Tea Party

Will the solution come from Obama’s restructuring or the new Republican right?

American tradition indicates that in the midterm elections, the ruling party loses seats in Congress and in governorships. Last Tuesday’s elections represent a significant defeat, even by traditional standards. However, seeing things more rationally, the defeat is not so dramatic. Obama was really much more popular on television than among American voters, even when he won the presidency.

If anything, these elections represent a shocking shift toward the right, due to the general desperation in the U.S. The overcoming of the recession that began a year ago is the first in history that is not accompanied by a rebound in employment. Moreover, the trend, lasting nearly a decade now, indicates that the economic model produces more jobs in cheap labor rather than in the higher-paid sector. Jobs in the median sector plummet, and the middle class is threatened.

Even more amazing is that the defeated president obtained approval for what is most like Social Security in the U.S. It seems that either it is not enough, or it is true that the U.S. does not want to look like Europe and its welfare state. The shift to the right is so intense that the Republican Party presented several candidates from the so-called tea party, the political group with striking right-wing ideas — as right-wing as the brand new Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio. In his first statements he said that his victory was neither Republican nor Democrat — in other words, this is a victory leaning more toward the right than the Republicans.

History works like a pendulum. The severe economic crisis of epic proportions from the years 2007-2008 was driven by Keynes and apparently tamed, but those fiscal remedies apparently are no longer useful because they do not increase employment, which is the great attraction of Keynesian policies.

This crisis due to capitalism will probably mean an opportunity for the same system to resurface, as has happened in the past — except that before, the genius of Keynes produced the best of both worlds: economic growth and rising employment. Apparently now the incentives are for employers and not for workers. Will the solution come from Obama’s restructuring or the new Republican right? The impact will be global.