People's Democracy

 

R Arun Kumar

 

 

BARACK Obama, the president of United States is on his first visit to India, after suffering a severe reverse in the mid-term elections held to the House and Senate. Exactly two years ago, Obama was elected as the president of the US promising change amidst lot of hope. He was riding on an anti-Bush wave that swept the entire country. While his victory was correctly termed as a 'progressive change', the current reverse suffered by the Democrats too should be viewed as a 'dangerous change'. Dangerous, not because of their defeat but more due to the resurgence of the Republicans, neo-conservatives and the extreme right-wing forces  represented by the Tea party movement.

 

DANGEROUS

GROWTH

The Republicans have won the House, while the Democrats were able to retain a majority in the Senate but with reduced numbers. For the first time in eight decades of the American history, the House changed hands without the Senate following suit. Before the elections, Democrats held 256 seats while the Republicans had 178 seats in the US House of Representatives. Now, going by the latest election results, Republicans secured 239 seats while Democrats won only 185. In the Senate, the Democrats had 58 seats while the Republicans had 40. The composition of the Senate has now changed to Democrats 50 and Republicans 46. While it is usual in US for the party of the president to lose in the mid-term elections, what makes this loss particularly dangerous is the growth of the extreme right-wing Tea Party groups who were able to influence the voters in rejecting the Democrats.

 

A distinguishing feature of these mid-term elections is the huge amounts of money spent by the candidates and their parties. That the capitalists were ready to spend such huge amounts of money in these times of global recession, shows their intent in ensuring the victory of the party that vouches for the protection of their interests. These elections are held after the Court has ruled that there need not be any bar on corporate funding of the elections. The 2010 campaign was thus ugly and costly. Total spending, which includes that of candidates, Republican and Democratic Party committees and outside groups, by some estimates, was around $4 billion. Much of that came from unaffiliated groups that were not required by law to disclose their donors. That became a major point of controversy as Obama and other Democrats warned against an infusion of secret money from corporations and special interests influencing the outcome of the election and potentially the shape of new legislation next year. Most of the Tea Party grass-roots organisations that swayed primaries were coordinated and financed by large national groups led by Republican insiders, including Freedom Works, the Tea Party Express and Americans for Prosperity. It is thus evident that Republicans are the beneficiaries of this huge corporate spending on elections. Many corporations in the US are unhappy with some of the decisions of the Obama administration and its efforts to regulate the health insurance market and the Wall Street. They vented their displeasure by pumping millions of dollars into the coffers of the Republican Party and the Tea party organisations.

 

The voters in these elections, held in the midst of continuing global recession, were influenced by the economic situation. More than six in ten called the economy their top concern, according to preliminary national exit poll data. About nine in ten said the economy is in bad shape, and more than three times as many said they believe it is getting worse. About four in ten said their family’s situation had worsened in the last two years. About half of all voters said they are 'very worried' about the national economy, and most of them backed Republican Party candidates. The nationwide official unemployment rate is 9.6 per cent, with millions more who have lost hope of securing job and unemployed for more than six weeks not counted under the US law. According to analysts if these people too are accounted the unemployed numbers would reach to around 15 per cent. The conservatives, especially the Tea Party activists were successful in convincing a large number of people that the 'big government', which advocates huge government stimulus and regulation of economy is responsible for their economic hardships. The Democrats and Obama failed to affectively counter this charge.

 

Electorate in these elections was also more conservative. More than four in ten who voted in the present elections said they supported the Tea Party movement. According to the preliminary data, conservatives made up 41 per cent of all voters, up from 34 per cent in 2008 and 32 per cent in 2006. This represents the highest share of conservatives in exit polls since 1972. Republican leaders harnessed the best of the Tea Party movement's energy, successfully defending themselves against the Democrats attacks on the extreme views of many of the Tea Party's favoured candidates.

 

The Tea Party movement first raised its banner in the spring of 2009, protesting what its supporters saw as a dangerous expansion of government's intervention in the economy and a crippling rise in the federal deficit and national debt. The contours of Tea Party America reveal an uneasy alliance within it, between those who came to the movement with unswerving ideology, generally against 'big government', and those who say they came to it more out of frustration and a desire to feel that they were doing something to move forward when the country seemed stuck. Local Tea Party groups are less organised but politically active.

 

Democrats failed in mobilising the grass roots organisations mobilised during the election of Obama in 2008. The famed election machinery that was hugely responsible for the election of Obama, which constituted a broad coalition of working class, anti-war movement, racial minorities and youth failed to work in this election. Democratic efforts to rally young people and minorities also fell short. Both groups voted in smaller percentages than two years ago. In spite of the efforts of the organised labour to move its rank and file, they could not achieve the desired results as the workers did not realise the promised 'change'. Similarly the anti-war movement too felt that Obama, who had won the Nobel Peace prize, did not live true to his promises. Though he promised to withdraw from Iraq and initiated the process, he had increased the troop presence in Afghanistan.

 

MORE RHETORIC

THAN ACTION

Many people in US felt that Obama failed to match his rhetoric with action. Obama failed to act decisively on some important promises he had made, like enacting the Employment Free Choice Act. Even his Healthcare legislation is passed after many compromises and dilutions from his election promise. In the name of bipartisanship, people perceived him to be conceding much ground to the Republicans. They felt that he did not use the goodwill he had among the millions of workers, independents and young voters who had campaigned and voted for him to push through the progressive agenda and counter the opposition. Though he spoke against the Wall Street and tried to regulate it, he did little to empower the 'main street'.

 

Obama also failed to effectively counter the panic spread by the Tea Party activists against the role of government. It should be noted here that there was no opposition at all from the Tea Party activists, though they had grouped only in 2009, when Bush had announced the stimulus package to bailout big banks and financial institutions who were responsible for the crisis in the first place. They came out vociferously only when Obama initiated measures to universalise healthcare and some measures to involve the government in infrastructural development projects. Feeding on millions of corporate money, they spread all sorts of lies and misconceptions, which the Democrats failed to counter.

 

The failure of Obama and the Democrats also shows the dilemma faced by the parties representing the ruling classes in their attempts to come out of the current global economic crisis. The ruling classes want the government to bail them out from the crisis and ensure that their appetite for super profits is satiated. At the same time they come out hoarsely against the government when it tries to involve in some social welfare activities. The party in power might lose in the elections, as this naturally disenchants the common people who feel betrayed by the government during the times of crisis. The ruling classes are not overtly bothered by this development, as if not the Democrats they have the Republicans, to serve their interests.

 

But what happens to the people in general is they feel cheated by the entire political class and this discontent and cynicism is used by the right-wing forces for their growth. This is one of the reasons behind the growth of the Tea Party groups in the US. Similar is the case even in Europe where we are witnessing the growth of many right-wing groups and also their electoral victories. This is a dangerous trend that the progressive forces around the world should be vigilant of and mobilise to counter.