the results. It scares me to think about how much people expect from Obama, and how little many know about the seriousness of the crisis in the states. Bailout this, crisis that, “yeah it sucks” — no, it is REALLY, REALLY bad. The spotlight is fixed on Obama, who is being asked to fix problems I personally think are close to unfixable. But pessimism is more conservative then optimism, and I have always considered myself a pessimist.

Is confidence and hope more dangerous then no confidence at all?
At least no one would be disappointed if Bush failed to save the American economy.

*Conspiracy theories aside, these events may have been handled differently/more elegantly, but nonetheless, they would have happened.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.