Political Rhetoric and Resignation in the USA

Political Rhetoric and Resignation
by JASON HIRTHLER – November 06, 2012 – CounterPunch

A week before the election Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast with tremendous force. Millions were thrown back a century in time to an epoch of candles and cold showers, with no indoor plumbing. A world without the 24-hour distraction of the Internet. Coastal homes were blown apart or swamped with seawater. Half of New Jersey, parts of coastal boroughs and all of lower Manhattan were powerless for a week or more.

It occurred to me that the disaster would provide an opportunity for both candidates to ‘look presidential,’ always a critical component when the voting electorate pulled the lever or punched the chad based on their perception of a candidate’s trustworthiness. Subtle cues, like a strong jawline and a confident gaze into the middle distance were the telegraphic indicators the masses craved.

Barack Obama, the incumbent, was caught in the cross-hairs between a need to go on the offensive against his opponent, and to maintain his milquetoast persona so as not to frighten racist Caucasians. It was a delicate balancing act that he achieved finally by ridiculing his white opponent without appearing angry as he did so. Sarcasm and a smile seemed to do the trick.

Still, such was disdain for the general population that Mitt Romney seemed to think he could win by chanting the endless refrain of “twelve million jobs” without explaining how he would create them; and by promising to reduce the exploding federal deficit, without explaining where he’d find the money.

Many Americans, suspecting the perpetually tanned and Bryll creamed Romney was not particularly trustworthy, summed up their feelings by exclaiming, “This is some bullshit.” About a quarter of the voting population put their faith in half-black Obama, who had dutifully funneled twenty trillion dollars to banks without taxpayer bailouts and low-interest loans. Despite his efforts, Wall Street opted to support Romney, who promised to lower taxes on the ‘wealth creators’ while Obama made periodic allusions to asking the rich to pay a little more. Appeals to selfless altruism usually fall flat in America, an ostensibly Christian nation that seems to want to be saved by Christ but not asked to act like him.

The Voting Public

Voters tended to fall into four categories. First, there were the Republicans, a numerous lot of anti-government, anti-immigrant, anti-poor, anti-gay, and anti-abortion xenophobes allied to an even-tempered educated class with a desire to secure and extend its capital gains, entirely remove a tax burden they regarded as theft, and ignore or marginalize the poor.

According to this narrative, the indigent had themselves to blame for their circumstances. A lack of industry, dishonesty bordering on the mendacious, and a persistent belief in their own victimhood conspired to put these people at the bottom of the social ladder, and rightly so.

Liberals comprised the second group. This was an almost rabidly pro-Democrat clan of self-labeled progressives who appeared to cling to the handful of quasi-progressive measures the Obama administration had passed, spotlighting these to the exclusion of the far larger corporate repressive policies that Democrats had enacted.

This frequently resulted in surreal dialogues in which liberals would passionately proclaim minor measures such as young adults being covered on their parents’ insurance until the age of 26, while making no mention of the several proxy wars the President was carrying out abroad, or the dramatic erosion of civil liberties exceeding even the Bush administration, or any number of other regressive initiatives.

In practical terms, both parties had been fatally compromised by money power, funneled into party coffers by the gigantic machinery of lobbyists. Once in office, representatives felt obliged to serve the interests of corporate entities that had put them in office—interests antithetical to those of the general population.

Embittered leftists comprised the third group. Although of entirely oppositional ideologies, I’ve put them in the same group because they occupy similar position along the American political spectrum. Namely, an angry, disempowered fringe that vacillates between voting for third party candidates with zero chance of winning, or submitting to the implacable logic of the lesser of two evils.

Leftists had their quasi-socialist dreams shattered by the capitulation of the Democratic Party to corporate elites, an inevitable shift led by New Democrats under Bill Clinton (and Third Way Laborites in Britain under Tony Blair).

On the far right, tea part activists had become disillusioned by the rudderless policies, government expansion, and indiscriminate spending of George Bush II. …more