The Republicans’ Gamble May Turn Against Them

Democrats and Republicans did not come to an agreement on a vote for the United States budget. As a result, the country is practically paralyzed with what is known as a “shutdown.” More than 800,000 civil servants are on forced leave. How do you explain this situation? Is it a fault of the American system? A response from Pierre Guerlain, Professor of American Civilization at the University of Paris, West Nanterre.

This is not the first time that the United States has faced a “shutdown.” However, the last one was 17 years ago, during the Clinton administration. This situation demonstrates the problematic functioning of American institutions.

The Republicans Do Not Support Health Care Reform

In the present case, Congress needed to vote on the federal budget, but did not manage to do so. The right made a show of strength in an attempt to cancel the health insurance reform that they do not want.

The Republican objective is completely political. It aims to destroy this law, though the Supreme Court upheld it last year, by using everything possible in the normal functioning of democracy. It is holding democracy for ransom.

For all that, as things stand, the health insurance law went into effect beginning Oct. 1, 2013; its implementation will continue into next year. This is not a social reform on the scale of France or Canada. It remains very timid and concedes a great deal to private insurance companies, thanks to the lobbying that they exercised at the time of the vote. It is a minimal reform that is nevertheless intolerable to the Republicans.

Punishing Obama

The right has used its vote in dishonest fashion in order to block Obama on every level. At the heart of the American right, an ideological battle is playing out, which the shutdown well illustrates, between the extreme right-wing fringe of the tea party and the rest of the Republicans. Among the latter, not all were opposed to the budget, but they have been rallied to the hard fringe out of fear of seeming weak and being punished by their constituents, especially in the primaries.

Animosity toward Barack Obama is clearly a driving force in this step into the breach. Not only does the right detest him as an individual, but it also considers him weak. The blockage in Congress is a punishment against him. The goal is to paralyze him and block any reform that is even the slightest bit progressive.

Public Opinion Will Split

The move is risky for the Republicans. What they just did may well turn against them. It is not, in effect, certain that American public opinion will approve of this technical blockage of the government and its consequences.

Seventeen years ago, the shutdown turned in Clinton’s favor. He won a battle of public opinion, then the 1996 election. This time, it is not certain that Republican constituents approve of the to-the-end-ism of their representatives. The latter have perhaps shot themselves in the foot.

The anti-government discourse is very important in the United States. Certain Americans say to themselves, “This blockage is a good thing; in any case, government is good for nothing.” However, at the same time, public opinion on the whole seems more inclined to condemn Republicans than Democrats.

It must be said that the business world, which is situated on the right and which finances the Republican Party, cannot function well in the long term with a completely absent government, whatever they may claim. If this blockage endures — in 1995, it lasted three weeks — it will be a problem for the American economy and hence the global economy. The United States’ image in the world will be equally bruised. The political and media backlash could be very high. This crisis could therefore paradoxically highlight that public services are essential in an advanced economy.

In other words, the Republicans’ gamble may turn against them….