Anger? What anger?

What sank President Obama and the Democrats was well-founded frustration with a limping economy, a partisan agenda and muddled foreign policy.

Brian Stauffer / New York Times

Yes we can... tell the political establishment that we are not satisfied with the government and governance of our country.

This was the message sent extremely loudly and with a piercing clarity by the American electorate to the Democrats, the major mainstream newspapers and television and radio stations and even to those demigods Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

Stewart in particular deserves a metaphorical slap after explaining to his unthinking followers at his publicity stunt rally in Washington DC last weekend that he had nothing against people of faith and against middle America. Actually he patronises, mocks and insults Christians and men and women who embrace traditional US values on a weekly basis and is paid millions of dollars for it.

But this isn’t about snide broadcasters – not of any significance in the long term anyway – but about a people who were told that others knew better and have finally turned around and replied that it just isn’t so.

The list is impressive. One half of the bicameral system lost to the Republicans in a reversal not seen in more than two generations. The Senate still in Democrat hands but with a massively reduced majority. The likely removal of that icon of liberal arrogance Nancy Pelosi. The obstruction of the President’s legislative initiatives. And -- important this -- the preventing of funding to his healthcare proposals.

An ugly, difficult time for any sitting President and a particularly hard one for a man who has assumed so much for so long. Contrary to what the propaganda has told us Barack Obama is not a politician who likes to compromise or sees the merit in alternative arguments. I’d hate to be one of his advisors in the next two years and it could be that we’ll see an increasingly angry and petulant leader in the White House.

Anger, of course, was what we were told was the motivating factor among the voters. Americans weren’t disappointed or simply intelligently opposed to their leaders but were bursting with ignorance and hysteria.

This, at least, was the analysis projected on ordinary Americans by journalists and experts who consider themselves anything but ordinary. Thing is, these were merely people exercising their democratic rights and constitutional obligations and voting in an election. That they voted contrary to what most journalists wanted doesn’t make them angry.

Indeed we saw far more anger from opponents of former President Bush when crowds of people screamed poison and malice at the man, when those experts (yes, they never go away) insulted him and directors even made hopeful movies about his assassination. This was genuine anger.

What we saw this week was less anger than sheer frustration that the spending of unimaginable amounts of money had resulted in hardly any improvement to the economy, an unemployment rate still at 10 percent and a housing crisis that may even be getting worse. A President who was elected on hyperbole – some of his most enthusiastic supporters had no idea what he actually proposed to do – seemed largely impotent when faced with tangible problems. What he did appear to possess was a personal agenda that surpassed anything held by a Clinton or Carter, let alone a Bush or Reagan. Here was a man who appeared and appears to like the idea of his United States but positively dislike the reality of modern America.

Incessant praise for and pride in one’s country can become tedious but an adamant refusal to show love for a homeland is something far worse. If George W. Bush had sometimes indulged too quickly and deeply in hard-edge patriotism, Barack Obama gave the impression that he positively detested the flag and faith tradition that epitomises the country he leads. President Kennedy was no model of the Presidency but his desire to change the country embraced and included the fundamentals of Americanism and devotion to nationhood.

Obama is something different and that has bled through even to people who voted for him so recently. This is significant. Republicans were motivated and mobilised in this election but voters who had always supported Obama and who are traditionally more Democrat than Republican – the Roman Catholic vote, for example, swung dramatically away from the President – either refused to vote or turned to the Republicans.

In fact while Washington’s economic policy has been less than convincing – and the credit resources and loan ease of the United States should make life far better for Obama than for European and Latin American leaders – the government’s foreign policy has arguably been even worse.

For supporters of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the President has been too passive; for opponents of the wars he has not done enough and has failed on his promises.

On the crucial issue of the Middle East Obama has been a disaster. Iran feels empowered by his positions and it certainly did not go unnoticed that he took so long to condemn the beating and killing of pro-democracy protestors in the streets of Teheran. Israel and Palestine are a mess and one of the few issues the two groups can agree on is that Obama has made matters worse. This is not a partisan reaction. President Clinton was personally involved and formed relationships with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, President Bush spoke of a Palestinian state but reassured the Israelis.

President Obama has made both sides feel rejected and sometimes despised. His personal abuse of Prime Minister Netanyahu – he left the man alone in a room in Washington as a virtual prisoner and refused to see him – will likely never be forgiven.

He reached out to the Islamic world and was given a humiliating response, his popularity in Europe has fallen by more than 25 percent and even Jon Stewart (see above for snide broadcasters) found the courage to ask him some deeply critical questions on The Daily Show.

Here lies a central reason for the election results. Not The Daily Show with its mere 2 million viewers but how Obama reacted to what were entirely reasonable journalistic questions. He seemed annoyed, even petulant. He doesn’t like being challenged and the arrogance that many had warned about before he was elected President is showing itself to the greater public. From being eminently likeable, he has become to many Americans eminently difficult to like.

So a combination of poor responses to a severe economic crisis, a failed foreign policy, the apparent elevating of a partisan agenda above national interest and personal arrogance leads to an electoral disaster.

I’m not entirely sure why this should be dismissed as anger. If anyone has shown anger it is President Obama and his supporters. If they were angry then, imagine how they will be now. This could well be a one-term Presidency and while Republicans will obviously rejoice in that, the more acute challenge for Obama is that an increasing number of Democrats are also smiling at the thought.

Michael Coren is a broadcaster and writer living in Toronto, Canada.

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