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Barack Obama's European tendencies aren't not in doubt. His policies on government spending, taxation, health care and carbon emissions would all tend to bring America in line with European norms, to a far greater degree than any other president of the last 40 years and probably any president ever.
And what of America's special place in the world? "I believe in American exceptionalism," Obama said on one of his trips to Europe, "just as I suspect that Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."
In other words, not at all. One cannot imagine Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Eisenhower or Reagan uttering such sentiments.
Obama told European Union parliamentarians in Strasbourg that he hailed "your dynamic union," but most Americans seem to have some vestigial knowledge that over the last 60 years, America has been more dynamic -- economically, culturally, politically, militarily -- than our friends across the Atlantic. And when presented with public policies that would make us more like Europe, Americans have tended to recoil. Examples abound... [snip]
A 58 to 35 percent majority say keep the budget deficit down even if it takes longer for the economy to recover (NBC/WSJ June). A 53 to 33 percent majority oppose more government regulation of the finance sector (Rasmussen October).
European elites support gun control and curbs on carbon emissions almost unanimously. Americans don't -- and are moving in the other direction. Support for a handgun ban has fallen from 60 percent in 1960 to 29 percent in May 2009 (Gallup) [because the criminals kept theirs]. By a 48 to 34 percent margin, Americans believe global warming is caused by long-term planetary trends rather than human activity (Rasmussen April); in 2008 it was almost exactly the other way around. [hence the extremely ratcheted up rhetoric: they must get laws on the books to take credit for when nothing happens, or they'll all be exposed as the frauds they are]
European leaders agree with Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo detention facility. Americans disagree by a 52 to 39 percent margin (NBC/WSJ June). Europeans accept a large role for unions. American approval for labor unions fell from 59 percent in 2008 to 48 percent in spring 2009, by far the lowest figure since Gallup began asking the question in 1936.
Gallup reports that 39 percent of Americans this year say their views have grown more conservative, while only 18 percent say they have become more liberal. In fact, as Europeanizing policies receive become better underston they consistently become less popular... [snip]
Americans are more individualistic and less collectivist than Western Europeans (or Canadians). The election of a president who in many ways seeks to push America in a European direction seems to have increased rather than decreased those differences.
Why? My explanation is that until November 2008, Americans did not have any reason to contemplate what a more European approach would mean in real-life terms. Now, with Obama in the White House and a heavily Democratic Congress, they do.
And they mostly don't like it.
[Now if we only lived in a country where the majority ruled we'd be in good shape.]
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