The European View of the United States
Posted in politics on 10. Sep, 2008
My husband, Kevin, recently came home from a European business trip. Over the course of a week and a half, he visited Poland, England and Ireland. Even though he was across the Atlantic Ocean, he knew exactly what was going on in America because of the constant European news coverage of the Democratic and Republican conventions.
Given the time frame and the pervasive news, the first question everyone asked him when they found out he was an American was, “So, who are you going to vote for in the election?” Kevin honestly answered, “I don’t know, yet.” And then usually the inquisitor would go off on Bush. They love Obama and they see McCain as another four years of what we’ve had for the past eight.
And it wasn’t like 75 percent liked Obama and 25 percent preferred McCain. No. Of those Europeans who were vocal about it (which was nearly all of them) a hundred percent liked Obama and think there is no way he can possibly lose in November. In fact, Kevin surprised most of his colleagues when he informed them that the American election is most likely going to be another close race, and that while the media coverage they see over there has all but anointed Obama as president, the Europeans aren’t seeing any coverage of the Americans in the red Republican states.
We’ve all heard the news tell us that Americans are hated everywhere, but my husband found this to not be the case. He said that while the Europeans hated Bush, they didn’t mind Americans so much. They were able to separate American citizens from the things our government has done. Everyone he encountered was respectful, curious about us, and surprised that the image of America that they see on TV isn’t necessarily true.
