Reflection over election

As the election of 2008 draws to a close, media analysts judged this to be one of America’s historic elections. Being the social critic that I am, I found their interpretation of a historic election for Barrack Obama’s campaign was not just based on him being the first African American and the first of Hawaiian statehood to become the next US president. Upon my analysis of this campaign, I found specific elements of constructivism starting from Obama’s announcement of his running for president to the aftermath of his presidential victory.
First, I wish to examine Obama’s campaign slogan “Yes, we can” which has become the most common phrase used by Obama’s supporters. Yet, throughout the campaign, we had various interpretations of this slogan. In the initial years of the election we deemed the slogan to mean “Yes, we can recover from the aftermath of September 11th” or “Yes, we can bring an end to the Iraq war” or even “Yes, we can put our prejudices aside and elect the first African American as president”. Fast forwarding to 2008, as the US began to feel the brutality of its economic recession, the most common analysis of the phrase became, “Yes, we can recover from this worldwide recession”. These various meanings of the phrase coincide with the constructivist ideal of identity as we establish the phrase to parallel our views of Obama’s campaign mixed with current effects and how they each affect us.
After his victory, the US was in a state of celebration and joy reminding me of the collapse of the Berlin wall. This is because the second term of George Bush has been an unfortunate setback for the US for our economy began to decline, the Iraq war was becoming increasingly unfavorable even to the War hawks in our country, and the concerns of global warming grew tense following the theatrical impact of Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of cities along the Gulf including New Orleans. With these events, there were a growing number of people who voted based upon retrospective views, which count as another aspect of constructivism.
The world also responded positively to the election, which has never been felt before particularly during FDR’s victory in 1932. I mention FDR for while the effects of our current economic crisis does not fall within the nightmarish effects of the Great Depression, its effects all over the world had similarities to it. Looking back through the history of globalization, the United States has been identified by individual nations as the supporting column of the global market because our corporations continue expanding to nations abroad and invest in foreign capital faster than any other country. Unlike the jubilation witnessed in 2008, FDR’s victory was not well recognized internationally due to the European nations who were more concerned with restarting their economy than listening to the US election. Due to the severity of the Great depression, nations were focusing upon their own status quo so as to improve their economies quickly. Putting the Great Depression aside let’s refocus on the world impact of Obama’s reelection. In Kenya, where Obama’s father was born, more people listened into the election results than any other foreign country. This was because the people in Kenya saw Obama as a prodigy for his victory as president would mean that one of their own people would be in control of the most powerful nation on Earth. Here we see the Kenyans using constructivism to emphasize their support for Obama by basing his identity upon his ancestry rather than how the US media focuses on his race. Does this mean that Obama has both the support of the US and the world in his presidency? Yes but it won’t last forever for every US president must fall at the mercy of the “First hundred days” where during this period of time Obama will have full cooperation of the US government and after that, Obama will have to go on the offensive to get his ideas passed