America Makes a Right Turn

The hijacking of the Republican Party is in full swing. But tea party candidate Christine O’Donnell’s victory in the Delaware primaries is also a catastrophe for Barack Obama: There goes his rainbow coalition.

Sure, it’s only Delaware, America’s second smallest state, and only a couple thousand voters went to the polls. But they nominated a woman as candidate for the U.S. Senate who, not long ago, was considered unelectable because she was a light-weight, not to mention too far to the right.

Delaware was among the last states holding primary elections for congressional seats in November’s general election. The results turned it into a blockbuster that couldn’t be overlooked anywhere in the nation. The nomination of Christine O’Donnell signaled no good news — not for Republicans, not for Democrats (even if they see it differently for the moment) and above all, not for American politics in general.

The far-right tea party is celebrating. Their candidate, whom the Republican Party itself said wasn’t even fit to be elected dogcatcher, swept aside the Republican establishment’s choice. And that’s not the first time that’s happened.

In primary elections from Alaska to Florida, tea party nominees have knocked well-known Republican candidates out of the race. And it always follows the same pattern: They’ve succeeded in defining the established candidates as too far left and themselves as upright conservatives who want to roll back taxes, protect citizens from government interference and put Democrats in their proper place.

Their success has become an enormous problem for the Republican establishment because these archconservatives are hijacking the party, and they seem ready to pay any price for victory.

Conservative Alaskans and the religiously faithful in Utah will send tea party candidates to the Senate in Washington. That’s still a wide open question in other locations like Nevada or Florida, for example. The tea party victory in Delaware’s primary election was complete beyond anyone’s expectations because voters there are considered to be relatively moderate. Normally, a right-wing candidate wouldn’t stand a chance of being elected to the Senate.

That’s why Democrats are also celebrating. The tea party victory in Delaware has changed the arithmetic in the U.S. Senate election. That seat had been considered vulnerable and a probable Republican pickup, thus returning Senate control to them along with the House of Representatives — just two years after Obama’s lopsided victory in 2008. But that won’t happen without Delaware’s Senate seat. It will remain Democratic unless an unforeseen disaster intervenes in the meantime.

A Pitch-black Day for Democrats

But holding Delaware’s Senate seat can’t disguise the fact that election day will be pitch-black for Democrats. In Germany, as well as across Europe, people have no idea how unpopular Democrats and their president are among Americans. The latest German Marshall Fund surveys illustrate that clearly. Europeans still hold Obama in high esteem. In the United States, meanwhile, his popularity has been squandered. Obama has succeeded in becoming as unpopular after just two years in office as George Bush was six years into his presidency, and that was at the height of the Iraq war.

The reasons for a likely election debacle for Democrats are apparent. Obama first underestimated the miserable economic conditions he inherited from Bush, and then he wasn’t really able to get a handle on them. Weak growth rates and high unemployment figures contribute greatly to voter discontent nationwide. In addition, he managed to disappoint liberals who think his reforms didn’t go far enough. They’re not likely to vote. He angered conservatives, who think his reforms went too far. Because of that, they’re more likely to vote.

Above all, Obama underestimated the people’s frustration, as well as the force of the tea party movement, which gives shape and a voice to that dissatisfaction. It is by far the most animated political force in America at present. Obama’s left-of-center rainbow coalition, which appealed to the young and the educated and spoke up for women as well as racial minorities, has evaporated into thin air.

The new right is growing. It is setting the agenda, and America is starting to turn to the right. Republicans are already marching in the same direction, no matter how many muddle-headed tea party members get seats and voices in Congress. The Democrats and their president, on the other hand, are permanently stuck on defense. In the future, they will only be reactive, not pro-active, because they will lack the majority necessary to shape events. That, too, was foreshadowed by the primary election in the little state of Delaware.