Obama’s Waterloo

 An editorial from the Mexican newspaper La Jornada 

Yesterday’s midterm elections in the United States show devastating results for the party of President Barack Obama. 

Although the worst case scenario did not materialize – the loss of the Democratic majority in both legislative bodies – the control of the House achieved by the Republicans and their conquest of several governorships mean, in fact, the end of the political momentum that the current president enjoyed two years ago and the start of a dissolution of the expectations of change Obama raised during his presidential campaign.

Beyond the strict boundaries of party, what happened yesterday in the United States expresses a triumphal return of political and social conservatism, defeated so emphatically in 2008 that it seemed, at the time, a rout of lasting consequences. 

The inevitable conclusion is that the hesitations and inconsistencies of Obama himself over the first two years of his mandate, as well as the stubborn resistance organized from social bases against his government by the so-called Tea Party, have resulted in severe failure for the progressive currents, the advocates the welfare state, secular sectors, women, ethnic and sexual minorities, migrants, workers and, in general, for those who are economically, socially and politically disadvantaged. 

Indeed, if the first African-American president failed to carry out a substantial part of his program of change when he could count on a House of Representatives dominated by his party colleagues, it seems impossible that, in the second half of his term, and with that legislative chamber under Republican control, he can achieve significant strides in the turns U.S. society needs to make on so many issues. 

A bleak but unavoidable prospect is that, in the next two years, with a President trapped by his own ideological inertia in foreign policy, the corporate powers that hampered his agenda for change, and a predominantly Republican House, the broad informal coalition that brought Obama to power in 2008 will dissolve under the effect of discouragement. 

Another outcome of yesterday’s election, equally representative of the mood of the American people, is the broad defeat of the initiative to legalize marijuana in California, which was submitted to a referendum and rejected, according to surveys, by 57 percent of the voters. 

The door thus was closed to the possibility of exploring a way to combat drug addiction and drug trafficking different from the current ban and police persecution, methods that have already shown to be totally ineffective. 

In sum, most of American society expressed its opposition to the changes and left the country rudderless in terms of a solution to the vices, the miseries and distortions it suffers in the economic, political and social spheres. 

The triumph of conservatism and Obama’s failure will have negative consequences for the United States and – deplorably – for the rest of the world.