Profile and the Ideology of Barrack Hussein Obama

evening of November 6, 2012, Obama was announced the winner of the election, gaining a second four-year term as president. Early election results indicated a close race. By midnight on Election Day, however, Obama had received more than 270 electoral votes —the number of votes required to win a U.S. presidential election; later results showed that the president had won nearly 60 percent of the electoral vote, as well as the popular vote by more than 1 million ballots. Barack Obama officially began his second term on January 21, 2013. The inauguration was held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Obama told the crowd gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol building. In his inaugural address, Obama called the nation to action on such issues as climate change, health care and marriage equality. In sum, Obama really takes the equality among his citizen as the value that every individual should be taken for granted in order to achieve the liberty as the way to make true of what so called by the American Dreams. He takes a position that is to support the available shared beliefs ideology in the United States. He knows exactly what words to be put in his address that can give the sense of involvement in the mind of th e citizens. This may be one of Obama‘s ways to win the heart of the citizens. Avner Falk 2010 says: ―Obama knows the grave danger posed by political ideologies. They are rigid, trapped in black-and-white, either-or, us-and-them thinking, and he must steer clear of any ideology, whether all-liberal or all-conservative. Values, in contrast, are flexible, and they adapt themselves to people‘s real needs and feelings. He believes that the difference between values and ideologies was crucial: values were applied to facts, whereas ideology ignores facts that call it into question .‖ Falk, 2010: 286 From the citation, it is known that Obama as a politician fully understands the concept of ideology and its importance in his political strategy. Obama is in the middle of conservatism and the liberalism but his nationalism seems to be his pride in being an American. Nationalism focuses upon two notions. First is the attitude that the members of a nation have when they care about their national identity. Second are the actions that the members of a nation take when seeking to achieve some form of political sovereignty. From those focuses, Obama has shown the first and the second notions. His attitude toward his national identity has spoken in his address. He says, ―Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America 42, XI, a. ‖ He is the president of the United States and this quoted address really represents his national identity. By saying so, as the member of American society, he sustains his political autonomy in reforming the nation in the way he proposes. As an American, where a republic maintains the democracy, Obama occurs to hold the democratic ideal of liberal democracy. In liberal democracy, the liberty of individual is stressed and the majority of people rule the country as long as the majority does not try to deprive individuals or the minorities of their basic rights. There are three rights held by this ideal. They are the rights to speak, to run public office, and to own property. Ball and Dagger, 2007

3. The Recent Issues and Global Challenge faced by American

Review of recent issues and global challenge faced by American is needed in this discussion. To know the background of the social, economic, and politic condition, discourse criticism would be easier to do because of the language in a discourse that cannot be separated from the reality faced by members of the public. When Obama took office, he inherited a global economic recession, two ongoing foreign wars and the lowest international favorability rating for the United States ever. He campaigned on an ambitious agenda of financial reform, alternative energy, and reinventing education and health care all while bringing down the national debt. In the economy review of Outline of the U.S. Economy 2012, he gains positive outcome. ―The financial intervention is credited with averting a catastrophe. Blinder and Zandi estimate that, without the government‘s response, 8.5 million more jobs would have been lost in 2010 and the economy would have suffered a widespread price collapse. ‖ Namba, 2012: 37 As stated in the review, the government has succeeded the economic stimulus that is purposed to open the new market both home and abroad resulting million jobs. Because these issues were intertwined with the economic well-being of the nation, he believed all would have to be undertaken simultaneously. ―Since his first day in office, President Obama has focused on laying the foundation for an economy built to last —creating jobs for American workers, cutting taxes for middle class families and small businesses, investing in education, manufacturing and American- made energy, and making sure everyone plays by the same rules, from Main Street to Wall Stre et.‖ http:www.whitehouse.govsnapshotsoverview June 4, 2013, 10.51 a.m. President Obama was at the opposition side to the former President George W. Bush on issue of Iraq war. Obama was still a state senator when he spoke against a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq during a rally at Chicagos Federal Plaza in October 2002. I am not opposed to all wars. Im opposed to dumb wars, he said. www.biography.compeoplebarack-obama- 12782369?page=3. He was not into unnecessary war since it only brings misery to the world and insecurity to the American citizens as well. When Obama took office in January 2009, the United States was in the midst of a deep recession, losing over 800,000 jobs per month. Therefore, in his term of office, he focuses more on rising of t he nation‘s economic stability.

C. Review on the Ideologies of America

This part is made to stand alone in order to give specific reviews on the ideologies which are embraced by the America Citizens. This part is going to explain the ideologies in detail. Therefore, the writer explains the ideologies based on the previously mentioned above. In America, the most dominant ideologies as the system belief that are shared together are liberty, freedom, and equality, democracy, law, and nationalism. Here, they are going to stand in one by one to see each definition and character. Later, it hopefully helps the analysis of the ideology in the President Obama‘s Inaugural Address.

1. Liberty, Freedom, and Equality

The first three to be explained are liberty, freedom, and equality. They contain more or less the same assessment. The notion of liberty is firstly taken from A Locke Dictionary of Philosopher Yolton, 1993. Liberty is seen as part of man‘s possession, along with life and prosperity so that the function of civil government is the protection of all these possessions. It is believed that man is born with the natural liberty that is ‗to be free from any Superior Power on Earth, not free from God or from the constraints or guides of the law or, in civil society, the positive laws.