Heading For The Clampdown

By Steve Hynd

The UK's Guardian is in no mood to mince words: Obama is "in crisis" and "battling for survival" as the U.S. heads for the midterms. (h/t Kat, emphasis mine. S.)

Despite the grand pronouncements about Obama's many reforms they are in fact not as sweeping as they seem. The stimulus package � once touted as a "Second New Deal" � was in fact trimmed down on its passage into law. Many of its measures will take time to have an impact. As a result, unemployment is stubbornly high at 9%, above White House predictions. The only truly booming sector of the still sickly economy is, amazingly, Wall Street where banks are reaping huge profits and paying out big bonuses.

Healthcare reform, meanwhile, was far from the liberal dream many on the Democratic left wanted. Options such as creating an American-style NHS, or a huge state-run insurance company, were quickly jettisoned in favour of what is, in effect, a government subsidy of the private healthcare insurance industry.

On financial reform, key aspects of the legislation aimed at curbing Wall Street excesses have been lost. The Christian Science Monitor magazine called the effort "a mountain of paper, a molehill of reform". The act may be more than 2,500 pages long but its critics say it is toothless. All this has meant that many liberals, and the left of the Democratic party, feel let down by Obama. They see him as breaking campaign promises of real reform in favour of compromise. At least part of Obama's poll slippage can be put down to disillusionment among the Democrats' activist base.

Yet at the same time, the relentless Republican attack machine has sought to portray Obama as so radical that he almost threatens the American way of life. Obama has reaped little benefit from his efforts to compromise in order to win Republican support. Instead, he has found himself repeatedly demonised as a socialist and intent on fundamentally altering the US political system.

Paul Krugman points to John Quiggin of Crooked Timber: (H/t Kat, again)

it seems to be widely projected that the Republicans could regain control of the House of Representatives. What surprises me is that no-one has drawn the obvious inference as to what will follow, namely a shutdown of the US government.

It seems obvious to me that a shutdown will happen � the Republicans of today are both more extreme and more disciplined than last time they were in a position to shut down the government, and they did it then. And they hate Obama at least as much now as they hated Clinton in 1995.

Krugman adds:

Also, expect many, many fake scandals; we�ll be having hearings over accusations of corruption on the part of Michelle Obama�s hairdresser, janitors at the Treasury, and Larry Summers�s doctor�s dog. If you don�t believe me, you weren�t paying attention during the Clinton years; remember, we had months of hearings over claims that something was fishy in the White House travel office (nothing was).

And if anyone remotely connected to the administration should die � oh, boy.

Oh, and you can be sure that many media figures will play right along.

It's a gloomy scenario to be sure, one that's all too probable. And I can't find it in myself to excuse the Obama administration's stupid triangulation for putting us in it up to our necks.

Last year, the chances of the Republicans seeing a sweeping change in the polls were as likely as pigs flying. Most people - even most Republicans - thought they had made themselves unelectable for a decade by packing their ranks with outrageous wingnuts - Sarah Palin on down. The brand was dead.

Obama and the Dems resurrected the GOP by rejecting their base to pander to their fellow rich folks and the Beltway set of "very serious" war-hungry interventionists. Thus they set about empowering the party of rich warmongers, and must now reap the harvest.

Can we lefties haz our own party now?