Obama’s problems stem from a failure to take the high ground

It’s official; the left can never win for long. When Barack Obama became the first black man to be elected as President of the United States, he defined a vision of hope. A vision that united the country and the world, that put paid to insignificant congressional politics, that set out a progressive agenda at a time when action was most needed, after the spectacular failures of extreme conservatism under George W. Bush.

However, just a year on from his inauguration, this vision has been effectively destroyed. The failure of the Democratic candidate to win the Massachusetts seat for the late Edward Kennedy not only means that Obama will fail in his primary objective for his first year in office by not being able to sign a health care reform bill soon, it also reflects the Democrats’ waning popularity all across America. Massachusetts was supposed to be the most Democratic state in the Union: indeed, in the sweeping landslide re-election of Richard Nixon in 1972, Massachusetts was the only state to vote Democrat. The defeat shows that no Democrat seat is secure.

It also upsets the balance in Washington, meaning that the Republicans have the power and support needed to filibuster, a sure fire way of stagnating legislative progress. Therefore, the US can realistically look forward to the longest lame-duck presidency in history, a stark contrast to Obama’s hope of mounting a progressive agenda. Indeed this could last even longer than simply one presidential term, as there is a quite feasible possibility that Obama will be re-elected alongside a Republican Congress, thus producing four years of ineffective leadership and stagnated domestic reform. At a time when the strong hand of government is desperately needed to regulate international monetary policy and initiate economic growth, the possibility of ineffective US global leadership is a catastrophe.

Obama’s progressing failure to govern America effectively unearths a brutal truth about ideological electioneering. The right holds all the cards. Their advantage revolves around the lack of risk brought about by inaction. Conservatives can always set out clearly what they want to achieve because their main goal is to preserve existing social, political and economic structures. In any affluent society, the collapse of these structures amounts to a grinding away of the pillars of capitalism and the majority of the electorate will therefore almost always vote to maintain their position. Progressive politics on the other hand, only agree on changing the status quo. Although this can attract electoral success momentarily, once they are in power, they cannot decide what to do and when to do it, as seen by Obama’s convoluted struggles to mount his much-awaited health care reform bill. In order to stay in power, progressives must have a very clear, narrow vision of what they are going to achieve so that everyone is united behind the same program. As we all know, doing something is far harder than doing nothing.

Obama is a brave politician, but foolhardy. It is his courage in taking responsibility for the current economic climate which has proven to be the route of his downfall. The Democrats under Obama failed to capitalize on the post-Lehman economic crisis and take full advantage of the political high ground. Instead of blaming the Bush Administration and their aggressive free-market ideology for the global financial meltdown, they tried to follow a bipartisan approach in Washington while aiming their political bullets at Wall Street bankers. This tactic, although admirable and appropriate to the problem, allowed the Republicans to simply join in on the banker bashing, diverting attention away from their own failures. Obama could have avoided his current predicament by arguing that the ideological reluctance of the Bush Administration to intervene in the banking system earlier caused the global financial crisis. Instead, unemployment and the drying up of capital now accompany the Democrats, sucking their popularity with the electorate away with each new redundancy.

This is a stark contrast to the way in which Ronald Reagan confronted the economic crisis of 1981. From the start, Reagan refused to accept responsibility for the crisis, spending much of his time convincing the electorate that it should be attributed to Jimmy Carter and the liberal elite. Then, as the economic recovery took hold, voters believed that it came down to ‘Reaganomics’. Obama should have learned this lesson, and manipulated the electorate so that he could be in the political position to enforce his progressive agenda and uphold the vision he so boldly portrayed throughout his presidential campaign.

The US economy is expected to grow by 5 percent this month, meaning that Obama is likely to see the fruits of his hardly fought labour be generously given to his opponents. With the hugely important victory in Massachusetts behind them, the Republicans will have no hesitation in claiming that the economic recovery was due to a conservative backlash. If Obama fails to dispute this effectively, he may find that he goes down as a President who promised much but delivered little.