Martin Gelin's America, part I

Esteemed Swedish journalist Martin Gelin recently released his story on the arrival and success of Barack Obama. Det Amerikanska Löftet (The American Promise) documents his two years of traveling across the United States, portraying Barack Obama, the people who supported him, and the sense of new hope in America.

So far I have read the first two chapters and it is a pretty good read. Gelin is a good descriptor of social environments and has great knowledge of American history and politics, making sure that his story is not just one of Barack Obama but also of American society in general. In my reviewing and analyzing of Gelin's book I will try not to have Obama as a person as the main focus, but his views on America from a Swedish perspective.
He begins by noting, and comes back to several times already in the first 60 pages, that there is a great divide between America's high and big ideals and its actual reality. He denotes, as many America-descriptors before him, a sort of disappoint that the US does not live up to the ideological standards it claims. But Gelin also sees this "gorge" between ideal and reality as what makes American politics and society interesting:

"it is in the dynamics between ideals and reality that the unique story of the US always drew its power from, and it is there that this motley, huge, impossible country has found its unison direction further, toward something better".

It is in this dynamic, the will to live up its high standards and ideals of democracy, possibility, liberty, and "justice for all", that the campaign of Barack Obama could thrive, according to Gelin. It really did, according to the author, give people (especially the young, and African-Americans) hope, that change was possible. He notes that something had gone lost in the years of Bush and Cheney; "something basic in the American idea, the American values and the American optimism about the future, had begun to be questioned". Gelin continues by saying that "the US as a nation has always been obsessed with the myth about itself", but that after the Bush-years it was like "that very myth itself was about to die". Gelin brings up increasing disappoint with the Iraq-war, tax-breaks for the wealthy, the poor handling of the Katrina-disaster, as examples of peoples' lost faith in the American ideals, or the American myth. It is an important note, which has been done before though, that a new presidency if often a reaction to the previous. George W. Bush named his foreign policy "ABC" (Anything But Clinton), and the reason why Obama could speak so much about hope and change, was the Americans' increasing disillusionment and disappointment with their political leadership.

To talk something about Gelin's views on America as a foreigner looking in from the outside, we can say that he follows a long tradition. Many before him have expressed disappointment that America does not live up to its ideals, and some scholars have claimed that is in that disappointment that make up much of the starting ground for (at least Western) anti-Americanism. Others have also, like the Swedish journalist, talked about the Americans ideals as "high and mighty", to denote them as being somewhat "ridiculous" or too "high-flying" (my wording). Coming from Sweden, this might be a natural reaction as we have a much smaller sense of what, idea-wise, is "Swedish" and we rarely speak of the "Swedish way of life" or Swedish ideals. Often we can not agree on what it really is to be Swedish, whereas it is often quite clear what it means to be American (patriotic and individualistic, for instance).

I will continue to review and analyze Gelin's autopsy of American society as I read more and more of it. As one of the largest volumes written recently on America from a Swede, it is definitely worth talking about.