Why did Barack Obama win the US presidential election in 2008 - Essay Example

Despite this, Barack Obama won the US presidential election in 2008 because he was able to capitalize on a sense of fatigue with the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush and instill a sense of hope to Americans throughout the country. George W. Bush’s foreign polices were his downfall and the following will demonstrate how Bush paved the way for President Obama. Without the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, the election of Barack Obama probably would have never happened. George W.

Bush was arguably the worst president in the history of the United States of America. In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th, 2001, George W. Bush did more to ruin the international reputation than any other American president in living memory. Accordingly, American unilateralism has been both an explicit and implicit policy of the present Bush Administration since the aftermath of September 11th 2001. Although the United States has historically been committed to multilateralism, collective decision-making and international rules of law, in recent times the United States has rejected foreign policy precedent and has engaged in direct military action on a unilateral basis.

Former US President Woodrow Wilson espoused multilateralism as a cure to the world’s ills and believed that concerted diplomacy, best channeled through international non-governmental organizations like the League of Nations (the precursor to today’s United Nations), was the best way to avoid international conflict and violence. Collective bargaining and international coordination in global affairs has a long and storied tradition in the United States. Arguing that the rules of the game had changed in the post-Cold War and post-9/11 world, George W.

Bush’s famously remarked that “you are either with us or against us” and set the stage for American unilateralism on a global