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Jewish World Review
Nov. 1, 2012/ 16 Mar-Cheshvan, 5773
An election with little impact
By
Anne Applebaum
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
LONDON
“Is this presidential election really the most important in our lifetime?” That was the question asked, in so many words, by a concerned Brit at a discussion here a few days ago. His words were directed at the political analyst Larry Sabato, whose countenance had been beamed onto a conference-room screen like some giant electronic guru. Sabato didn’t blink. “This presidential election,” he replied, “is definitely the most important since 2008.” Appreciative laughter followed, but the audience wasn’t entirely satisfied. For the British — as for most Europeans and, indeed, most other foreigners — that aspect of this election is extremely hard to understand. Is the 2012 presidential race “important”? That is, will it mark a momentous change in U.S. foreign policy and attitudes toward the world — or will its result make no difference at all? The source of the confusion is clear. Shards of harsh rhetoric from this nasty campaign drift across the Atlantic. Many Europeans are aware that some Americans think Barack Obama is a Marxist-socialist, bent on destroying the United States, while others think Mitt Romney is a vulture capitalist who will rob the poor to feed the rich. The British in particular like to ooh and aah over the stacks of cash Republicans and Democrats are spending in the apparent belief that the outcome matters a great deal. At the same time, this election has received less serious coverage abroad than any I can remember. Foreigners were intrigued by Bill Clinton and indulgent of his peccadillos. Every word that George W. Bush uttered on the campaign trail was repeated with fascinated horror. Barack Obama’s biography was discussed in lavish detail throughout 2008, along with the inevitable question, “Will Americans vote for a black man?” (I told them we would; they didn’t believe me.) This time around, things are different. Until recently, Romney functioned in the British media largely as the punch line for jokes, thanks to his ill-favored visit just ahead of the Summer Olympics. Only lately have people begun to grapple with the amazing idea that he might become president — though the possibility that Obama might lose isn’t causing a lot of heartbreak. Obama remains the favored candidate in most of the world — Europeans prefer the president to Romney in ranges of 60 to 70 percent — but I can’t find anyone in London who lost much sleep over Obama’s poor performance in the first debate. There are multiple reasons for this indifference, starting with the fact that people no longer believe, as many once did, that an American president can solve all of their problems. Neither Obama nor Romney would be in a position to do much about the euro crisis. Neither could create effective governments in Egypt or Libya. Neither could render Russia less corrupt or China less nepotistic. The myth of America as an all-seeing, all-knowing superpower persists in a few places — ironically, one hears it most often in the Arab world — but most everywhere else it is long gone. Perhaps outsiders have also begun to understand something that not all Americans yet realize: The U.S. president has limited ability to shape events in his own country. One wouldn’t know that from listening to the campaigns: It is in the incumbent’s interest to take credit for everything good in the world — and in the challenger’s interest to blame him for everything bad. As a result of this kind of talk, any American president nowadays is held personally responsible for everything from oil spills to security of consulates. Although they like to think otherwise, many Americans have come to expect far more of their government than they used to, and some of those expectations now rest on the White House. And yet — as the dead-heat polling illustrates, the United States is still a 50-50 nation. Whoever wins on Nov. 6 is likely to face a split Congress, which means he will not have a free hand with the budget, health care or other major programs. Around the world, either man would face the same unenviable policy choices in Afghanistan, Syria and Iran. Either will find it difficult to deal with the prickly leaders of China and Russia. Neither will have unquestioned authority to make peace in the Middle East or unchallenged control over the U.N. Security Council. Above all, neither candidate will find that his election or reelection has, all by itself, much of an impact. The inauguration of Barack Obama did not automatically make America more popular all over the world, and the election of Mitt Romney would not automatically make America more respected, more powerful or more hated. So, does this election matter? Yes, of course. It’s the most important presidential election since 2008.
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APPLEBAUM'S LATEST
Gulag: A History
Nearly 30 million prisoners passed through the Soviet Union's labor camps in their more than 60 years of operation. This remarkable volume, the first fully documented history of the gulag, describes how, largely under Stalin's watch, a regulated, centralized system of prison labor-unprecedented in scope-gradually arose out of the chaos of the Russian Revolution. Fueled by waves of capricious arrests, this prison labor came to underpin the Soviet economy. JWR's Applebaum, a former Warsaw correspondent for the Economist and a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, draws on newly accessible Soviet archives as well as scores of camp memoirs and interviews with survivors to trace the gulag's origins and expansion Sales help fund JWR.
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Comment on JWR contributor Anne Applebaum's column by clicking here.
Previously:
07/121/12: Obama and Romney prove that radical populism in America has failed spectacularly
03/08/12: Behind Putin's victory
02/08/12: Russia's Potemkin democracy
10/28/11: What Libya has inherited from Moammar Gaddafi
10/19/11: The global protests may actually undermine democracy rather than strengthen it
08/24/11: Let Libya take charge of its revolution
08/11/11: Conclusions we can't draw about London's riots
06/07/11: What to do about Libya's stalemate?
04/13/11: Will the Libya intervention bring the end of NATO?
04/05/11: Why has the State Department run into a firewall on Internet freedom?
03/29/11: Are we bombing Tripoli to keep Nicolas Sarkozy in power?
03/22/11: The Key to Success in Libya Is Setting Low Expectations
02/22/11: In the Arab world, it's 1848 - not 1989
02/08/11: U.S. deeds don't follow U.S. words on Egypt
01/01/11: When oil prices rise, Russia has freedom over a barrel
12/28/10: Jeopardizing democracy in Hungary
12/21/10: In Belarus, a slide toward Eastern aggression
12/14/10: In Britain, outrage without a thoughtful outlet
12/07/10: How WikiLeaks' new release will increase secrecy and damage democratic governments
11/30/10: In seeking free speech, Wikileaks strikes a blow against honest speech
11/23/10: A NATO for the 21st century
11/16/10: A model for scrimping --- in Europe?
11/09/10: As Alaska Goes . . .
10/26/10: Jon Stewart's march is no laughing matter
10/12/10: The rise of the ordinary elite
10/05/10: The Government That Cried Wolf
09/28/10: China's quiet power grab
09/14/10: Mind the austerity gap : What the U.S. could learn from Britain's cuts
09/07/10: In Europe, it's no longer East vs. West
08/10/10: Take your medicine, Tom Sawyer
07/29/10: Wikileaks busts myth about the irrelevance of mainstream media
07/07/10: Democracy in trouble
06/22/10: Buzz off? : What to do about the vuvuzela
06/08/10: Germany's dangerous code of silence
06/02/10: Can the Brits play nice?
05/11/10: Greece's stubborn surrender
05/04/10: Another human-rights irony at the U.N.
04/27/10: Britain's spot of Tea Party
04/13/10: Out of tragedy, a detente of sorts between Russia, Poland
03/25/10: From Britain's Tories, lessons for the GOP
03/16/10: Britain and America both have center-left leaders, but the two nations are further apart than ever
03/09/10: Germany Is Tired of Paying Europe's Bills
03/02/10: Chile will survive the earthquake because its democracy works
02/23/10: Prepare for war with Iran in case Israel strikes
02/17/10: America's Greek tragedy?
02/09/10: The Big Problem With Big Solutions
01/26/10: India's model of reflective patriotism
01/12/10: Haiti's man-made disasters
01/12/10: We need a smarter way to fight the jihadi elite
01/05/10: How every year we waste millions on wasteful homeland-security projects
12/30/09: The next decade will be bad for authoritarian regimes except one
12/15/09: The Apocalypse Is Not Upon Us
11/24/09: Superpower without a partner
11/17/09: Why has the global response to swine flu been so politicized?
11/10/09: After the wall fell
11/03/09: Angela Merkel's Quiet Revolution
10/20/09: Will the President of Europe Be a Gifted Pol or a Compromising Bureaucrat?
09/29/09:What Is Iran Afraid Of?
09/22/09: Letting Europe Drift
09/17/09: Greed and fear are proving stronger than companies' commitment to free speech
09/08/09: Will Obama Fight For Afghanistan?
09/01/09: The Polish Prologue
08/20/09: Why Afghans Need a Vote
07/29/09: No Burqa For Clinton
07/14/09: The Summit of Green Futility
07/09/09: Obama Puts Medvedev Ahead of Putin
06/30/09: In Morocco, an alternative to Iran
06/23/09: An overlooked force in Iran
06/16/09: Some good in a bad election
06/09/09: Why Is the Right Doing So Well in Europe?
06/02/09: Is China Pulling Strings in North Korea?
05/26/09: What a Member of Parliament Deserves
04/22/09: The Twitter Revolution That Wasn't
04/14/09: Do we really need interactive exhibits to bring Jefferson to life?
04/07/09: No Nukes? No Thanks: Obama's odd obsession with universal nuclear disarmament
03/31/09: What's Loud, Unnecessary, and Costs $75 Million?
03/23/09: Ctrl-Alt-Diplomacy
03/03/09: European Disunion
02/24/09: Who cares what Hillary Clinton says to China's leaders about human rights?
02/17/09: Witless protection
02/10/09: Our Ticket Out of Afghanistan
01/27/09:Why some foreigners can't believe Obama won the presidency fair and square
01/20/09: A Flight Test for All of Us
01/14/09: Europe's New Cold War
01/07/09: Pointless Peace Proposals
12/30/08: The magnificent rhetorical legacy of the Founding Fathers
12/23/08: Do riots in Athens portend demonstrations in Paris and Cincinnati?
12/16/08: Breach of Trust: Bernard Madoff's massive fraud will cripple American capitalism
12/09/08: In praise of charismatic politicians
12/03/08: Moscow's Empire of Dust
11/20/08: Getting Past Mythmaking In Georgia
11/12/08: In Praise of Political Rock Stars
10/03/08: Election Day myths you must resist
09/30/08: Not just a metaphor: Lehman Brothers was economic's 9/11
09/04/08: Class of '64
08/28/08: Did Hillary really help the Barack cause?
08/27/08: Show of Power, Indeed
08/19/08: What Is Russia Afraid Of?
08/13/08: When China Starved
08/11/08: Two of the world's rising powers are strutting their stuff
08/05/08: How Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago changed the world
07/29/08:The Hour of Europe Tolls Again … But are European politicians up to the task?
07/15/08: Why Does Obama Want To Campaign in Berlin?
07/01/08: Citizen Athletes: How did a guy who can't speak Polish end up scoring Poland's only goal of Euro 2008?
06/24/08: Why do we expect presidential candidates to be kind?
06/17/08: Pity the Poor Eurocrats
06/12/08: Is the World Ready for a Black American President?
05/28/08: The Busiest Generation: America seems to value its children's status and achievements over their happiness
05/20/08: Leave Hitler Out of It: The craze for injecting the Nazis into political debate must end
05/13/08: A Drastic Remedy: The case for intervention in Burma
05/07/08: A Warning Shot From Moscow?
04/23/08: Radio to stay tuned to
04/17/08: China learns the price of a few weeks of global attention
04/01/08: Head scarves are potent political symbols
03/26/08: The Olympics are the perfect place for a protest
03/19/08: Could Tibet bring down modern China?
03/12/08: Have political autobiographies made us more susceptible to fake memoirs?
03/05/08: Why does Russia bother to hold elections?
02/20/08: Kosovo is a textbook example of the law of unintended consequences
02/06/08: A Craven Canterbury Tale
02/06/08: French prez' whirlwind romance reminds voters of his political recklessness
© 2009, Anne Applebaum. By permission of the author
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