Having spent time this week in both New Hampshire and Iowa, the states featuring the first presidential nominating contests of 2012, and having been in Michigan the week before, I am getting the feeling that this has all the makings of a very strange election. Foremost among the reasons for this is the fact that the country is in a deep funk. The numbers tell it all.
The economy has not recovered from its near collapse three years ago. Unemployment levels are still double what they were a little over a decade ago. Pension funds are still reeling, having lost twenty to thirty per cent of their value. Nearly one in five homeowners is at risk of foreclosure. Most middle class Americans are working harder, earning less, and feeling more insecure about their futures.
And the income and wealth gap has widened, with the top one-tenth of a per cent of Americans controlling more wealth than the bottom ninety per cent. As Bob Borosage the head of the Campaign for America’s Future has noted, this income gap in the US today is greater than it was in Egypt at the start of their revolt earlier this year.
All of this has taken a profound toll on the public mood. Eight out of ten voters think that the country is on the wrong track. The President’s job approval rating is in the low forty per cent range. Congress’ approval rating is one-quarter of that, with only eleven per cent of the public approving of the job Congress is doing.
Voters might not be happy with the President and his party, but they are less pleased with Republicans. And when asked whether they believe that their children will be better off than they are today, almost two-thirds of Americans say “no”—a stunning figure that points to the collapse of the American Dream that has motivated and sustained the hard-working middle class for generations.
It is this generalised state of unease and/or depression, that has given birth to the various social movements that have so polarised parts of the electorate. First there was the Tea Party, led by Republicans who were able, for a time, to take this insecurity and anger and direct it against government in general, and the President in particular, in order to advance their party’s agenda. This has now been met on the progressive side of the political spectrum with the growing Occupy Wall Street movement. This effort, which began a few weeks back in New York City, has now spread to dozens of cities. It has now been joined by organised labour giving it heft and sustainability.
It is in the midst of all this polarisation that we are going to have a national election and Republicans are finding themselves victims of the very movement they counted on to bring them success. Having preyed on the insecurity of white, middle class, middle aged Americans and having fueled their anger, unleashing them as a disruptive force in 2009 and an electoral weapon in 2010, Republicans now find themselves being chewed up by their own creation. In 2010, established conservative Republicans were defeated in primaries by the so-called Tea Party activists who demanded ideological purity.
Now, in 2012, moderate to conservative Republicans who might have aspired to run for the presidency have been frightened off by this very same movement. Respected governors have declined to run, and those who are in the race have kowtowed to the extreme anti-government, anti-science, anti-immigrant and Islamophobic politics of what has now become the base vote of the GOP.
For months, mainstream “establishment” Republicans waited for a “savior” to announce his or her candidacy, hoping that they would galvanize the party leading it to victory. One by one, these “saviors” have refused. And so it has now dawned on Republicans that they will have to settle for the candidates presently in the mix. Some Republicans may like this state of affairs, but polls are showing that almost one-half of GOP and Republican-leaning independent voters are dissatisfied with the current slate.
And so with the first contests less than three months away, the Republican field is in some disarray, with many GOP voters in a funk over their prospects in this election they so desperately wanted to win.
On the Democratic side, the President has had to contend with discontent among his key constituencies: Latinos, African Americans, environmentalists, organised labour, those who sought more sweeping health care and financial reform and others, all of whom wanted him to fight harder, and many of whom are disappointed. Because the President faced such stiff opposition from Republicans and knew that he could not count on even the total support of some Democrats, he has been compelled to compromise, often settling for less than he had wanted and less than his supporters had expected. His accomplishments are many, but the discontent remains.
The White House has now taken a different tack, proposing a jobs bill and other reform measures. They are taking it in a fighting spirit to the electorate. Whether it will be enough to shake Democrats out of their funk remains to be seen.
The contest, at this point, appears to be focused on intra-party dynamics, with Republicans trying to fall in love with a candidate they will have to settle for, and Democrats trying to fall in love again with the President.
This will all happen, in due time. That remains to be seen.
The writer is President of the Arab-American Institute.
