Interesting Times in America

What happened in the United States on November 4? Was that just an ordinary congressional election, or a warning bell that the country is entering a period of interesting times?

The reality of the situation indicates an unprecedented state of anger in American public opinion expressed by the recent voting process. A recent opinion poll indicated, before the voting polls opened, that seven out of 10 Americans are angry about the direction the country is heading in.

Peter Baker from The New York Times showed that Americans lost their confidence in all major American institutions: Congress, the military, the Supreme Court, public schools, newspapers, the presidency, the police, the criminal justice system, and televised news.

At the beginning of last September, CNN conducted an opinion poll which demonstrated that 65 percent of Americans believe the current Congress is the worst they have ever seen, and that Obama is one of the weakest presidents ever in office in the White House. Therefore, it was natural that America woke up on November 5 to a new political reality.

Several serious questions come to mind, starting with U.S. President Obama. Was he the stumbling block that caused the Democrats’ fall on the one hand, and shook the presidential image in American eyes on the other hand?

We can describe Obama as being the president of postponed dreams, despite the fact that the 27-month period remaining to him in the White House will not be enough for him to accomplish much.

In 2008, Obama appeared like a knight who dared to hope, representing a revolution on America’s racism and a symbol of the rise of the left and international peace. Those dreams faded away with his blurred perspective on internal affairs and lack of strategy abroad.

Among the interesting aspects that occurred during the midterm election was the negative outlook felt by Americans toward Obama, to the extent that the White House staff responsible for keeping up Obama’s public image advised him not to support any of the Democratic candidates publicly. What is the significance of that?

Certainly what the Democrats did was very serious, enabling the Republicans to show Obama’s failed measures. The Republican tsunami came as a natural result, taking the Democrats by storm.

Why is public opinion furious about the last Congress?

In short, and not to belittle the mind of the ordinary American, the conflict taking place in the Capitol is drawn only by the fake “black money” that destroyed American democracy. Americans now realize that the pull and push conflicts in Congress throughout the past six years were for the benefit of the Democratic and Republican parties. The axis of conflict was and will remain for a long time related to the interests of the American bourgeoisie, the owners of the big companies and Washington lobbyists, starting from the industrial and the military and from the financial, to the oil and pharmaceutical lobbyists. This makes American democracy face a real threat, as the power of money has overtaken ballot results. The question remains: Is the United States a democracy for the rich only, without the poor?

One troubling indicator was obvious in the refusal of tens of millions of Latino Americans to vote. They were disappointed in the last Congress, a Congress of the rich, where one billionaire suggested granting only taxpayers the right to vote in elections, and giving the wealthy more votes in line with the taxes they pay. The Latino votes traditionally used to go to the Democrats, which is why we saw devastating results for the Democratic Party.

On one of the campaign billboards of the Republican Party, there was the slogan which said, “Let’s be great.” In other words, let us be wise and great. This demonstrates an underlying desire to bring America back to its ideal position in the world, not like the divided one represented by Barack Obama. Blacks complain that he is not really representing them, environmentalists complain that he is not “green” enough, racists are upset because of his African descent, and right-wingers consider him a Muslim and a socialist, while extreme leftists see him as a conservative apostate.

A while back, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said: “Americans deserve to lead because they are able to see beyond what others see.”* However, U.S. policy under Bush and then Obama proves otherwise. Larry Diamond, one of the most prominent scholars in international democracy studies, recently said in a statement in Washington: “We cannot have credibility and effectiveness in promoting democracy abroad if we do not fix and improve our performance nationally.”*

The Republican tsunami reveals the need for Americans to apply the ancient Greek proverb, “Physician, heal thyself.” It also indicates that it was not just a referendum on Obama and the future of Democrats, but was a vote on the future of America, which has been unlucky so far.

*Editor’s Note: These quotes, though accurately translated, could not be sourced.