[WS:] I would say that we are deep deep down in a tunnel and the only light that we see is that of an incoming locomotive. Obama is the least of my worries - he is well within the expectations of a center-right politician. It can be much worse.
What worries me is the general attitude of the American public. The center of political activity shifted way to the right and the traditional left has all but disappeared. What used to be democratic socialists now became libertarians or center-right, and rest of the left moved way to the anarchist of lit-crit fringes. The tenor of public discourse is decidedly right wing populist or pro-business libertarian. I know that from perusing comments posted to news articles. Comments to outlets like NYT, WP, LAT, or Bloomberg overwhelmingly tend to be libertarian or center-right, whereas comments to other outlets are predominantly right wing populism and rabidly racist. That is the the state of the American mind for you - a big wasteland.
In that political climate, the fact that the guy who was elected by a rather narrow margin on popular vote does not live up to his liberal campaign promises is the least of my worries. The Bushes broke their campaign premises too, making an even bigger U turn than Obama did ("no new taxes" "no nation building"). That kind of behavior comes with the territory and it is pretty naive to expect anything else, given the nature of the American political system. What worries me is what ordinary people in this country think. It is really scary. I can deal with right wing populism in the hinterland, it has always been there, but the pro-business libertarianism of people who think of themselves as "liberals" is scary.
It offers no hope for anything else than what we have seen in the past decade or so.
I am not sure how things look outside the US of A - it is difficult to see through the filter of the English language media - but Europe looks very similar to the US. The only bright spot I have seen was in a place that many would have difficulty finding it on the map - Uzbekistan where I was at a conference a few weeks ago. There the unions appeared to be the dominant voice in the so-called civil society, the government committed to socialist policies (employment development, gender equality, environmental protection), the "markets" firmly under government control, and libertarianism unheard of. And the people tend to be very friendly - not the nasty obnoxious arrogant in-your-face variety you see in the US - or at least in the US public sphere.
America is economically, politically, and intellectually bankrupt - all that it has left is brute military force and bribery. And the Potemkin village image created by the army of marketing hacks. But the whole thing is slowly falling apart and the downhill movement produces some really nasty attitudes in the population. It always has - historically, the only outcome of political and economic decline is right wing reaction, if not outright fascism. This is a far greater concern than Obama, or for that matter any POTUS, not fulfilling his campaign promises. I wish it was only this.
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."