November 2008 that is, when the tea party put the kettle on. Its now two years since Barack Obama was elected to the white house on a wave of optimism unmatched in American history. Over that time the optimism has faded away and on the 2nd of November will get a chance to see just how disillusioned the American public really are when they vote in the midterm elections. Last week the Democrats were expected to lose major ground. However some reports suggest that the polls might be narrowing but if they want to hold on to their current level of power they will have to reawaken the progressive base that granted them their majority in 2006 and the keys to the white house in 2008. So what happened to all the optimism of Obama’s presidential campaign?
Candidate Obama promised radical reform in health, the environment and on Wall Street. President Obama delivered watered down health reform without a public option that wont kick in for four years. President Obama is yet to pass significant environmental legislation and his endorsement of offshore drilling couldn’t have backfired any worse then it did after the deepwater horizon disaster caused havoc on the south coast. President Obama has failed to change behaviour on Wall Street where a double-dip recession could be the price for lack of regulation. It’s these differences between candidate Obama and president Obama that has sucked the enthusiasm out of his supporters. This is why the men and women who held up the “change we can believe in” signs will almost certainly be far few in number. For many it seems the only real change was from a president who sold the public false fear to a president who sold them false hope.
If the Obama administrations effect on the left was to disincentives it from political activism its effect on the right has been the exact opposite. Across the country the Tea Party movement has sprung up. They are fielding candidates all over the country. In Delaware they are running anti-masturbation campaigner Christine O’Donnell who had to start an ad by saying, “I’m not a witch” after footage from a 90’s talk show showed her saying “I dabbled in witchcraft”. She refuses to believe in the theory of evolution but was sure that scientists had put fully functioning human brains into mice. Another Tea Party candidate, Rich Iott was recently exposed after photo’s of him in Nazi SS uniform hit the papers, he described dressing up as a Nazi as a “father son hobby”. The tea party candidate for New York governor, Carl Paladino In a prepaid speech he said “I don’t want them (our children) brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option, it isn’t”. Later he appeared on television saying, “I don’t know if you’ve been to one (a gay pride parade) but they wear these little speedo’s and they grind against each other and it’s just a terrible thing”. The rise of ignorance and anti-intellectualism within the GOP was highlighted in May when republican candidate Bradley Byrne was attacked by a fellow republican for supporting the teaching of evolution in schools after saying that it “best explains the origin of life”. Instead of standing up for reason Bradley Byrne responded by saying “I believe the bible is the word of god and every single word of it is true”. Its as if the party are treating brain cells like a dirty secret. What’s going on?
The exact origin of the Tea Party’s name is subject to a common misconception; the original tea party was not a revolt against colonial British tax but actually a revolt against tax cuts towards British Companies. So it’s strange that people who have benefited from George Bushes tax cuts to the richest 1% so heavily finance and endorse the modern Tea Party, a self proclaimed “grassroots movement” that was founded by multi-millionaires. The group calls for a smaller and less intrusive government so its odd that they never piped up while George Bush spent billions on middle east wars and eroded away at civil liberties with the patriot act. However their highest ambition is to lower taxes. In a February poll 90% of Tea Party supporters thought that taxes had either increased or stayed the same under Obama, only 2% thought that they had decreased. In reality taxes had gone down under Obama for over 95% of working and middle class families. Meaning that in a movement concerning taxes, named after a tax revolt, the vast majority of supporters have no idea what was going on concerning taxes.
So what really unites these people? According to a Bloomberg poll “Tea Party supporters are likely to be older, white and male. Forty percent are age 55 and over, compared with 32% of all poll respondents; just 22% are under the age of 35, 79% are white, and 61% are men.” Yes the tea party is made up of old white men who are used to living in a world run by old white men, but that’s changed. Is it really a coincidence that after the election of the first black president the Tea Party slogan is “we want our country back”?
But this ageing demographic will only make an impact at the next election if Obama’s base stays at home. Abase much bigger then that of the republicans. Many suspect that another reason for this enthusiasm gap that many of Obama’s successes have gone unnoticed in the media. For all its failings the Obama administration has achievements to be proud of, like forcing health insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions, preventing a depression and lowering taxes for the poor. Obama has restarted stem cell research and passed a ‘credit card bill of rights’ as well as ending the Iraq war and signing a nuclear missile treaty with Russia. However many Americans been left in the dark because the news media in the USA is notoriously incompetent. In September 2006, five years after 9/11 a CNN poll stated that 43% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the attacks on the world trade centre. The fact that a misconception so important could be so widespread is a damming indictment of American journalism. This means that a simple sound bite, no matter how false can quickly become gospel. “Death panels” becomes a metaphor for Obama’s health care plan when in truth the status quo allowed insurance companies to condemn tens of thousands to death every year. “Ground zero mosque” becomes an insult to the victims of 9/11 when in truth it’s a multi-faith centre two blocks from ground zero.
When the media isn’t failing outright in its duty to inform the public it’s being easily hijacked by reactionary remarks. That’s why this election wont be about Afghanistan, now the longest war in American history. Or climate change at a time when Americans are still the largest polluters per person in the world with an addiction to oil that has been condemned by every president dating back to Richard Nixon but acted upon by none. This election will be about a mosque that isn’t a mosque and socialist health care that isn’t even government run.
In January 1992, days before his inauguration Bill Clinton was told by leading economists that the progressive reforms he had campaigned on (including health care) were impossible, he was inheriting a huge budge deficit of $300billon and could not afford them. His failure to keep his promises rendered him unpopular with the middle classes and in 1994 the republicans won a landslide in the midterm elections. Despite of this Bill Clinton stayed in the white house for another six years. He did so by polling voters and asking what they wanted government to do for them as individuals and then committing to the most popular answers. He treated the electorate like consumers and by appealing to the populist desires of voters he saved his presidency at the expense of his ideology of improving society as a whole. If history repeats itself then we may not be looking at the demise of president Barack Obama just the ‘change’ he promised America.
