SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: US President Barack Obama came to power promising to unite the nation. Now he has divided it even more than his predecessor George W. Bush. The burgeoning conservative Tea Party movement is calling for Obama to be removed from office.
The auditorium in Tulsa, Oklahoma is silent for a moment, as the Walkers, a happy couple in their mid-50s, walk onto the stage. They manage an electronics store in the area, and they say that after being married for decades, they still love each other just as much as they did on the first day. They are here to demonstrate that love to the audience -- with a passionate kiss.
It's meant to be an homage to the old, forgotten America, the land of high-school sweethearts and beauty queens, where honesty, decency and loyalty still meant something. A land where the promise of the American dream -- that anyone could make it to the top -- still reigned supreme. There are 5,000 people -- ordinary people -- in the audience, including Democrats, Republicans and independents.
The Walkers are seated on two folding chairs, placed a respectable distance apart -- the old America was a chaste place, after all. They kiss a few times to the sound of country music. Then, suddenly, it gets very loud in the room.
Radio and TV talk-show host Glenn Beck is standing on the stage. He has just arrived from the Doom Room, which is what he calls the studio where he records his broadcasts. From there, he spreads a message of fear and dread of a new America, a place that no longer has anything in common with the land that the Walkers know and love. It is a country of poverty, deprivation and an omnipotent government, a cross between the Soviet Union and Hitler's Nazi Germany.
'I'm a Guy Just Like You'
People believe what Beck says. Beck is their hero, savior and guru. He has made millions by capitalizing on people's fears of the future. "Tulsa," he shouts into the cheering, grateful crowd, "I'm a guy just like you."
He now has two shows, a weekly radio show that airs on more than 300 stations nationwide, and a television show on Fox News, "Glenn Beck," which has 3 million viewers. He weeps, raves and yells on these shows. Every day, he warns his listeners and viewers that America has moved yet another step along the road to becoming a socialist dictatorship. His enemies are the "progressives," or the American left, who see Europe as their role model, says Beck.
The Europe he means is currently celebrating the reinvigorated US president, who achieved two historic victories in the space of a few days. After the controversial healthcare reform bill, which President Barack Obama recently managed to push through Congress, he signed a treaty to reduce strategic nuclear weapons in Prague last Thursday, a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) signed in 1991. It was a step that its signatories pledged would make the world a safer place.
It is a double triumph for Obama, in both domestic and foreign policy, and yet he has met with more hostility in his own country than almost any other president in history. According to a Gallup poll conducted in late March, Obama's Democrats have dropped to their lowest approval rating in almost two decades. Some 60 percent of Americans believe that America is on the wrong path and is headed for decline. What unites the world is dividing the country. America's Choice >>> Marc Hujer and Thomas Schulz | Wednesday, April 14, 2010
