As the American mid-terms approach in a few days, and the Democratic party receive what is increasingly looking like a brutal kicking, I can't help but be more than a little despondent.
As with most democracies, elections turn on a segment of the electorate known as swinging voters. They swing left and right according to the current national mood. This year, apparently, as in 1994, this group will swing violently to the right after only 20 months of a new regime that promised a great deal but hasn't had a chance to deliver on much.
In 2008 we all remember that elation at the election not only of the first black president, but also the prospect of real and lasting change not only in the character of American politics but also perhaps in world realpolitik. In the months that have elapsed, President Obama has withdrawn troops from Iraq and delivered an apparent political miracle never before achieved - healthcare reform. It's already a lot more positive change than George bush achieved in eight years. It needs to be remembered the state George W left the US in on his departure. Two wars, a derelict economy (with or without the GFC) and a completely alienated world. His trillions of dollars of tax breaks for the rich, and his trillions of dollars of military idiocy are what has brought the US economy to where it is. It would be almost bankrupt anyway, but is compounded of course by a meltdown in the availability of financial credit - that struck on Bush's watch - that has hurt the US far deeper than most even really appreciate.Obama arrived with expectations of miracles, somewhat generated by his own campaign, but also somewhat the result of the culmination of a nation's dreams projected onto him. He arrived amid the worst recession the world has seen since 1929 - requiring two drastic bail out bills and a major financial reform bill. Pretty soon too he was hit by the BP oil crisis. He's worked the halls of The Pentagon to extract his nation from one miserable war, and has worked to execute hopefully the solution to another. With healthcare reform, a mammoth task in negotiation, I can't begin to imagine how much time and energy just these problems have taken. I also can't imagine how he is supposed to have solved every other problem the US faces in just 20-odd months.But yet Americans seem to feel he has failed. I think the true extent of the disapointment Americans feel struck home for me when Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins lamented on stage here in Sydney how much of a failure he felt Obama had been.It's depressing. How is the world ever going to change if we are so unwilling to give someone the room and the patience and the belief they need to even begin to attempt to enact it?The US is facing a far bigger problem than I think most of it's citizens even appreciate. I was listening to a fascinating interview last night with Jim Wolfensohn, former World Bank Chief, where he remarked that in 40 years the US/European/Japanese monopoly of the world GDP will move from 80% to just 35%. In particular he said:
"I think at the moment the US is, I regret to say, in a sad situation at the moment. And it's very tough for the President. You'll see the reaction of the people in the next election as they try to throw people out. And I think what is needed is an understanding in the US jointly between the Republicans and the Democrats that they've gotta come together to get the country moving."
The hitherto most powerful nation in the world is undergoing a painful transition from superpower to has-been just as Britain did from 1914 to 1947. Many of their economic problems are well beyond the immediate grapple range of one man in 20 months. But given some time and room to move, this transition could be managed a lot more effectively by someone with real vision like Obama than by someone pandering only to short term party political imperatives as Obama's predecessor did. But, as he said, "I'd rather be a really good one term president than a mediocre two term president".
In view of how difficult the last 20 months have been, I do hope Americans find some patience and some trust to refrain from what seems a strong temptation to take away Obama's control of Congress and make it even harder to get anything done at all. Clinton recovered from the Newt Gingrich "revolution" in 1994, but I can't help thinking just how much more effective he'd have been in his presidency if he hadn't have lost Congress to the Republicans.The only optimism I can find in all this is that with the rise of the tea party movement, at least the Republicans are bitterly divided down the middle in a way that may mean they cannot agree on a good candidate for 2012. I'm also finding some comic relief in the Colbert/Stewart rally fun this weekend. If nothing else, at least liberals are better at laughing.