Percentage changes in countries' favorable views of the U.S., 2005-2009:
India: +5
China: +5
Indonesia: +25
Britain: +15
France: +34
Germany: +22
Spain: +17
Poland: +5
South Korea: +32 (from 2004)
Brazil: +26 (from 2003)
U.S.: +5
That's right. Our own favorability rating of our own country went up by 5 percentage points since the last presidential election cycle (and in case you were wondering, it's at +8 since 2007). Obama's election has made us more patriotic.
In the negative column, we have:
Russia: -8
Israel: -7 (from 2003)
Turkey: -9
Japan: -4 (from 2006)
Pakistan: -7
In world opinion, basically, Europe likes us a LOT more, Latin America likes us a little more, Asia (ex-China) and Africa still basically like us, China is ambivalent about us, and the Middle East still hates our guts.
Though the world mostly loves Obama, it wasn't Obama that created this turnabout; he's hardly had time to do anything, policy-wise. It was the American public who did it, by showing that we recognized that Bush was a mistake, and acted to correct our mistake. Throughout history, most countries that let bad regimes come to power end up doubling down (see: fascists, communists, one-party states). We didn't. That means American exceptionalism - our almost unique capacity for rapid self-correction - is still in effect. That's definitely a reason to be patriotic.
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