Why In God's Name Not*

There is lots of talk from disgruntled and disillusioned Democrats that Hillary would have made a stronger president through these tough economic times. So much talk in fact that many are calling for her to put up a challenge to Obama for the 2012 nomination. They say that Hillary never would have caved in on the debt ceiling showdown. They look back with fondness to the days of LBJ's tough dealing with Congress both as majority leader and president. He would have outmaneuvered the right wing of the Republican party and stared them down and we would all be better off.

I don't believe any of that for a second. The Tea Party was perfectly content to let the country default and they knew Obama could not let that happen. They were holding all the cards. I don't have to add that it is a budding catastrophe for our country that the debate is now controlled by a group of idealogues who continue to confuse the good of their party with the good of the country.

When Obama was first elected, Rush Limbaugh declared he wanted him to fail and the right wing cheered. What is the implication of that? How could any American want the president to fail? Wouldn't that be bad for the country? Yeah, but it would guarantee a Republican resurgence in the next election cycle and that is, after all, the right wing agenda. I have even become so cynical that I believe the Republican party has purposely pushed their jobs killing agenda in order to win the next presidential election and the country be damned. It is a terrible thing to think, but it is hard to come to any other conclusion.

I still congratulate Obama for trying to do the impossible: Change the poisonous climate in our capitol. He thought that if he went out of his way to be bi-partisan so would his Republican colleagues. What an idiot! The days of bi-partisanship are over. They started disappearing when Ronald Reagan became president by chanting that "government isn't the solution; it is the problem." It was a catchy slogan that gave the right wing the hope they might be able to shrink government and rid us all of the New Deal. They never gave up that hope even though every time we tried "Trickle Down Economics" we came away with a larger debt and precious few jobs to show for it.

Now here we are again. The Republicans, the ones who lambasted Obama and Emanuel for suggesting that we should never let a crisis go to waste, are latching onto this continuing budget crisis to convince people that all we have to do is cut spending to the point where entitlements will be a distant memory, where public works projects will be inconceivable, where the rich will continue to rake in the largess of deregulation, and the poor will be left to fend for themselves. If we do all that, they assure us, the country will go back to the halcyon days of yore when men were men and women ate their young.

I've come to a different conclusion. I think the days of yore aren't coming back. In the fifties we produced 95% of what we consumed and our economy grew and grew and grew. Our economy is no longer based on production; it is based on financial legerdemain to produce quick and substantial profits. When the risk taking fails, as it has time and time again since the Reagan era, the profiteers simply take their bonuses and run, leaving it up to the rest of us, the members of the disappearing middle class, to clean up the mess. Do they get in trouble for their selfishness, for their disregard for the country? No! They get hired by another company so they can start their shell game all over again.

These people, so the Republican orthodoxy goes, are the job creators and must be left alone so they can spur the economy that they have played such a large part in ruining. Where are the jobs? In India. In China. Not here. How do these jobs get created? By research and development. By innovation. By rising to meet the needs of the middle class. The USA doesn't do that anymore. The financial rewards just aren't immediate enough, and so we slide into recession after recession.

The history of the world is the history of dominant civilizations giving way to others. Holland gave way to England. England gave way to the USA. It is now our turn. The only remnant of American Exceptionalism is the exceptionally myopic view we seem to have of our demise.

That is why I am slowly but surely losing interest in Republican straw polls in Iowa and Obama's bus trip build up to the 2012 elections. I just don't think it makes much difference. Obama's Hope and Change mantra will never come to pass because Republicans won't allow that kind of change. Bachman's and Perry's right-wing-born-again-Christian promises will never come to pass because Democrats won't let them. Our country is doomed to remain in this suicidal holding pattern until we all realize that we are no longer the Hope of the World.

In order to affect change, I would think some sort of dialogue should take place in the country. But there is no chance for such a dialogue. Listen to the Republican stump speeches in Iowa. They all had the same message: Obama is ruining the country and under no circumstances will taxes be raised in any of their administrations. These people are not serious about budgetary responsibility. No serious person believes it is possible to address our budget needs without raising revenue. On the other hand, we need to address the increasing strain of entitlements on our budget, an issue on which the far left is almost as recalcitrant as the far right. What is a fellow to do? Watch baseball? I would, but I live in Colorado.

It isn't just the politicians who refuse to compromise. Compromise is something that is getting rarer and rarer. I get my information from newspapers and a few carefully selected web sites; I avoid television news, except for sports, as much as possible. My conservative friends (strike that: acquaintances) get their information from Fox News. We live in parallel universes and there is no middle ground period.

We listen to different music. We eat at different restaurants. We drive different vehicles. We shop at different places. According to the Cook Political Report, 89% of the Whole Foods stores in the US were in counties taken by Obama in the last election; 62% of Cracker Barrel restaurants were in counties carried by McCain. Conservatives and liberals alike point to that last statistic with smugness, but the smugness comes from very different convictions.

The proliferation of product choices since I was a kid have rendered compromise no longer necessary. I used to have to compromise to buy anything, but with ever expanding variety I can get something tailor made to any need. I can buy shoes for tennis, another pair for aerobics, still another for running, and one for just hanging out. When I was twelve it was a pair of Chuck Taylors or nothing. Compromise? Why?

Where does all this lead. Read the papers. Members of the disappearing middle class in places as disparate as London, Tel Aviv, and Cairo heed a call from Facebook and start rioting. Why? Why in God's name not?

* Read "Adrift in Iowa: Tired Rituals in Tough Times" by Frank Bruni; "You Want Compromise? Sure You Do" by Sheryl Gay Stolberg; and "A Theory of Everything (Sort of)" by Thomas L. Friedman in Sunday's New York Times (August 14, 2011).