America, Disheartened

Is there a curse spreading among the leaders, now halfway through their terms, who rode the waves of the people’s hope to their current positions? They are scorned with more disgrace than is warranted, even for how much they had aspired to [bring about] social justice. Barack Obama himself can’t escape the sulking voters’ disenchantment on the eve of the first electoral judgment of the state of the union since he was elected to the White House two years ago. According to the widely predicted absolute failure, the president is on the verge of experiencing a fairly difficult period for the second half of his four-year term. He could still wind up passing a respectable enough budget to be renewed, at any rate. But Obama’s actions could easily be paralyzed, constantly knocked around by a reinvigorated Republican Party that regained the majority in the House of Representatives. He will operate in a climate of hatred fueled by the right-wing extremists who look, in the era of global ultra-liberalism, to revive the ghost of McCarthy and the instincts of the good ol’ days of the Ku Klux Klan.

Obviously, there are no curses in politics, no wizards casting spells. There are, however, traps that will snap shut on whoever doesn’t know how to avoid them or thought they had already been passed. What is happening in the United States also holds true on a more general scale: Political waffling, forsaking the attempt to overcome obstacles to social progress presented by hostile political and economic forces, and basically running a timid administration after having rekindled the hope of the most poverty-stricken and transformed them into a conquering force, inevitably leads to the disheartening of voters. And those who benefit the most will be those who were chased from office four years before, which will only be worse.

In 2008, Obama campaigned to fight against every kind of discrimination: skin color, nationality, unequal access to care and social benefits with the establishment of health [care] insurance, etc. He seemed, to most of the international world, to be the anti-Bush, letting that era sink into oblivion: all the trouble with the “war of civilization,” the lies proffered to the U.N., carrying the world into the war against Iraq.

During a debate in Philadelphia in his campaign against the Republican McCain, Obama’s strongly worded political plan galvanized the America that was lost in the game of every man for himself. African Americans, Latinos and the youth vote echoed the slogan, a call for all to help: “Yes, we can!” Obama presented a different image than the brutal, aggressive, narrow-minded notion embodied in Bush and the torturers at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, without in any way having to spurn the will of the leadership of a superpower in a unipolar world. But by culling his ambitions for the health care system and bowing to pressure from capitalist lobbies, Obama has disappointed those who expected more reform. The right has not had any qualms about painting the head of the White House as a socialist or communist. He has not prompted Americans to debate or defend his projected plans in the face of these attacks. “Yes, we can!” has begun to sound hollow. The president can only hope for a sudden burst of votes, numerous enough to suffice against the danger of a populist right, more hard-line than ever.

Running a timid administration after having rekindled the hope of the most poverty-stricken inevitably leads to the disheartening of voters.