All the Important Things That the Candidates Haven’t Discussed

One day away from the American presidential election, political scientist Daniel Warner weighs the Democratic and Republican arguments. Remember that even if the polarization is strong, the two sociopolitical visions are not so different from each other.

In the impending elections in the United States, it is the choice of president and vice president that garners particular attention, though all members of the House of Representatives and one third of the members of the Senate are also elected on this occasion.

The entire world is waiting attentively for tomorrow’s vote, because the results will have repercussions for the whole world. Will the United States and/or Israel attack Iran? Will there be a commercial war with China? Can the United States meet its financial obligations while reducing its debt and creating jobs?

What are the arguments of the two parties? The Democrats, eyes fixed on the interventionism of Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression, are counting on the government to act as a safety net, while the Republicans sing the praises of individual initiative and the self-regulating market. For Democrats, Mitt Romney represents the 1 percent contemptuous of the 47 percent of the population that is allegedly dependent on the state. The Democrats believe that Barack Obama is in line with the future and that Republicans get bogged down by nostalgia.

For the Republicans, Barack Obama has proven to be a great disappointment: Economically, the American people find themselves in a worse situation today than in 2008. Mitt Romney has established himself as an impressive leader. He was the incontestable winner according to most polls of the first debate and has passed the test of presidential attitude. Based on Obama’s failure to create jobs, a growing debt, the decline of American prestige and finally the recent murder of four American diplomats in Libya, the Republicans claim to have proof of the global weakness of the United States under a Democratic administration.

There is truth to both points of view. But in reality, there isn’t much difference between the two candidates, despite what the two campaigns proclaim. Almost all the elections in the United States revolve around the center right, which liberal candidates such as George McGovern or extreme conservative Barry Goldwater could plainly see. Americans are opposed to radical representatives, whether they are on the left or right.

But the United States now faces two radical changes. The position of economic and political domination that the United States has enjoyed during the period following World War II no longer exists. This isn’t because the United States is on the decline — a position, as Paul Kennedy stated, that all empires must be in at one time or another — but rather because the world has become multipolar instead of unipolar or bipolar. The domination of one power is no longer possible.

The second radical change is found in the means of production. We are operating in an industrial era geared toward economies of more advanced services. These changes offer us enormous potential — for example, a young start-up who sells for a billion dollars after one year. Yet with these technological progressions, inequality grows between the wealthy and those who have nothing, the 1 percent and the 99 percent. The two presidential candidates are trying to reach a disappearing middle class, which finds itself caught between rising costs and inadequate jobs.

The two major changes that will face the future president are thus the changing role of the United States and the changing nature of the means of production. The problem for these two candidates is to convince voters that the situation is critical — the economy was on the edge of a cliff in 2008 — and that a radical change in traditional politics is necessary, all the while making sure not to appear radical.

Unfortunately, but logically, neither candidate is ready to take the risk of confronting the traditional, exceptional image of Americans. Neither candidate was honest in the face of the changes ahead. Why not? Because voters simply don’t want to hear the present reality. Cognitive dissonance is a strong psychological defense mechanism. As political historian Allan Lichtman said: “I think there’s more of a tendency now than in the past to avoid discussion of serious problems.”

I voted, though without conviction. Numerous friends will not vote. Neither candidate honestly presented the challenges facing the United States and the world. The former director of political policy at the State Department lamented, shortly after the third debate, “Neither candidate ever uttered the word ‘climate.’ Or drug violence. Or poverty, disease, food, water, or even energy.”

Hopefully they both played the game for voters. Hopefully they know, both of them, what it really is. Although the future president will become president of the United States, not the world, the American leader is still important. While Switzerland boasts the advantages of multilateralism in celebrating the tenth anniversary of its entry into the UN, the 2012 presidential election is limited and disappointing. “All politics is local,” said Tip O’Neill, but it would be irresponsible for the future president to give in to this provincialism.