Finally

By Weekly Archive On Feb 22, 2012

After almost three years of unilateral concessions to Republicans and very little zeal to mobilize the American people against the outrages of the GOP and their billionaire backers, last week Barack Obama stood his ground on behalf of 160 million wage earners whose taxes were set to increase and legions of long-term unemployed in danger of losing their benefits.

For weeks the Republicans refused to go along with the president unless these items were “paid for,” GOP-speak for dollars subtracted from programs for the poor and other vulnerable groups. This time, however, Obama was the one striking the blows, and he scored by repeatedly berating the Republicans for wanting to raise taxes on the middle class and refusing aid to the jobless while fighting tooth-and-nail for preserving absurdly low Bush-era tax rates on the very wealthy.

For once, Obama battered the Republicans’ and their double standard, or for what I call – setting liberation theology on its head – “the preferential option for the rich.” And guess what, Obama won. This time the Republicans were the ones who caved, signing on the dotted line, probably in fear of committing political suicide. Obama’s victory over Republican intransigence, as well as other factors, markedly improved the president’s chances of serving a second term.

Recall that only a few months ago, prospects for the reelection of President Obama seemed dim at best, almost hopeless. Official unemployment was stuck at around 9 percent, and the real figure, which takes into account those who, tired of continually searching for non-existent jobs, had dropped out of the labor force, plus the millions who have had to settle for part-time work, was much higher. Barring extremely unusual circumstances like a world war or a Great Depression, sitting U.S. presidents don’t win reelection with such numbers.

The polls reflected that reality. At the time, Obama’s approval rating was at a dismal 38 percent, evidence that voters were not taking into account the facts: that Obama inherited the Great Recession from the Bush administration and that he prevented a complete crash with a stimulus package that was much less effective than it could have been because the president had to scale it down and load it up with useless tax cuts for rich, special interests at the insistence of Congressional Republicans. And the immediate economic future looked no better; Congressional Budget Office estimates were that unemployment would still be nearly 9 percent come the election.

Meanwhile, having effectively taken control of Congress as a result of a huge victory in the 2010 election, the GOP was sitting pretty. From the very start of this administration, top Republicans stated that making sure that Obama was a one-term president was their top priority. Now they had the means to further that objective by making impossible any job-creation program proposed by Obama, and making the president look weak and ineffectual in the bargain.

To make matters worse, much of Obama’s base, progressive whites and the Black and Latino communities, were upset at the administration’s myriad retreats from campaign promises, from closing Guantánamo to instituting a health reform plan that at least included an option whereby consumers of medical care could choose to get out from under the clutches of the rapacious insurance industry and buy health coverage directly from the government.

The base understood that, in many cases, Obama’s hands were tied by Congress and the power of corporate lobbies. What the left, or what passes for the left in the United States, could not abide was Obama’s failure to seize the moment of his maximum popularity to break the back of the arrogant financial elite that had brought the country to ruin, making them pay through the nose for their misdeeds, and thus reducing their power to purchase the political system. That would have also reassured the American people that justice in the United States applies to the rich as well as the poor and that their hard-earned money was not being misspent helping riverboat gamblers.

Instead, the president chose to follow the counsel of his Wall Street-friendly, Clinton-era economic advisers and hand the scoundrel bankers about a trillion dollars of the American people’s money, virtually gratis and with almost no conditions.

The bailout saved the bankers’ skin, and left them nearly unscathed and hardly chastened. Soon, they were back to some of their old tricks, including rewarding themselves with multi-million annual bonuses. And they were hardly grateful to Obama or the American people. Many on Wall Street reportedly loathe Obama, and this election cycle the bankers’ political contributions are overwhelmingly going to Republicans.

While the financial sector was being made whole with the people’s money, the administration did nothing to help tens of millions of middle class homeowners who lost billions of dollars with the collapse of home prices, and very little to prevent millions of people who were losing their homes because they could no longer afford the mortgage. To add insult to injury, the banks repaid the American people by foreclosing on homes at lightning speed – in many cases using illegal methods such as a massive number of machine-produced signatures – and by charging depositors new, often hidden, fees.

Little wonder that not only the base but millions of middle-of-the-road voters were discontent with the administration. Among hard-core Obama supporters in 2008, Latinos were also unhappy that Obama had spent zero political capital when he had it to keep his promise of comprehensive immigration reform. Many Blacks felt their concerns were being ignored, that the president was doing nothing, not even speaking, about soaring African American unemployment and poverty. They felt the reason was that Obama wanted desperately to avoid the charge of racial favoritism to please a guaranteed bloc of voters who could hardly vote for a Republican Party characterized by reactionary social policies and thinly disguised racism.

But some things have happened recently that could spoil the Republicans’ party to celebrate their expected stomping of their adversary. Unemployment rates are decreasing, although there is still a long way to go before declaring a sustainable recovery.

The killing of Osama Bin Laden and the end of the Gaddafi regime – albeit both involving extrajudicial executions – were popular with the American people and destroyed any credibility for the perennial Republican charge that Democrats are soft on security.

Probably more importantly, the Republican contenders for Obama’s job have proved a disaster and have seriously wounded one another. The horse backed by the big money, Mitt Romney, is so repellent to the big conservative contingent in the GOP that they have tried on for size successive alternatives only to find them too miniscule to sit in the Oval Office.

Voters in general find that the more they see and hear two of the three remaining contenders – Romney and Gingrich – the less they like them. That’s a bad omen, especially since the same will happen with the last conservative great white hope, Rick Santorum.

Incredibly, the entire Republican Party has painted itself into an extreme-right corner to the extent that all the candidates favor a so-called “personhood amendment,” a measure that would potentially outlaw the most popular means of birth control. It is a proposal so out of the modern American mainstream that voters in Mississippi, the most reactionary state in the country, overwhelmingly defeated it in a recent referendum. Santorum is the most ardent supporter of the personhood amendment and similar measures that don’t sell even in Mississippi.

It is as if the Republicans set out on a suicide march, alienating gigantic blocs of voters they might have done decently with otherwise. This includes women, more than half the population, most of who are outraged by the threat to their reproductive choices, Latinos insulted by the anti-immigrant venom coming out of the mouths of all the Republican candidates, young people for whom the idea of banning the pill sounds like something out of the Middle Ages and who will be repulsed when they finally put down their electronic toys and focus on the campaign to learn that it comes from the mouth of Ayatollah Santurrón, excuse me, Santorum.

The whole thing reminds me of the tale of the scorpion who bit the turtle ferrying him across a stream, killing it and drowning as a result. The Republicans, like the scorpion, can’t help it. It’s in their nature.

Nor will young voters be too pleased if the candidate is Romney, who reminds people of the kind of person Robert Musil immortalized in the title of his classic novel, The Man without Qualities. Romney is utterly lacking in authenticity, a trait especially valued by the young.

“Don’t judge me against the almighty, judge me against the alternatives,” Barack Obama asked the American people a few months back. The Republican Party has managed to make Obama’s wish a lot more realistic than anyone expected.