Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Newt Gingrich and the politics of resentment

If Newt Gingrich becomes the Republican presidential candidate — now quite likely although far from certain — next fall’s presidential contest will become one of the nastiest and most divisive in a long time.

Some of the ugliness that may then disfigure American politics is already plain to see. Gingrich keeps calling Barack Obama a “food-stamp president” (as opposed to himself as a “paycheque” one), a reference, indirect but intentional, to the colour of those most likely to depend on food stamps, and also the most likely to vote for Obama.

At the same time, though, an Obama-Gingrich contest would not be just a race between two individuals to win the world’s most important job (or to hold onto it). It would be at the same time a contest between two radically different ideas about American society.

In a prototypically American way, the presidential election of 2012 thus may end up as an exercise in democracy at both its worst and its best, in the latter instance because it would have the potential to change the nature of the country.

Some of the reasons why the stakes are so high are circumstantial. Gingrich happens to possess exceptional oratorical skills, he having just used them to turn a 10-point deficit in the polls in South Carolina into a large lead in barely a week.

He also happens to be a natural extremist, angry, resentful, vengeful. And he is all of this at a time when a great many Americans are deeply angry.

Some are angry because they have no jobs. Others are angry at big, intrusive, government. But the true source of their rage and fear is that they know, or sense, that the country they love is in decline, that its best days as a shining city on a hill, as an exceptional nation and a model for others, are behind it.

Decline is almost the hardest test a nation can confront. Two ways exist for a nation to deal with decline. To accommodate it, much as ordinary individuals come to terms with personal decline as they age, or to lash out against it, to rage against the dimming of the light.

That’s what the Tea Party movement is about. Also the religious right. And Gingrich. He and his supporters want to go back to an older, simpler America — hence the constant invocations to the constitution — of self-reliant individuals and of unrestrained capitalism.

In fact, that America never really existed, except in its earliest years when almost everyone was a small, independent farmer and when governments did little.

For decades, the U.S. had no economic rival. Today, its lead is gone, probably forever. Asked at a White House dinner why almost all of Apple’s products like iPads and iPhones are manufactured abroad, the late Steve Jobs bluntly told Obama: “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”

This is the reality that Obama is trying to come to terms with. His economic policy is to use government as an instrument that “works for everybody, not just a wealthy few.” Or for society, not only for individuals.

He applies the same realism to foreign affairs. Obama has minted the phrase “leading from behind,” or of America no longer trying to police the world but doing it now in partnership with others.

The two views are so far apart — a gulf, not a gap, let alone a mere difference — that an Obama-Gingrich contest is certain to be a savage one. The strongest evidence for this is that it’s already happening.

It’s happening, though, among Republicans. There, the loser is Mitt Romney, the single moderate conservative left in the race, while the winner is Gingrich.

Maybe Romney can turn things around. More likely, he’ll serve as a punching bag for Gingrich. The key question is how well Obama can counter-punch.

Original Article
Source: Star 
Author: Richard Gwyn 

No comments:

Post a Comment