WASHINGTON - "We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White
House will be adorned by a downright moron," declaimed American journalist H L
Mencken (1880-1956) many years ago: former vice presidential candidate Sarah
Palin's speech to the National Tea Party movement in Tennessee last weekend calls the famous
curmudgeon's lofty aspiration to mind.
Certainly, the "plain folks" assembled there fitted Mencken's bill, and they
enthusiastically assume that Palin is one of them. The convention included
"birthers" who think that President Barack Obama is a Muslim alien, many who
think the United Nations is a sinister internationalist plot, and platform
speakers who think that
the president is not just a socialist, but an "international socialist", which
does not betoken an esoteric appreciation of the detritus of the fourth
international, but is simply two conservative swear words compounding each
other.
Palin might on occasion be an ignoramus, but she is no moron, and what is more,
she is making money hand over fist, which is more than they are. In fact, they
paid over their hard-earned dollars to attend the convention, which a
for-profit company arranged, and which paid Palin a US$100,000 speaker's fee.
Her rhetoric avoids endorsement of the wilder excesses of her supporters, yet
her folksy delivery and anarchic syntax is close enough in spirit for them to
identify with her. If she did articulate her policies in a clear and
intellectually compelling way, she would lose their support, as in fact former
presidential candidate John McCain has done with occasional, albeit infrequent,
public displays of cerebral activity. Horrified at his temerity in letting
reality intrude on the smooth flow of their venomous prejudices, some in the
Tea Party are against him in the next primary.
Insofar as is there is a movement, it is fueled by a rage that depends for its
strength and cohesion on its inarticulacy. Yes, there is also a deep racist
undercurrent - in fact often quite explicit. There are a lot of whites who
still can't cope with a black president - which is why some of them can't
believe he is a citizen. It is progress of sorts that they don't come out and
say clearly why he cannot be president, but it is noticeable that the
conventions and demonstrations are whiter than a supermarket sliced loaf.
However, there are more rational premises for their anger, even if the
conclusions they draw from them are far-fetched, indeed far-stretched.
Working-class (or in US parlance middle-class) incomes have been stagnant for
decades, since president Ronald Reagan in fact, while health and higher
education costs have soared.
It is a year since Obama picked up the poisoned chalice from George W Bush and
was left to pick up the ruins of the neo-liberal enterprise. There is little
doubt that his efforts have stopped it being even worse, but after a year in
which he has, in effect, pandered to the perpetrators in the name of
bipartisanship, it almost presents his back with a large target.
But Obama has not shown the leadership he should have done, whether on
oversight of banks or reform of healthcare, and his main fault is that he has
left it to the congressional Democrats, many of whom have been as subservient
to the business lobbyists as their Republican opponents.
Palin's flip comment on Obama strikes memorably home at his failure, which is
no less a real political failure, even though neither she nor the Republicans
have any alternative plans at all, "So, how's that hopey, changey stuff working
out for you?"
Obama has gone technocratic on his erstwhile supporters, and backpedaled on
charismatic clear leadership while not putting a clear enough line between him
and his predecessor. Certainly, the direction and tone of government has
changed, immeasurably for the better under Obama, although you would never
guess that from listening to the leftist mirror images of the teabaggers who
accuse the president of betraying principles that he never espoused. But even
if he did not promise the revolutionary changes that some of them imagined, he
did, both explicitly and implicitly, promise change in how business would be
conducted in Washington.
One lesson that some have drawn from the surprise Republican victory in
Massachusetts is that the teabaggers rule and that conservative rage is
triumphant. But polls show that no less than 82% of those who deserted Obama
and voted for the Republican candidate wanted a public option in the healthcare
bill. Similarly, large majorities of voters in all parties disagree strongly
with the Supreme Court decision that now allows corporations unlimited spending
in elections.
We cynics, looking at how much influence business already has in Washington,
are not sure that it could get any worse. But the entirely rational fear of big
business and big government is the basis of disaffection from left to right.
The genius of Palin and the Republican right is to tie these in a package with
"Big Labor" and present it as creeping socialism, along with undercover
anti-minority and anti-black sentiment, in a way that attracts such dedicated
and vociferous support. It has been done before. Think of the brownshirts,
until they had served their purpose.
On the one hand, the teabaggers might make the Republicans unelectable
nationally - soon, for example, the minorities will be a majority! And the
electorate as a whole still shows signs of awareness of the real world. But
Obama and the Democrats need some more therapeutic and constructive anger to
retain traditional supporters and win new ones.
Ironically, the Supreme Court decision, even if does not inaugurate the
cataclysmic consequences that some fear, could be the fulcrum for a major
campaign to change how Washington does business, to question what most
countries see as a system of overt corruption and bribery. But the president
has to be indignant with his own side as well: he cannot allow the
congressional leaders of his party to frame legislation, whether on health,
financial oversight or Pentagon procurement, shaped by the campaign donations
the most self-interested corporations and industries have given them.
Ian Williams is the author of Deserter: Bush's War on Military
Families, Veterans and His Past, Nation Books, New York.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
