Leadership is the ability to instill confidence in people that your plan is the right one, and the courage and resolve to face urgent challenges. Barack Obama embodies these qualities of leadership, and was rewarded by re-election.
President Obama faces a tough road ahead, but there’s no doubt that he is the right person for the job. In 2008, Obama campaigned on a platform of hope and change, mobilizing millions of people who wanted to see America become a more just and fair society. Four years later, many people who supported that vision are disappointed, and that’s understandable. But it remains Obama’s goal to change America for the better.
During the his first term, Obama passed the Affordable Care Act, legislation that makes health care more affordable and improves access, giving coverage to millions of previously uninsured Americans. Obama also rescued a struggling auto industry, saving countless jobs. Finally, he stabilized America’s economy during the recession through stimulus packages designed to promote growth. These moves have been criticized as adding to an already astronomically-high deficit; critics think Obama should be cutting social programs and lowering the debt.
The problem with this argument, and the alternatives proposed by the president’s Republican opponents, is that they would hurt the average American. Cutting social services and programs harms those people that depend on these resources, such as low-income families and the unemployed. The idea that wealthy individuals should not contribute more to lowering the deficit than those who can barely afford to contribute is morally and ethically wrong. Obama believes, as do the millions of Americans who voted for him, that the wealthy should pay higher taxes to ease the financial crunch. He believes that people who need medical attention should not go bankrupt in order to pay for proper treatment, and he believes that the government should provide services to those who need them.
Obama’s beliefs, and those of Democrats more generally, stand in stark contrast to Republicans’ deeply individualist view of self-help and small government. Republicans’ arguments for self-help instead of government help would be comical if they were not so absolutely out of touch with public sentiments and the idea of the modern state. How are people supposed to help themselves if they lack the resources to get started? Moreover, what justifies the idea that the best way to tackle the deficit is to cut social spending, rather than raising taxes on wealthy Americans? It is quite clear that the Republican Party is aloof and unaware of the average American’s sentiments following the recession.
Most young people — facing bleak job prospects, high tuition, and higher student debt — are sympathetic to the idea that social programs should not be cut. They tend to support more state investment in education and services, not less. Minority voters, who often find themselves on the low- to middle-income scale, also do not believe social services should be cut. Women, who voted in droves for Obama, do not believe that a party with an outlook that is, by all accounts, outdated should impinge upon their rights. Members of the LGBT community voted for Obama because he finally declared his support for marriage equality. These voters reflect the changing nature of American society, which would appear to be increasingly liberal and concerned with social justice.
Obama represents hope and change, while his Republican rivals represent the status quo and an increasingly savage struggle to maintain it. There is reason to be optimistic and to believe: the US economy is showing signs of recovery, clearly stabilized and helped by the stimulus plans. In the end, the American people realized that their president was not to blame for the subpar economic performance; they realize that most of the world is going through similar struggles, and while many governments have turned to austerity measures to cut their deficits, the American people have indicated that they want growth coupled with social justice. The privilege of low taxes granted to the American elite is no longer one that the population at large accepts. While there must be budget cuts, Obama will make sure that they are as painless as possible by raising taxes for those who can afford to pay more.
The re-election of Barack Obama reflects the path that America has decided to chart. Social justice has won out over individualism and petty financial concerns; civil rights have defeated outdated views.
