The Miracle and the Defects [Chapter] |
The Miracle and the Defects [Chapter]
Chapter in:
The Constantinos Kararnanlis Institute for Democracy Yearbook 2009
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-00621-0
pages 73-77
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-00621-0_11
Edited by:
Constantine Arvanitopoulos, Professor of European and International Studies
Panteion University, Athens, Greece
Konstantina E. Botsiou, Associate Professor of Political Science
University of Peloponnisos, Korinthos, Greece
Chapter Author:
George Th. Mavrogordatos, Professor of Political Science
University of Athens
In most of the world, the election of the 44th President of the United States was justly celebrated as an event of historic significance. It proved the irrepressible vitality of the American Dream, precisely at a time when American capitalism appeared to be crumbling. It also confirmed the unique adaptability of an admirable political system, which never ceases to evolve, even though it is based on the oldest written Constitution.
Fear of repetition or banality must not hinder the exploration and evaluation of the manifold significance that the Obama victory has on several different levels, beyond race as such. He is indeed the first African-American president, and his election was regarded as finally laying to rest a painful legacy of slavery, civil war, and discrimination. But he is also a person of mixed blood, who belongs more to the present and the future than to the past, thanks to his multiracial and multicultural background. He had to persuade not only whites, but also many blacks who understandably did not recognise him immediately as one of their own.
Moreover, he is an intellectual educated at the most elite institutions, yet capable of rousing and mobilising the poor and uneducated, without concessions at the expense of his cultured rhetorical style or his cool rationalism. Change is just as impressive in this respect, after many years of Republican disdain of the intellect and intellectuals.
How did such an unusual person, in such a short time, become President of the United States? The easy answer would be to classify him immediately as a ‘charismatic leader’ in the Weberian (not the journalistic) sense. Although it is a scientific term that should be used sparingly, many Obama supporters clearly do believe (as required by Max Weber’s definition) that he is endowed with ‘specifically exceptional powers or qualities, not accessible to the ordinary person’ or, more precisely, the ordinary politician. There were even references to ‘magic’ and to a ‘miracle.’…