Taking their country back

Claude Clarke, Contributor

Who'd have thunk it? The mighty United States (US): the bastion of world capitalism, the country whose currency has been the medium of exchange and measurement of value that undergirds world trade, and whose debt has been capital's safest haven since the gold standard, has been downgraded as a debtor.

Standard and Poor's (S&P) has made it clear that the principal rationale for its unprecedented downgrade of US debt is the fact that it could no longer be confident that the US government would do what it has always done: defend the value of its full faith and credit.

S&P recognised that the unconditional guarantee of the United States could not be credibly given when critical sections of the US government could not be relied on to cooperate and honour its fiduciary duty to service its debt. Nor could it be confident that the government would be able to agree on policies necessary to grow its economy and keep it healthy.

Because the US debt represents almost 25 per cent of world economic output and is highly liquid, and in light of the present weak global economic outlook, it is unlikely that the downgrade will result in increased interest rates. However, the damage to US prestige will be immediate and lasting. Most significantly, the image of the sitting US president will be severely and indelibly harmed.

Exuberant eccentricity

When, almost two years ago in the summer of 2009, a simple woman stood in a Delaware town hall meeting and, waving her US birth certificate as if to assert her legitimacy, declared, "I want my country back," no one could have imagined it was more than a display of exuberant eccentricity. But it was to inspire a movement that would change the political landscape of America more than anything since the war that ended slavery. It would bring the most powerful economy in human history almost to its knees.

The woman's passionate plea came in the midst of the great health-care debate. A national discussion on how best to achieve health care befitting the citizens of the world's most advanced economy, rapidly drifted from the realm of rational discourse to sociocultural political hysteria. The debate was deeply polarising. It pitted the idea of a better health-care system against the view held by those who saw themselves as the 'real' Americans, that change, as represented by Barack Obama, was a mortal threat to the American way of life,.

The shrillness of the confrontation went beyond ordinary political or even ideological disagreement and released long-suppressed cultural anxieties, racial bigotry and ideological extremism. Those who were promoting what they believed to be an improved health-care system found themselves confronted by a fierce and passionate opposition advancing an agenda driven by a yearning for a redundant sociocultural order, which was given new life and energy by the call to regain control of their country.

Those who promoted this idea didn't say how, or when, or to whom they had lost their country. But they increasingly advanced the view that the country was in un-American hands and needed to be rescued. It was not long before the call came for a political revolution to rescue the country. The call became a cause. And the rallying cry was, "We want our country back."

Recognisable brand

The cause needed a vehicle: a recognisable brand that could readily carry its message and attract support for the mission it pursued. It was too radical to be adopted by a mainstream political party; but the Tea Party, a fringe group which had up till then been a mere curiosity, presented itself as the perfect medium.

Just a year before, it had rallied to the support of septuagenarian libertarian congressman, Ron Paul. Its backing of Paul's presidential bid could muster no more support than an average 10 per cent of Republican primary votes, before he dropped out. It appeared then that the Tea Party was not a serious political force and was as much a fringe group as its political champion, Ron Paul, was a fringe candidate.

But the health-care battle was like an elixir to the Tea Party. Capitalising on long-repressed racist feelings, it created the opportunity to characterise the election of Obama, America's first non-white president, as a threat to the way of life of the majority Caucasian population. So effective was the campaign that when it was over, the health-care reform proposed by President Obama, which in April 2009 had almost 60 per cent support, had to be watered down to be squeezed through Congress, as public support for it had fallen below 45 per cent.

Health-care reform became a metaphor for the capture of America by 'anti-American' forces and was converted by the Tea Partiers from a popular proposal which had been a central plank in Obama's successful presidential campaign, to a liability to his re-election. By the time the health-care debate was over, one-third of the president's popular support was gone: falling from the mid-60 percentile to the mid-40s.

'Obama Care' became a pejorative term to generate fear and anger among conservative Americans. It is this anger and fear that was leveraged to create the success of the Tea Party in the elections of 2010, catapulting dozens of ultra radical and largely intellectually incurious ideologues to elected office. It was the crack through which the lunatic right-wing fringe crept into the halls of political sobriety and reason: the US Congress. The Tea Partiers rode into Washington united around one objective: Obama and his policies, regardless of public opinion, should not be allowed to succeed.

The retreat of the president's popularity and the surge in support for the call to take back the country gave legitimacy to the Tea Party and made it acceptable to be co-opted into the mainstream Republican Party. The energy and ideological zeal it brought to the Republican campaign in 2010 swept the Democrats from the majority in the House of Representatives. That same zeal and doggedness enabled its minority presence in the House to hold the Republican leadership hostage.

In the Senate, although the Democrats remained in the majority, the Republicans, by their unprecedented and unreasonable use of the filibuster requiring every important decision to have 60 votes, exercised effective control over the major issues.

This Republican minority control of the Senate, and the Tea party minority leverage on the Republican House leadership, has introduced an era of dysfunctional democracy never before seen in the US. The glue of patriotism, which had always enabled the US government to protect and advance the best interest of the United States even in the most contentious political battles, was removed, making compromise and cooperation impossible. Whereas previously, political differences ended with compromise, they now resulted in paralysis.

The upside-down power structure the Tea Party members created in the House overturned the time-honoured tradition in which the leadership guided and shaped policy. After the 2010 elections, it was the minority freshmen Tea Partiers who determined policy: the same Tea Partiers that drove the opposition to health-care reform by promoting the mission to take back their country.

Barack Obama epitomises all that offends their sensibilities and stirs their anger. The insults and insolence that have been directed at the president are without precedent in modern US politics. The disrespect shown to the office by the Republican leadership has not been seen by any other Democratic president in recent times. The deference normally given to a president when he intervenes to resolve disputes between the parties has been hardly evident since Obama came to office.

The president's recent request for the debt-limit increase and budget compromise was stoutly and rudely rebuffed by Republicans and led to the present crisis. Tea Party Republicans unyieldingly held to their position, even in the face of economic disaster. National interest did not enter the equation as it had with the more than 70 previous requests to increase the debt limit.

Tailspin

In the end, they relented, only partially, to avoid default; but not enough to assure the market that they could be counted on to be responsible. The 98 per cent that Republican House Speaker John Boehner got of what he and the Tea Party wanted was just enough to send the stock market into a tailspin and trigger a historic downgrade of US credit.

S&P's statement was revealing. It established that it was principally the politics of Washington, and not the state of the US economy or its fiscal situation, though of concern, that influenced its decision to downgrade.

The battle over the debt ceiling, in which the Republicans, under the direction of the Tea Party, prevailed, has had the political outcome one could reasonably conclude was intended: the first credit downgrade in US history, took place on the watch of the country's first black president.

This has left a permanent black mark on the presidency of the black Barack Obama. They may well be on their way to "taking their country back".

Claude Clarke is a businessman and former minister of trade. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.