Obama: And Now the Paralysis

The crushing defeat of the Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections is very bad news for us neighbors in the north [Canada]. The fact that Republicans are now the majority in the House of Representatives announces two years of parliamentary paralysis. This is likely to jeopardize the U.S. economic recovery, and therefore, ours.

The anger that many Americans have expressed yesterday [November 2, 2011] regarding the Obama administration may seem difficult to understand, because we follow American politics from afar, through our political prism. And Barack Obama, for his style, his values, his ideas, has always been very popular outside the borders of his country.

But we forgot that the dream embodied by his historic victory was not everyone’s. Barack Obama has not been brought to power by a tidal wave, and his victory, in part due to confusion caused by the crisis, was not based on a widespread desire for change. The crusade against Obama probably started the day of his victory.

On the ground, the new president has not done just miracles. His major reform of health care, sweetened in order to be passed by both houses, has nevertheless contributed to polarize political opinion, leaving Democrats disappointed and outraged and conservatives galvanized. In this case, as in the economy, we could see the limits of Barack Obama’s political talent, helpless before a raging Republican opposition, too cold and abstract to explain and sell his reforms, lacking skills to reach out to the conservative electorate that dominates American politics.

But any analysis of the American psyche would not be required today if the U.S. had managed to emerge from the recession. This muted anger, which feeds the extreme right and for which Obama pays a price, is due first and foremost to an unemployment rate of 9.6 percent, the symbol of a collective failure.

This illustrates the injustice of political life. The recession was triggered in the United States a year before Obama’s arrival at the White House. The mistakes that provoked it are largely attributable to the previous administration. And the philosophy of recovery policies, which now stirs the wrath of the conservative electorate, had been shaped in the last months of George W. Bush’s presidency — the deficit explosion; costly support of major financial institutions; massive stimulus measures.

Obama, once in power, has pushed this logic to the maximum, especially with the infrastructure plan costing nearly $787 billion, which has fueled the deficit and big government denounced now by the tea party. This classic Keynesian approach, which has worked elsewhere, has not yielded the expected results in the United States. Is this a result of Barack Obama’s failed policies? Rather the fact that he inherited an economy in particularly bad shape. Without these measures, the economic situation would probably be catastrophic.

Now, the White House, weakened, must contend with a House of Representatives that it no longer controls. Bargaining mechanisms unique to the American political system will work poorly, because it will be difficult to reconcile economic philosophies, mutually incompatible-stimulus on one side, tightening of the belt and tax cuts on the other. The most predictable results are incoherent compromises lacking any sense of direction.

We must not forget, however, that the real test is not these referendum-looking midterm elections, but the 2012 presidential elections. Two years is a long time, and other elements could then play in favor of the Democrats, such as the economic recovery or the excesses of a radicalizing Republican Party.