Saturday, October 13, 2012

Football Politics

I was living in Chicago during the last American Presidential election. It was 2008 and Tobias and I were still dating. I remember him waking up with me early in the morning so I could be one of the first in line to vote at the church around the corner from my building. Later that night we celebrated the historical victory with friends and champagne. We could hear the cheers from Grant Park, nearly 2 miles away, when Obama took the stage to accept the Presidency. It was an incredible evening. 

Six months later I moved to Denmark.

I have been gone for the majority of Obama's Presidency in the U.S. and have only seen progress or discontent through the eyes of the Danish media, my American friends' Facebook posts, and discussions with family back home. When the Affordable Health Care Act was passed, it was deemed a success when talking to friends and colleagues in Denmark. This of course was coming from a place where there is a good public health system, and a private option as well, functioning side by side. It is also coming from a mindset where people are happy to take care of others and health care is a human right, not a personal responsibility. In terms of foreign policy and approach, the Obama administration has made being an American living abroad a pleasant experience. Not like when Bush was in office and most Americans claimed they were Canadians whenever they traveled abroad, to eliminate the uncomfortable dialogue and scary anger felt towards the U.S. at the time.

Despite my lack of physical presence in the country of my birth during the past 3.5 years, I have still been able to follow Obama's successes and losses (for the most part) due to Denmark's global news focus and interest in American politics. It has actually surprised me how much the majority of Danes identify with the U.S. in terms of language and culture versus England, who is their next door neighbor. This fascination with American culture has enabled some great conversations allowing me to elaborate on my country's politics and reflect a little bit as well. One thing that strikes me as needing an immediate modification is the limitation of a 2 party political system, who's ideals are too far apart to make any real progress in 4 or 8 years, depending on which party is currently in office. This creates a football politics situation where two parties are too busy fighting with each other or winning the office, that no real progress is ever made. Any time one party is in office, it seems to be the goal of the other party to get them out of office as quickly as possible. As long as they continue to go back and forth tearing down what the other party implemented, no real progress is ever going to be made.

In Denmark there are 9 political parties. In the U.K. there are now 3 strong parties. In Germany there are 2 major parties and 3 minor parties and in France it is a multi-party system as well. I am not saying the U.S. needs to look to Europe for guidance in any way. I have just found myself trying to answer the baffled looks as to why the system is the way it is in the U.S., more than once. Believe me, I refer to the online version of Wikipedia, as well as the human version (also known as my husband) a lot when this happens.


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