America at War With Itself

It would seem that two high-level politicians discovered Hurricane Sandy to be a source of political reconciliation: President Obama and one of his arch-critics, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, both visited the storm-battered eastern New Jersey shore at the same time. Both men, one stout and the other slender, uncharacteristically praised each other, while scorning politics. Has high-level politics in America lost its legitimacy?

Partisan Trench Warfare

The old rule of thumb whereby an incumbent president is president of all Americans seems no longer to apply. Not only will both contestants come down to the wire in a photo finish this year, but recent elections have almost all been close races as well. George Bush’s close lead in Florida in 2000 caused anxiety even after election day. Four years later, the fate of the nation came down to 100,000 swing voters in Ohio.

These razor-thin victories have caused problems. Majority vote generally means winner take all, even those who win by a whisker. In such cases, the defeated party questions the legitimacy of the election. Even today, they’re still arguing about Florida’s voting machines. It wasn’t just the Bush election in which the president is seen as a usurper. Barack Obama has been subjected to similar hostility. Not only have his religion and his nationality been questioned, he’s even been branded an Islamist and communist.

No matter how the upcoming election ends, the end of partisan trench warfare is about as unforeseeable as the ideological skirmishes in which the population is currently embroiled.

Both Camps Are Engaged in a Cold War

On one side stand the Democratic adherents to the New Deal, introduced by Roosevelt to provide government assistance and to tame American capitalism running amok. Obama dare not alienate the pro-government voter in the face of the Republican attack; in an era of globalization, that would finish off the New Deal for good.

On the other side, Republicans in rural or suburban areas are determined to preserve the traditional America. That America was a very open but at the same time a very hard land. Surveys indicate that white voters this year will trend toward the Republican candidates as they haven’t since they elected Ronald Reagan. In the face of America’s new demographics, the nation’s traditional white majority at the polls is disappearing. To them, Romney appears to be the lone defender of their “lost cause.”

Members of both parties are thus entrapped in a fantasy finale, a battle so bitterly fought that it begs the question whether America isn’t fighting a cold war against itself.

Military Organization on the “Battlefields”

The new polarization carries over into everyday life as well. Americans are moving to places where they can live and vote with their own kind, as though the country were on the road to becoming a nation of foreigners. Previously, one found prominent Republicans in the liberal northeastern section of America as well as Democrats in the conservative south. That distribution ensured a range of opinions in both parties.

Today, that pluralism is all but passé. The “blue” Democratic states are firmly ensconced on both coasts and the northern border, the “red” Republican states dominate Middle America. More than 80 percent of voting districts are securely in the hands of one party or the other. The result is that four-fifths of congressional representatives need not consider the wishes of the voters in the opposition party.

Swing states such as Ohio and Florida have meanwhile morphed into the front lines of the political war. They are bombarded with obscenely expensive propaganda campaigns while simultaneously there’s only silence behind the lines. In Ohio, already dubbed the “battleground of battlegrounds” by Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, the special forces of both parties stand organized almost military-style, facing hellish pressure from the other side. As is usual in trench warfare, the opposing parties throw enormous numbers of mobilized and entrenched foot soldiers into the fray — so many that the opposing forces almost trample one another underfoot.

The Superpower Faces Existential Problems

To be sure, both these Americas have existed for decades. During prosperous years they lived side by side from coast to coast in a happy jumble. While a limited social safety net existed, the nation nonetheless remained wide open. The population shot up from 152 million in 1950 to 248 million in 1990 and then up to today’s 311 million. During these 60 years in which the population doubled, the nation also grew to unchallenged superpower status.

Republicans in the Bush years wanted to maintain this amiable jumble, but in view of their slim victory in the 2000 election, George W. Bush decided to embark on a risky foreign policy gamble despite misgivings on the part of the Democrats. The ensuing inadequately planned Iraq War and the following financial crisis alienated voters.

In this hour of disillusionment, Barack Obama tried to expand the safety net while he briefly still controlled both houses of Congress. The poorly planned healthcare reform, however, overwhelmed a nation already struggling with rising unemployment. More than seven million industrial jobs had already been lost at the start of the new millennium. Which functioning European welfare state would have brushed aside the interests of its own workers in favor of defending illegal immigration? The openness of the old, hard America didn’t fit in well with Obama’s poorly calculated clemency.

Majorities Need Reconciliation

That’s how both parties dealt with their slim victory margins. They tried with hubris to set up new political monuments, partly with the objective of gaining eternal supporters and partly out of fear that they would never be returned to power. The losers reacted like Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, who always punishes megalomania. Obama ended Bush’s wars with the ostentatious announcement of withdrawal dates, and now the Republicans are threatening to get rid of Obama’s healthcare reforms as soon as they assume power.

The parties themselves seem incapable of reaching consensus. Could the armistice between Governor Christie and President Obama be more than just a momentary gesture? More than just a self-preservation attempt from a backsliding Republican governor in the predominantly Democratic northeast? The next U.S. president — whoever that may be — will have to reconcile the warring parties by himself. The country will be attending to its own problems for quite some time to come.