So there it was, the big “E.” We’ve all spent the past few weeks dreaming in red and blue, our ears abused with endless commercials and rhetoric and now, finally, we have chosen the next president of the United States of America.
The tired faces of American politics can finally get back down to business. The business of running a country with four more years, led by a man who, regardless of your opinion, has shaped American history and will continue to do so.
This American election was far removed from the green leather seats of the house of commons. In our weaker form of bipartisanship, we vote for a party, not a president, which changes the nature of the campaign. If you speak to people in the UK about who they vote for, they will think in terms of party values. And, to some extent, that tradition extends to America. But voting for an individual candidate, one who has spent hours talking to the people via the media, almost becomes like voting for a personality, a celebrity.
It begins with the election as a spectacle. The world has watched as America televised the campaign in its entirety. Newspapers across the world gave over double-page spreads weekly in the run up to voting and every speech and political move was carefully documented and scrutinized down to the very last detail. Not just in America, but across the globe. It was like reality TV with Obama and Romney being the stars of the show. Alongside the policy and hard talk, the election itself was characterised by a deep-rooted sense of the American celebrity culture. This is how the great ‘Presidential Debate’ became distinctly American. It’s the cult of the individual that shapes American politics.
Making the election into a sort of show then becomes a comment on how voters behave. Speaking to voters here, many said that in the run up to the election they didn’t plan on voting because neither candidate appealed to them. As British commentator Justin Webb put it, these voters “want to be seduced by the politicians –spoken to personally.”
The debates are not just America’s way of molding everything into some form of entertainment, but they give the chance for the presidential candidates to speak directly to the people of America. And in this voice, each voter is waiting for the candidates to say something to them. If they don’t hear a personal address to their demands, regardless of their civic duty and the precious right to vote, they refused to make a decision.
American voters are too often quite happy to let events unfold on the big screen until they have a chance to get the fame and recognition they always wanted by being addressed by the individual presidential figurehead. The election became a chance for people to sit back and watch the show until one candidate invited them, personally, to join them on the stage. Compromise has never been an American trait.
Regardless, Obama will see the next four years through. The media here will scrutinize his every move, and relay their spin on events to the masses, many of whom will passively absorb. But for now, the election is over and we can begin to get back to the real world.
