Obama’s Year Was a Drama

U.S. President Barack Obama has had a bad year. He managed to achieve next to nothing and was repeatedly put on the spot. The remainder of his term does not bode well either.

In Obama’s case, 2013 had already began on Dec. 14, 2012, when deranged shooter Adam Lanza shot 20 children and six adult members of staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

The call for stricter firearm legislation sounded louder than ever before. Polls showed 9 out of 10 Americans to be supportive of a ban on semi-automatic weapons, as well as mandatory background checks on those wanting to buy firearms. No one believed that the murder of twenty 6- and 7-year-olds would be without consequences. Both the gun lobby and the Republican Party, however, were opposed to any changes, and Obama proved incapable of getting anything through Congress.

This set the tone for Obama’s fifth year in the White House. It was only a couple of months before that he had been re-elected with a majority of votes. Republican candidate Mitt Romney had dug his own grave by claiming that 47 percent of the U.S. population was made up of freeloaders. Washington watchers claimed that this kind of tea party talk belongs to the past. Obama said the craze would be over soon enough.

Insiders agreed: After such a setback, Republicans ought to have handed something over to Obama. This would have come in the shape of immigration reforms, as they were called, because it would have been disastrous for Republicans to remain a party catering to a diminishing number of old, white men. They had to find a way to appeal to Latinos in particular, since they comprise the largest group of immigrants in the United States. The matter was like a ripe fruit, ready to be picked, but Obama failed to act again.

Wimp

It turned out then that the claim that the tea party craze would blow over was based on a false assumption made by the president. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Clashes over budget negotiations remained just as intense, and the extremist wing of the Republican Party continued to demand cuts of draconian proportions.

The government’s failure to reach a budget settlement led to a shutdown at the end of this year, during which time civil services were unavailable. The U.S. only just managed to avoid hitting the so-called debt ceiling. This is the legal upper limit of the national deficit. If this limit had not been raised, the U.S. would no longer have been able to pay off its loans, and a new recession, as well as an international financial crisis, would have been imminent.

On the one hand, the government shutdown turned out to be to Obama’s advantage. He said he would not be blackmailed — Republicans had only agreed to approve the budget if the president did not deploy his new health insurance act — and stuck to his guns. During previous confrontations, he had allowed himself to be roped into making compromises that resulted in additional cuts, leading to a backlash from his voters, and this had convinced Republicans that he would be susceptible to blackmail again.

On the other hand, a government shutdown can be considered a blot on the president’s escutcheon. It is, one could say, clear proof of his inability to forge deals. This is something that has been said before about Obama: He is able to hold his own when it comes to giving a speech, but when push comes to shove and he has to twist Congress’ arm, he is not man enough.

It is true, the Republican Party is currently in a phase where it is barely prepared to make compromises. The American system, where both the president and the two houses of Congress are perfectly capable of blocking the actions of one another, lends itself well to obstructionism. If one party keeps voting no at every opportunity, then, in fact, that will be the result.

So, it is not entirely Obama’s fault, but still … The following saying applies to a U.S. president: “The buck stops here.” With regard to public image — and in politics everything revolves around this — you cannot, whether it is justified or not, keep making these kinds of excuses. At some point, people will start calling you a wimp.

Blunderer

In any case, after events like the government shutdown and the raising of the U.S. debt ceiling, Obama had Republicans on their knees. The public blamed them for the mess, and polls were looking particularly bad. In fact, it seemed that Obama had won that round.

With scheduled midterm elections coming up in November 2014, this could have been of great benefit. The thing is, if Obama still wants to have a shot at realizing some of his plans, then it would be good for him to win these elections and, with a bit of luck, regain the majority of votes in the House of Representatives (the U.S. equivalent to our Chamber; in the Senate, it is Democrats who dominate). After the last budget crisis, this suddenly seemed viable.

But look, Obama found a way to ruin this opportunity as well. On Oct. 1, HealthCare.gov, the website that allows for millions of uninsured Americans to purchase a health insurance plan — sometimes for the first time in their lives — went live. This was to be the final installment of “Obamacare,” the new health insurance law. One would have thought that Obama would have planned this well. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

The website did not function at all. People tore out their hair in frustration. The site crashed every 2 seconds. Customers spent hours staring at their screens trying to create profiles, dozens of times, often days on end. Simply put, it was a catastrophe.

And Republicans? Schadenfreude aplenty. “See,” they said, “‘Obamacare’ does not work. Cannot work.” By the way, it is still strange to hear these words coming from their mouths, given that “Obamacare” is based on ideas stemming from their own Heritage Foundation, and Mitt Romney, during his time as governor of Massachusetts, first implemented it, albeit on a smaller scale.

And Obama? He made a bad impression. In this day and age of high-speed e-commerce, the man responsible for irrevocably changing politics through his revolutionary use of the Internet was suddenly unable to build a website. And it was not just that the website was malfunctioning but also that, because of this, Obama again underscored his inability to get across the reforms’ actual purpose.

In principle, no American has to be afraid of being without health insurance any longer. Diabetics, cancer patients and others with pre-existing conditions are finally able to receive a health insurance plan that is affordable. Those unable to pay the premiums can opt for Medicaid, the public system for the poor, or they are eligible to receive subsidies for use in the private market.

This is an implementation of almost epic proportions, but it has already been forgotten amid all the disorder. And yes, in the meantime, the website has managed to more or less match up to standards, but it is too late: Its image has already been ruined.

What is worse still for Obama is that people no longer trust him. “If you like what you’re getting, keep it,” Obama said at the time. It turns out that this is not the case. A small minority of people with insurance plans that fail to meet the minimum requirements of “Obamacare” have had to resort to something else. From a practical point of view, this is not such a big problem, but it is disastrous to one’s credibility. Politifact’s fact checkers called this promise that Obama made the “Whopper of the Year.” One could say it was the biggest lie of the year.

The result: The political vandalism of Republicans with respect to the national budget has already been forgotten. The polls show a rapid increase in their popularity. Obama’s chances of once again achieving a Democratic majority in the House in November now seem to be very slim indeed. If there were ever a way to shoot yourself in the foot, this would certainly be it.

The Rich and the Rest

This is all good and true, but at least the American economy is now faring a lot better. Right?

It depends on the way you look at it. Stock exchanges are reaching new heights. The federal deficit is shrinking. Corporate profits are soaring. Growth rates are looking good. Even unemployment figures are dropping bit by bit. However, the point is this: The U.S. economy can be viewed as one where there are the rich [people], and then there are the rest. If you are rich, things go smoothly for you; if you are not, it is a different world altogether.

The U.S. economy is growing, but the growth does not include everyone. According to a recent study by the University of California, Berkeley, 95 percent of the rise in income since the 2008 crisis can be found within the wealthiest percent of the population. Employment rates are increasing, but in many cases, well-paying jobs have been replaced by crap ones that pay beggar’s wages.

One often hears stories about members of the middle class who have lost their jobs and are unable to find work. Members of the millennial generation with bachelor’s and master’s degrees have been active on the job market but are hardly able to find employment that allows them to pay off their astronomical student loans.

Inequality is the all-encompassing challenge of our era, Obama recently said. He is right. However, is he, in fact, able to make a change in the three years that still remain for him as president? If 2013 is anything to go by, then you best not put your money on it.

Quite the opposite is true. The modest budget compromise that was reached a couple of weeks ago in Washington has led to cuts being spread a bit more evenly, which essentially means that the Army has been kept out of the firing line — because that is something you keep your hands off in this country. What this compromise does not include — and as such goes against strong demands made by Democrats — is the extension of unemployment benefits. Consequently, as of Jan. 1, 1 million people will be without an income. This, too, is an example of something that Obama has failed to get through Congress.

Whether you like it or not, the facts remain the same: During Obama’s presidency, the U.S. managed to save thousands of billions of dollars, stock exchanges reached new heights, the gap between the rich and the rest of the population widened, a Republican health reform was implemented, and the national security state continued to grow (in reference to the National Security Agency spying scandal, which has not even been addressed yet).

In short, you could ask yourself, why is it, in fact, that Republicans are complaining? Barack Obama is the best Republican president they could have imagined.