Republicans Vote for a Shutdown

Republicans vote for a shutdown

After the American Century

Only 45 Republicans voted for the budget bill that would keep the government open. They have 51 seats, barely enough for a majority, but need more than a simple majority. Under Senate rules, they need 60 votes to end debate and then vote on the bill. According to the New York Times, five Republicans who voted against included the majority leader, Mitch "ConMan" McConnell. He voted against his own party, and yet was later on the radio blaming the Democrats for shutting down the government. John McCain, who is not in good health, was the only senator who did not vote.

McConnell has been an incompetent, self-serving embarrassment as party leader. So little legislation has been passed in the last year and he has been so divisive, that he ought to resign and let someone else try their hand at it. Consider the situation. There ought to have been a budget by Christmas, but instead, McConnell only produced a continuing resolution that kicked the can down the road to yesterday's deadline. There is still no budget, and the Democrats were asked once again to vote for a temporary extension of last year's budget. This is no way to run the legislature. If the Republicans cannot manage to produce a budget when they control both houses of Congress and the White House, it is a sign of gross incompetence. 

Not all Democrats were against the bill. Five supported it, including te newly seated Doug Jones from Alabama. He voted for the bill, though one might have thought that a lawyer famous for defending civil rights might have voted no. The other Democratic turncoats were, like Jones, from swing states where moderation is the safe road to re-election: North Dakota, Missouri, West Virginia, and Indiana.

For readers abroad, who may not know what this means, the shutdown only affects the Federal government. I heard an incompetent "expert" on the radio this morning declare that because of the shutdown all the schools in the US would close on Monday and that no one would be able to take a driving test. This is not the case, as both are State (not Federal) functions. Likewise, if someone needs a marriage license, that is a local matter. But a shutdown, at least in theory, could stop airport security (it will not) and close all the national parks (it will). The tax offices will be closed and all federal employees in Washington will get an unpaid "vacation" until Congress starts to do its job.

Meanwhile, the Republicans will try to convince the public that the Democrats are responsible for the shutdown.

Can Tillerson still be Secretary of State after Trading with the Enemy?

After the American Century

The Newsletter 538 noted the following about an article that appeared in USA Today.

"Between 2003 and 2005, the oil and gas company Infineum reported $53.2 million in sales to Iran. During that time, Exxon Mobil had a 50 percent stake in Infineum. Also during that time, the U.S. had sanctions on Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. Rex Tillerson, a top Exxon executive at the time of the deal and later its CEO, is now President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to run the State Department."

So the nominee for Secretary of State broke the US sanction on Iran during George Bush's presidency. (Exxon Mobile also did business with Sudan through the same proxy company, but it was a much smaller transaction.) Iran was then well-known to sponsor terrorist and dissident groups in various parts of the Middle East, hence the sanctions, so there it is not possible for Tillerson to claim he didn't know. 

After this revelation, here are the problems with making Rex Tillerson Secretary of State:

1. He has broken the law in order to make a profit. The claim made in defense is that Infineum is based in Europe, and that no Americans were employed in making these transactions. To avoid violating US law, under this Secretary of State it would seem, it is just fine so long as you do it through a proxy. 
2. He has taken sides in the Middle East, trading with Iran during the time of sanctions.
3. He will not be trusted by an important American ally, Israel, which fears the Iranian atomic program.
4. He will not be trusted by Saudi Arabia, a second important ally, who is constantly in conflict with Iran over a great many issues.
5. He will be regarded with suspicion by a third ally, Turkey.
6. The worst suspicions of US critics, that its foreign policy is concerned not with principles but profits, specfically oil profits, will be confirmed.

That is rather a large amount of baggage to be carrying into confirmation hearings. Can his fellow Republicans stomach all that?

It seems the Republicans cannot stay away from making deals with the Iranians. That was their problem during the Reagan years, too. The original Irangate was also about trading with the enemy.  Is that the credential needed to be Trump's Secretary of State?

Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" Speech 50 Years later

After the American Century                                                                                                                                                           

To Black activists and college students in the middle 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. was not the iconic figure  who is being remembered this year, on the fiftieth anniversary of his famous "I have a Dream Speech." Delivered from the Lincoln Memorial in August, 1963, that speech was the rhetorical high point of the Civil Rights Movement. 

Martin Luther King delivering his "I Have a Dream" Speech

One only has to look at a photograph of King to begin to discern why he fell somewhat out of favor on university campuses between 1963 and 1968. King invariably wore a dark suit and had a short haircut. He dressed like a banker or a mainstream politician. By 1968 students had adopted a colorful wardrobe of loose-fitting clothing and long hair. Only a small, square minority had crew-cuts or short hair. That "look" declared one’s sympathy for the military. Dressing like Martin Luther King was just not cool.

King also made a point of presenting himself as a Christian. This was a good strategy in the American South in the late 1950s, as it challenged the minds and reached out to the hearts of his opponents. King challenged the core values and identity of Southern racists, who regarded themselves as quintessentially Christian. But on university campuses, emphasizing Christianity was more controversial and did not win support from Marxists, for example, or from the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Indeed, in the late 1960s many Hippies were turning toward Eastern religions and non-Christian religions.

Martin Luther King was still respected for his early work in Civil Rights, but by the middle 1960s young Black students were distancing themselves from him. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had begun as an outgrowth of his civil disobedience campaign against segregation. But by 1967 SNCC had rejected non-violence, Black Power was the new slogan, and more confrontational tactics were being adopted.  Some even called King an Uncle Tom.

King’s goals were under attack. He called for assimilation. Black Power demanded separation; not integration into mainstream white society, but separate businesses, separate organizations of all kinds, and even separate Black states. The more radical white student leaders rejected the white middle class itself.  They did not think that African Americans would benefit from assimilation. The white middle class, they thought, was not the solution but the problem. Their values, radicals believed, were dangerous. They were imperialistic and violent. They subscribed to patriarchy, and keep down women, Blacks, Native Americans, and Third World peoples.  The new ideology of Black Power proclaimed that “Black is beautiful” and called for liberation from white society. The Black Muslims and Malcolm X had arrived at similar conclusions.

Stokley Carmichael and the more radical students wanted revolution not assimilation. From this perspective, King was part of the problem. They did not want "to overcome" with whites and join in a new color-blind society. They instead wanted Black communities that affirmed a distinctive Black culture and consciousness. They wanted to stop what they regarded as the white war on people of color, whether in the United States or in Vietnam.  Martin Luther King met with Lyndon Johnson at the White House. In contrast, Stokley Carmichael and SNCC refused to meet with him.

When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, student radicals were angry, but they also felt vindicated. They regarded the shooting as final proof of their own arguments. The assassination seemed to demonstrate that non-violence could never work. In 1968, a Revolution seemed necessary, and it seemed near.

Half a century later, it is painfully obvious that the radical students were wrong. The years after 1968 did not lead to revolution or even a liberal government. On the Left, Richard Nixon's election in 1968 was regarded as the last gasp of an old order that would soon be swept away. But between 1968 and 1992 Republicans would hold the presidency for all but 4 years. The United States proved far more conservative than student radicals thought. 

Looking back a half century to 1963, King has emerged as a towering figure, an effective organizer, a captivating public speaker, and a man able to mobilize and unite disparate groups to effect fundamental change. He has been canonized as the visionary who redefined what the American Dream might yet be. He appears great today, but he also illustrates all too well that a prophet often is not recognized in his own country. Only with the passage of time have Americans begun to understand his true stature.  

King still speaks to the world's problems today. The following words from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech apply with considerable force to all too many contemporary crises, particularly in the Middle East.

"Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers."

Election 2012: Bland Candidates but Vital Issues

After the American Century

There was a New Yorker cartoon some months ago showing a lawn sign with a caption that ran, as I now recall, "Well, OK, its ROMNEY." It captured the faint enthusiasm for Romney among Republicans, and also suggested his lack of affect, the pasteboard quality of his persona. His wife has tried to breath life into his stiff frame in her speech at the Republican Convention, but can his persona really be changed this late in the campaign?

We have entered a strange political twilight zone where apparently only bland politicians can stand for a year or even longer the overexposure of 24/7 media attention. A strong personality apparently is too much to take these days, and a man with weak convictions who flip flops on many issues and who seems to have no large emotions becomes the nominee. (Instead, the VP nominee, who arrives on the scene in the closing months, has the job of being colorful, dynamic, opinionated.) Imagine Romney laughing with his whole body, a real belly laugh. Or try to imagine him really sympathetic to a poor person. Imagine him telling a story so well that it becomes fascinating. Imagine him without his handlers speaking freely through an open microphone without making a blunder. Hard to do.

By the same token, the 2012 Obama seems more buttoned down and less inspirational than 2008 Obama. His pragmatism and unflappability have been assets in the day-to-day grind of being president, but the lofty rhetoric seems largely to have deserted him. He has more empathy than Romney, but that is not saying much. 

Ideally, candidates should inspire an election debate that focuses soberly on the issues. But instead, we are being subjected to a massive amount of advertising and spin. It is quite possible that this election will be one of the most important in decades, but it may be decided by negative advertising and impression management.

The debates are one of the few times where the voters get a glimpse of these two men in a (somewhat) unscripted discussion. In the second debate, they took off the gloves and had some pointed exchanges. Both were articulate and well prepared. They were by no means bland that night. Their encounter helped to underline the choices the United States must make during the next four years, choices that will have an impact much further down the road.

Will the country return to taxation high enough to pay its debts, or will it follow the Republican program of un-financed tax cuts?

Will the US really regulate banking or not? Right now it does, but Romney would roll that back.

Will the US keep the new health program created by the Obama Administration, or will Republicans dismantle it?

Will the country commit to green energy or remain locked in the carbon fuel economy, and fall further behind the curve and let other economies reap the benefits of being first movers?

Will the US again invest in education or will it fall behind the best systems in Asia and Europe? Already the US is behind in public schools, as measured by the PISA tests, but the challenge is beginning to come at the university level, too.

Will the US definitely reject the use of torture, rendition, and imprisonment without trial, which were routinely denounced under Bush but have become more "normal" under Obama?

These are vital choices that will determine whether the US remains competitive and strong in this new century. Unfortunately, Americans do not seem entirely to realize the situation, and they are being encouraged to think that the election is about such issues as Obama's birth certificate, gay marriage, teaching evolution, immigration, and the supposed "socialism" of the Democratic Party.

Election 2012: Causes of American Political Polarization

After the American Century

Jeb Bush has now said what every thoughtful commentator has been saying for some time: the Republican Party has moved far to the Right. Bush is hardly a radical, but he noted that even Ronald Reagan would not fit well into the current climate of the GOP. It has moved so far toward right-wing positions that his father also feels marginalized. The GOP has gone through an internal transformation that has pushed him toward the margins.

This movement toward the Right and the polarization of the two parties will be one of the great subjects for future historians. In a simple-minded sense we can attribute it to the end of the Cold War, which freed Americans to be less cohesive, since there was no longer a common external threat. But if we accept that as the catalyst for this change, it still does not make clear what forces are at work inside the country.

The change can be compared to the slippage along a geological fault, which periodically leads to an earthquake, like the 1994 election with its proclaimed "Contract." To resist this change, the Democrats had to trim their sails and move toward the center. Clinton took some of his program from moderate Republicans, cutting back on welfare, for example, and embracing the NAFTA treaty against the wishes of the labor movement.  But the geological pressures kept building up, and under George W. Bush the country split more completely than before. The bi-partisanship that once was a hallmark of Washington, in contrast to some dysfunctional democracies elsewhere, has largely broken down. 

However, this is only a history of the political surface, not a sociology or history of the forces that have led to this seismic shift. Some of the reasons can be listed:

(1) The increased inequality between social classes. Between c. 1940 and 1972 equality was growing in the United States, as measured in real wages. Since then, the society has increasingly split, with the top 10% benefiting disproportionally, while the income of most of the population has tood still or fallen. 

(2) Greater political focus on non-economic issues, such as abortion, gay marriage, birth control, teaching evolution in the school system, and much else. These issues have been used by the Republicans to mobilize a considerable base. 

(3) The development of large church organizations, often media-based, that offer not only religious services but a community for the working- and middle-class. These mega-churches are typically controlled by a charismatic minister who is not inside a hierarchy like that of the Catholic Church or older, "classical" Protestant denominations. Politically, such churches are seldom on the left. There seem to be few heirs today of the social gospel movement that thrived in 1900, or of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and early 1960s, when in part for religious reasons, millions of white Americans supported social reform.

(4) The persistence of traditional American values, notably individualism and self-reliance, along with resistance to anything that can be labelled "socialist" or "communist." 

(5) The rising cost of medical care and education has increased the difficulties of ordinary Americans. It has become a struggle to educate children and care for the severely ill. One might expect that the Obama medical program would be wildly popular, but it is often seen, instead, through the lens of the traditional values just mentioned.

(6) The persistence of racial and ethnic tensions, which are largely unspoken but a very real part of the shift to the right and the Tea Party demand for  tighter immigration controls.

(7) The transformation of public discussion, changed through the Internet, including Twitter and the blogosphere, which makes it possible, even likely, that people get only the news and opinion that they want to hear, rather than a spectrum of issues and ideas in a newspaper that appeals to a range of readers. Rather than being challenged to hear diverse opinions, the new social media can create on-line communities that share prejudice, rumor, and half-truthes.  "Narrow casting" is becoming the norm, in contrast to the broadcasting, which by its nature was conducive to forming a broader political base that adopted moderate positions. 

(8) The radical increase in campaign spending, along with the sharp rise in the number of negative advertisements. Rather than developing a program, many candidates can get elected by tearing down their opponent. This is not a new idea, of course, but it is more common, and it fosters polarization.

This list is not complete. A historian in 30 years time will be able to look back and identify more social and economic forces that are driving this polarization. It is not only a change inside the Republican Party, but inside the Democrats as well. President Obama understands this and has tried to position himself in the more conservative portion of his party, much to the frustration of many 2008 supporters.  He is a pragmatist, a bit to the right side of the Democratic Party.  On the right side of the Republicans, however, are ideologically driven leaders who reject pragmatism and compromise.

Will coming elections increase tensions and drive the parties further apart? Can the country begin to heal, or will it split further? 

Election 2012: Romney the Bully? Gay Marriage and the Election

After the American Century

The Gay Marriage issue has turned into the worst sort of public relations for Romney, who now comes across in his youth as a rich kid, who was an insensitive, intolerant Mormon bully. That was an unexpected bonus for the Democrats. How did this happen?

When President Obama announced yesterday that he supported gay marriage, he did not do so because there was pressure on him to do so. Nor did he say this because Joe Biden "inadvertently" said he supported gay marriage last week. Anyone who believes that is naive. Biden and then other prominent Democrats came out in favor of gay marriage as trial balloons, to see how the public would react. 

On an emotional issue of this kind, Obama does not just casually make a statement. We can be sure that his staff consulted carefully on this issue and laid out a strategy to make the most of it. The goal here is not to win the gay vote, which is likely Democratic anyway. The goal is to force Romney to make a hard choice. Either he can come out against gay marriage and alienate moderates or he can alienate the Republican right, which already distrusts him, by remaining silent on the issue or saying that gay marriage ought to be allowed. Romney wants desperately to move to the center and look moderate, in order to win over the Independent and moderate voters. Obama is forcing Romney to make a hard choice. He cannot afford to create a rift with the Republican right, but he also cannot afford to embrace them too closely if he wants to become president. 

What is fascinating in this case is not the specific issue but the way that the Democrats are using what has been a Republican issue and making it their own.Obama and his advisers evidently have decided that bringing up such issues can exacerbate the divisions in the Republican Party. At the same time, they surely have calculated the potential effect on voting in swing states before going ahead with this plan. Put another way, this announcement makes Obama stronger in New York and California, which he would win anyway, and weaker in Alabama and Mississippi, which he has little chance of winning. The key question is whether this strategy will help him to win the swing states, especially Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, New Hampshire, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. 

Romney when in High School

Obama got an unexpected bonus from this strategy, when it came out that Romney, when in high school, was one of a group of bullies who persecuted one of their fellow students, This was in Michigan, and he was the son of the Governor, attending a private school. The student he attacked had long hair and was gay, though apparently not yet "out of the closet" at the time. Romney and his buddies chased him, caught him, held him down, and clipped his hair off. Apparently this bullying was directed more at the long hair and the presumably left-leaning principles that tended to go with it. This act reveals an intolerant, vigilante side of Romney that moderates will find unpalatable. Ganging up on people and persecuting them because they are different suggests an arrogance and insensitivity unacceptable to much of the public, though it could help Romney hang on to the KKK vote.

Election 2012: Four Republican Vice-Presidential Possibilities

After the American Century

[We now know that Romeny has picked Paul Ryan to be his running mate, but this piece reminds us of the other alternatives he had, two of which could have helped him with women voters.]

Who will be Romney's running mate?  A common option, historically speaking, is to select one of the other candidates. This conceivably could happen, though I strongly doubt it because there were no women, no minorities, and no one even remotely young.Then there was all that negative advertising, souring relations. Therefore, I am going to assume that other candidates in the primary are out, and that shopping for a Republican VP is a matter of looking at governors and members of Congress. Here are some people that might get considered.

So many have mentioned Mitch Daniels, Governor of Indiana and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie that I will just let their names stand, and anyone interested can find out more elsewhere. But I am guessing that Romney will look for someone a little unexpected, younger, and less typically Republican, i.e. a woman or a member of a minority group.

He could get both at once by picking Rikki Haley, Governor of South Carolina. She is young, only 39, and got into office with strong support from the Tea Party. She is from the South, which balances Romney's frigid Northern-ness. She has an Indian immigrant background, which would dispel the Romney Harvard old-boy image quite a bit. Since one effect of the primaries so far has been to alienate many women from the Republicans, this choice would help Romney win back female voters. Remember that without women voters Clinton and Obama would never have been elected. Had only men been voting, the Republicans would have held the presidency without a break since at least 1980.

Governor Rikki Haley

Then again, perhaps a young Latino is Romney's missing ingredient. In that case, the most exciting option might be Mark Rubio, Senator from Florida. He is of Cuban-American background, and one of the up-and-coming generation. This choice would also reach out to the Latino voters who have not been much drawn to the Republicans in recent elections. If nothing else, Rubio could deliver the largest swing state to the Romney column, freeing him to focus his campaign on other swing states. Rubio is a good public speaker, and will be a potential candidate for some time to come. He has just endorsed Romney.

Senator Mark Rubio

Yet another young face is New Mexico governor Susana Martinez, born in 1959. She is tough on crime and would appeal strongly to the Hispanics of Mexican background. Note, however, that New Mexico is a far less important swing state than Florida or Ohio, and she is not as well known as Rubio.

Gov. Susana Martinez

But thinking of swing states, Ohio Senator Rob Portman (below) might be just the man to deliver his state to the Romney camp. Portman, born in 1955, is a former White House budget chief under Bush II. However, I am guessing that two white men from Northern states, both focused on economics, is not the ideal team for the Republicans. To maximize the impact of their VP candidate, they need to show some sympathy with the Tea Party and/or the evangelicals and to show a more multicultural and youthful face.

Senator Rob Portman

These are four possibilities that each have something to offer the Romney campaign. For that matter three of them (but not Portman) would help Santorum, another white man from a Northern state, if he should manage to become the nominee. In the  unlikely event that Gingrich becomes the candidate, then a different slate of possible VPs would be needed.

Nevertheless, predicting the VP is generally a hopeless task. Who could have imagined that the first Bush would choose the maladroit Dan Quale? Or that Nixon would pick the obscure Spiro Agnew? Or that Obama would pick Joe Biden, for that matter.

These and other candidates considered likely possibilities have been discussed in the New York Times, whose list did not include any women.

Romney vs Perry: Republicans Display Their Divisions

After the American Century

The Republican presidential hopefuls have been stumping and debating for months, but I have not been commenting on them. Until now.  Two figures have emerged as front runners, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry have now emerged as the early front runners, and while this could easily change, an analysis is in order.

Romney is an old face.  Former governor of Massachusetts, where in passed a health care bill not so different from President Obama's, he came to politics from business, where he became financially independent. His family has long been identified with the Northern, more moderate wing of the Republican Party, and his father succeeded in being elected governor of Michigan, which is usually regarded as a more Democratic state. His father also ran for president several times. In short, Romney would be a strategically smart choice for the Republicans, because he would appeal to centrist and Northern voters, who will be essential to win the election. There is, however, the problem of Romeny's personality, or rather lack thereof. Romney is not a warm person. He can even come across as rather heartless at times. He is not a particularly stirring speaker. Add to this that the Southern Democrats (many of them former Republicans) do not like his "soft" stands on abortion and gay marriage. They are even less excited by the fact he is a Mormon. No one of htat faith has ever been elected president, and polls show Mormons are less electable than Catholics. In short, he may be the sensible centrist candidate for the Republicans, but he does not inspire them. There is no passion for Romney.

Texas governor Perry is a new face on the national scene, and in many ways is the mirror opposite of Romney. He generates more passion and many love him down in his native South, where he claims to be the small government candidate who creates jobs. He constantly attacks Washington, which has been a successful formula for candidates since the nineteenth century. (Obama also ran against Washington in 2008.) 

Perry would have had an excellent chance of winning the presidency of the Confederacy, if they had only won the Civil War. Indeed, Perry has hinted that succession from the union is still a viable option for Texas. On the other hand, he has a "soft" stand on immigration. For example, he allows children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at Texas universities. If the children were born in the US, they are automatically citizens, so this is hardly a radical idea, though it upsets many Republicans. Michelle Bachmann typifies the hand-line stance on this issue, as she would put an fence “on every mile, on every yard, on every foot” of the border with Mexico. This is easy for her to say, because there are few Hispanic voters in Minnesota, where she gets elected. Perry faces the electoral reality that Hispanics are a force in Texas politics.

But on many hot-button issues Perry is closer to the Republican Southern base, notably abortion and gay marriage. Perry has also organized and led a prayer meeting where many of the other speakers sounded just plain crazy. One speaker at this giant meeting, held in a Houston stadium, declared that the Japanese economic downturn of the 1990s was the direct result of the Emperor of Japan having sex with a demon goddess. Another declared, in all seriousness, that Oprah Winfrey is the harbinger of the Anti-Christ! You will also learn that the Statue of Liberty is a "demonic idol" foisted on the US by French Freemasons. As a sensible reader, you surely think I am making this up, so here is the link, where you can see and hear for yourself. There you will hear so many odd, crackpot opinions, that it may seem that the entire deranged right-wing of America gathered to support Rick Perry in Houston. 

It is a measure of how far US politics have moved to the right that Perry can even be considered for the office of President. And it is also a measure of how much the political landscape has changed, that cold and colorless Romney begins to look rather good by comparison. They represent the two rather incompatible sides of the Republican Party,  On the one side the North, old money, reasonable language, and centrism; on the other side the South, revivalism, apocalyptic language, the Tea Party, and anti-state, anti-science, and anti-compromise rage.

However, just as Hillary Clinton led the field in the fall of 2007 but ultimately lost in the spring of 2008, these front runners could knock each other out, while a third candidate snatches the prize of nomination. Such a third candidate will not necessarily be better than Perry or Romney. 

It is not over yet. Indeed, it has hardly begun.

Wake Up Republicans: Government is not a Business

After the American Century

The idea that the US government could choose to default is a fundamental misconception. Government is not a business that can decide to fail. Default is not a valid government strategy. Government is the foundation of society. It is a contract between the citizens that cannot be broken, not a corporation that can be allowed to go broke because people do not want to pay taxes. Talk of letting government fail financially cannot be separated from a more general failure of trust between the citizens. Government is about mutual obligation. It is not an investment that one pulls out of. Government is a contract between the generations, ensuring that pensions are paid, that opportunities such as education remain available, that the infrastructure is maintained, that services such as hospitals and fire departments do not deteriorate. Republicans really do not seem to understand this. They have long argued that government is an evil that should be pared down to a minimum. But the idea that elected legislators are willing intentionally to let the government default goes far beyond that doctrine. Dangerously far.

Americans have lived with a stable system so long that they have no historical experience of the disasters that come with fiscal irresponsibility. Undermine the state government, and you undermine the dollar itself. I am not talking about the dollar losing a few percentage points against the Euro. I am talking about the Japanese and the Chinese deciding not to buy dollar debt anymore, because it is too risky. I am talking about interest rates above 10% that cripple the US economy. For a small inkling, a mere taste of what that might mean, look at Greece right now, with the difference that the EU can bail out Greece. But no economy is big enough to bail out the United States.The US taxpayers have to honor their own obligations.

The dollar has been the world currency for so long that Americans take it for granted. But its hegemony is hardly assured. Other economies look stronger right now. Even to flirt with default will scare away future investments. Should the Republicans get back into power. international investors may head for the exits. Even now, China and Japan will almost certainly plan to dis-invest in US government bonds in order to spread their risk.

The Republican Party once again is showing that it is not fit to rule. It is a reckless party with no fiscal policy, a deluded party that does not understand the dangers of this historical moment when US economic and political power are challenged. The Republicans are a dangerous party that threatens to do lasting damage to US financial security and its standing in the world.

Republicans in Wisconsin Attack Historian

After the American Century

One of the most articulate and distinguished American historians, William Cronon, is now under attack by the Republican Party because he opposes their attempts to take away union rights. This is more than just a sad spectacle, as the Republicans have demanded to see Professor Cronon's emails and other documents, under the freedom of information act, to see what he thinks more generally. As the New York Times reports, this fishing expedition was prompted by an article he wrote for the newspapers.

For those who do not know his work, Bill Cronon is one of the pioneers of environmental history, whose writings include a book in Colonial history on  the transformation of the landscape during settlement of New England  and a fine history of nineteenth century Chicago, for example linking that city to the vast hinterland it affected through its control of the grain market. In short, his scholarly work is at best tangential to contemporary politics. He is widely respected and currently is the President of the American Historical Association.

I do not recall the "Freedom of Information Act" being used to demand access to  a historian's private correspondence or other writings on the rather slender grounds that he or she is a state university employee. We are not talking about criminal or subversive activities, but expression of opinion in support of the Democrats as opposed to the Republicans. The Bill of Rights guards against "unreasonable searches and seizures" such as this.

The current Wisconsin Republicans begin to remind me of another Republican from Wisconsin. His name was Joe McCarthy, and he destroyed careers during his witch hunts for communists back in the 1950s.  Professor Cronon is one of the best environmental historians in the United States. Targeting him at the very least will waste a good deal of his time and interfere with his scholarly work. At worst, it could send a chill through academic life, undermining freedom of speech.

As one who has read most of Cronon's work and met him both in Denmark and the United States, I find this attack completely unacceptable,  and one more proof that the Republicans have lost sight of their founding principles. They should aspire to be the party of Lincoln, not Joe McCarthy.

Where is the Logic? State's Rights and Gun Control

After the American Century

The Republican Party has long championed "State's Rights," once a code word for racial segregation, but more recently an all encompassing term to indicate opposition to federal meddling in state affairs. But for all but two Republicans in the United States Senate, States' Rights is clearly less important than giving individuals the freedom to carry concealed weapons. The Senate has just narrowly defeated an attachment to a military spending bill that would have permitted anyone with a valid license from one state to carry a concealed weapon (usually a handgun) in all other states as well.

Republicans claimed that this was only fair, resembling the fact that a driver's license from one state is recognized and valid in all others. However, no one is driving a car concealed under his armpit. States do not issue hunting or fishing licenses that are recognized in all other states. Indeed, even lawyers must pass the bar exam in any state they want to practice in. The right to practice law in Massachusetts does not confer the right to do so in Connecticut or California or anywhere else.

If passed, this law would be profoundly undemocratic. Two thirds of the States, 35 of them, have passed laws that prohibit gun ownership (concealed or not) to certain individuals - notably those convicted of felonies and certain misdemeanors. Furthermore, many states insist that gun owners must have training courses. The narrowly defeated provision would have permitted someone who had been in prison for armed robbery or murder to go to a state with lax gun laws, acquire weapons, and carry them legally anywhere in the United States. Even more frightening, it would have allowed Dick Cheney to carry a concealed weapon in Massachusetts, where all such weapons are outlawed.

This bizarre legislation was supported by almost all Senate Republicans and by most rural Republicans. However, it was vigorously opposed by the Mayor of New York, who is Republican, but for some reason does not like the idea of allowing concealed weapons in his city. And fortunately Richard Lugar, Republican Senator from Indiana, did not support this bill either.

Lugar's opposition was needed. For Republican support would not have mattered if the Democrats were opposed. But their leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, was all for more concealed weapons, and several of the sponsors were Democrats as well. Indeed, all together there were 58 Senators eager to have more concealed weapons on America's streets. Only 42 voted against, but that was enough to defeat a rider to the bill. For this was not an amendment or a refinement of the bill being voted on, and it had not been vetted by a committee that heard from expert witnesses. In such cases, Senate rules require 60 votes in favor. It was a close call.

In case anyone believes the rhetoric about Democrats being the liberal party of big government, keep this near fiasco in mind. And anyone who thinks the Republicans do not want the Federal Government to meddle in the states, think again. It depends on the issues. Republicans would be happy to have Washington legislate definitively against abortion, gay marriage, or gun control. There is seldom a logical political philosophy guiding the Republicans, or, for that matter, many Democrats.

Even more troubling, majority bi-partisan support that would effectively eliminate gun control suggests that the Senate is not thickly populated with intelligent individuals with high ideals. Can we count on such people to create a new and better health care system?

Ranking the States on Energy Efficiency

After the American Century

Energy is a central part of the announced Obama program, so it is useful to know which states (and their representatives in Congress) are most disposed to support him. A new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy rates all 50 states, not in terms of their energy use per capita, but in terms of their utility regulations, transportation legislation, building codes and other laws that require or at least encourage better energy practices. The most conscientious states turn out to be those that Obama won, led by California and Oregon, and including New York, New Jersey, the New England States, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. These are quintessential "blue states" in other words, and they all receive scores of at least 25 out of a possible 50, California being the highest with 40.5.

And those at the bottom? All are "red states" with the worst score going to Dick Cheney's Wyoming, a perfectly dreaful 0. But there are remarkably low scores also for Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and so on. To make the symmetry rather complete, swing states are in the middle, with higher scores if they are in the North and lower if they are further south. Thus Missouri had an anemic score of only 4, and was 45th in the nation. The most northern swing state, New Hampshire, had the highest score among them, with 16.5, and came in 18th. Another northern swing state, Ohio, scored scored 16 and came in 19th.

These are not merely statistics. The states spent just under $3 billion on energy efficiency in 2007, almost four times what George Bush budgeted for it. In short, the states that supported Obama most strongly are also those most prepared to take advantage of any new energy programs.

There is one interesting exception to these generalizations, the State of Michigan. It ranks just 38th overall, in contrast to its more environmentally conscientious neighbors in the northern tier of the US. Center of the American car industry, Michigan seems wedded to energy profligracy.

The Coming Crisis in the Republican Party

Obama has won a convincing victory, large enough to give him a mandate for change. With majorities in both houses of Congress, the Democrats can enact their ambitious program, if they can stay united. They have not always been good at this in the past, so it cannot be taken for granted. But the severity of the economic crisis may strengthen a common resolve.

At the same time, the stunning defeat of the Republicans in the 2008 election has exposed a three way division in their party. First, there are cultural conservatives, represented by Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin. They passionately reject abortion, the Darwinian theory of evolution, gay marriage, and stem cell research. They passionately support the right to own guns, and they would like to see daily prayer reintroduced into the schools. Second, there are the more secular Republicans, like Mitt Romney, who was a successful businessman before he went into politics, or John McCain. For most of his career he was not allied with the cultural conservatives, but was more moderate. When he selected Sarah Palin, he did so because he needed to motivate the conservative wing of the party. However, as a result, moderate Republicans, such as General Colin Powell, refuse to ally themselves with him, and endorsed Obama. Third, the neo-conservatives are not fundamentalist Christians, but fundamentalist capitalists who believe in deregulation, the projection of American power, and preemptive military strikes against enemies abroad. The Neo-Cons were the architects of the Iraq War. These three groups are ideologically quite different, and as an alliance they make little sense and have lost most of their appeal. Ronald Reagan could hold this unwieldy alliance together. Bush had more difficulty doing so, and now it has come unraveled.

At the same time, the Republicans are becoming a minority party. With their base of voters on the extreme right they have a hard time even winning a majority of White voters. Notably, because of the abortion issue and years of attacking welfare programs, the Republican Party is rejected by a majority of all women. More surprisingly, the Republicans now get support from less than half of all those with incomes over $100,000. The Party also have weak appeal to the (mostly younger) people who have a mobile phone but no land line phone: 55% of them voted for Obama, only 35% for McCain. These numbers would be much worse for Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee. Neither could win a presidential contest. They look ignorant and provincial to the millions of Americans who are immigrants, have a good education, or who have lived abroad.

Not all elections are created equal. Some mark decisive changes in the coalitions and alignments of national politics, notably that of 1932, which brought Franklin D. Roosevelt to power and put the Democrats in control of Congress as well for most of the next 36 years. These were years of reform, when the United States moved toward a welfare state. But then in 1968 the Republican Party recaptured the lead role in US politics, and held it for most of the next 40 years. This domination began with the election of Richard Nixon in a narrow victory over Hubert Humphrey in 1968. Nixon triumphed because he convinced several Southern states to vote Republican. After the Civil War, the Democrats long could count on unwavering support from the South. Indeed, the Southern hatred of "the party of Lincoln" was so strong that there were few Republicans in Dixie.

Nixon's "southern strategy" was a revolution in US politics, because it broke apart the New Deal coalition that Roosevelt had constructed in 1932. Roosevelt had joined together the industrial laborers and immigrants of the North with the rural South. Nixon was able to pry the South loose from the Democrats because culturally conservative Dixie was upset by the Civil Rights movement and the New Left. The new coalition reached the height of its power under Reagan. It was only briefly broken in 1992 and 1996 by Clinton because he and Gore both came from the South. But the Republicans still controlled the Congress.

However, in both 2000 and 2004 George W. Bush's support was weak. Indeed, in 2000 Gore received half a million more votes. The nation was changing demographically, and it has continued to do so. Back in Reagan's time, the Republicans had a good chance at winning in California and New Work. No more. These states are now solidly Democratic. Why? Because the population has changed. The largest minority in the US today are the Hispanics, 40 million strong, and they vote Democratic. Obama won that constituency over McCain by a ratio of more than 2-1. Likewise, the rising tide of Asian-Americans seldom agree with Republican cultural conservatives, though they are more likely to be comfortable with the business wing of the party. Even more decisively, 90% of African-Americans also vote Democratic. As a result, Republicans need to win 60% or more of the white vote to have a chance, but they cannot do that because they have alienated too many white women and educated voters. In this election, they barely managed to win a majority of white voters, and so lost decisively.

These trends can be seen in the South and West, where the Republicans have been dominant since 1968. Large numbers of Hispanics and liberal voters have moved to Colorado and New Mexico, western states that used to be solidly Republican but now lead toward Obama. Likewise, hundreds of thousands of outsiders have moved into the southern states of Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, in all of which Obama also has overwhelming support from Black voters. As a result, Obama won both Florida and Virginia, and as of this writing leads by 0.3% in North Carolina, breaking the 40-year Republican hold on the South. As regional differences decline and as the nation becomes more multicultural, the Republicans risk becoming the party of the old, the white, the poorly educated, and the fundamentalists. This may seem exaggerated, but look at the candidates who ran in the Republican primaries.

McCain has lost the White House and the Republicans have lost 6 or more seats in the Senate and at least 23 seats in the House of Representatives. They are much worse off than when they were a minority party from the 1930s until 1968. Then they were at least a national party. Now they risk becoming a declining regional white party, in a nation that is increasingly multicultural.

The Republicans must reinvent themselves, but this may take a generation. Meanwhile, the rejuvenated Democratic Party can be expected to control the Federal government for at least eight years under Obama, and quite possibly for much longer than that. 2008 looks like a turning point in US politics as important as 1932 or 1968. If the Democrats pass their platform into law, then in a few years the United States will have a national health system, a radically new energy policy, a green environmental policy, and a less confrontational foreign policy. The collapse of the Republican coalition has given Barack Obama a historic opportunity for change.

McCain Offense Offensive

After the American Century

In the last two weeks the McCain campaign has become ever more offensive, in both meanings of the term. They are verbally on the offensive because they are losing in the polls, and instead of talking about the issues, they are demeaning themselves by stooping to the lowest form of gutter politics. Hardly a day goes by without McCain or one of his surrogates insinuating or even directly stating that Barack Obama is consorting with terrorists or is a covert terrorist or has a suspicious sounding name, and so forth.

The only shred of evidence they have is that, what a surprise, Obama in the course of serving on many committees and organizations, has just once been on a board with someone that was a student radical in the 1960s. Lest we forget, Obama himself was a child in the 1960s, and had nothing to do with the movements of those years. It is true for any politician that he meets thousands of people, and can always been accused of sharing the views of those whom he has been seen with or shaking hands with.

But to call Obama a terrorist because he was in the same room with a college professor with a radical past is no more credible than claiming that McCain is a communist because he spent time in a communist prison camp and was brain-washed there. You do not see the Obama camp making that sort of claim. Nor have the Democrats raked through the thousands of contacts McCain has had over the years to find "proof" that because he was in the same room with someone he therefore shares their political views.

This sort of guilt-by-association can only remind Americans of the excesses of Joe McCarthy. It is intended to distract attention from the faltering McCain campaign, but it undermines the "straight-talk express." The worst excesses are now at the Palin rallies where she has been whipping crowds into a frenzy of anger and hate. Meanwhile, she refuses to testify in the investigation into her apparent abuse of power as governor. Both in her rhetoric and in her behavior, she demeans the GOP, which may need eight years to recover from such tactics.

The Republicans seem almost certain to lose this election, but they could do so with dignity and honor in tact, ready to fight another day. However, it appears that McCain has decided he would rather befoul his formerly good name in a desperate attempt to smear his opponent, rather than appeal to the electorate on the basis of policies and principles.His stump speeches reportedly are now perfunctory and brief on the issues, before turning to a villification of his opponent. The campaign might have been a dignified discussion of the issues. Instead, the Republicans are taking the low road.

Republicans Divided Against Themselves

After the American Century

It was the great Republican President Abraham Lincoln who famously declared that a house divided against itself could not stand. On September 29, 2008 the House of Representatives showed that it was so divided that it could not come together to back a bailout plan to save the banking system. One hopes that some new compromise will emerge, but the House has already negotiated for days with the spotlight of the world press upon it. During these negotiations banks were failing all over the world. Both candidates for the presidency as well as the incumbent agreed that the bill ought to be passed, and still a majority of the House did not vote for it. The defeat demonstrates a comprehensive collapse of leadership.

Speaker Pelosi could not get her Democrats to vote for it in sufficient numbers, though a considerable majority did favor it. George Bush, as a lame duck president in the final days of his failed presidency, could not muster the needed support. Nor could John McCain. A shocking two-thirds of the Republican minority failed to vote for it. The 122 Republican votes against the President's bailout package is the core of the problem. The Republicans bear a special responsibility for the mess the banks are in, because they insisted on deregulating the banking system a decade ago, just as they also insisted on deregulating the energy business a few years earlier.

The Bush II era began with massive fraud and corporate failure, most famously the Enron debacle. The public has not entirely forgotten. Now the Bush II era is ending with massive bank failures. These are two examples of deregulation to the point of lax oversight and sloppy governance. Yet in the midst of a collapsing economy, the Republicans have learned nothing, it seems, and cry "socialism" when their own president tries to stop the financial bloodbath before it is too late. It seems the misguided Republican members of the House cannot give up their true religion, which is deregulation.

Understandably, the Democrats are not willing to bail out Bush, and then take the blame for the massive cost. They rightly want this to be a bi-partisan effort. More than 60% of them did vote for it, even so. The Republicans are now damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they continue to play hardball and refuse to vote for a compromise bill, then they will be blamed for all the evil that follows. And if they grudgingly give in during the next few days, the voters will not forget that they put ideology before necessity, and played politics with their future.

As for John McCain, these events have shown he cannot lead the Republicans. It was his chance to rally them into unity, and show he deserves to be president. But he did not unite them. He failed miserably, and not even one representative from his home state of Arizona voted for the bill. The Republicans are divided against themselves. Such a party cannot lead the country, much less anyone else. It cannot even follow. If Lincoln is out there in the great beyond, he must be deeply disturbed to see his party so split and so lacking in leadership.

The world was expecting to see a rabbit come out of the financial hat. Instead, it got instability, uncertainty, incredulity, and knee jerk ideology. Surely some will take what is left of their investments elsewhere, if they can find safer havens less devastated by these developments. This past week has been a sad spectacle fraught with danger. Quite possibly the worst is yet to come - depending on whether this crisis can be resolved. But a recovery bill delayed may turn into a recovery denied.

Sarah Palin's Clichéd Acceptance Speech

After the American Century

Many people felt that Huckabee was an inexperienced, right-wing, findamentalist Christian who would be completely unsuited to be President. Sarah Palin is Huckabee with less experience and wearing a skirt. But in her acceptance speech last night she downplayed her more extreme views to appeal to the mainstream. She did not say much in her 38 minutes, and indeed there was not a single idea in the first 17 minutes, as she introduced her children, her parents, and her husband, and presented herself as a typical "Hockey Mom" who got into politics at the local level.

She also presented herself as an opponent of the oil companies, who nevertheless pay most of Alaska's expenses. It is quite a good joke for the Republicans to pretend they are against big oil companies, who contribute to their campaigns. Both Bush and Cheney are former oil executives with close ties to the industry. But the current administration was erased from the speech. Were it the only document of these years to survive into some distant age, a historian would not be certain who was president or vice-president.

Palin presented herself as a fiscal conservative who kept the budget balanced. News flash: Alaska, like oil-rich Norway and Kuwait, has long had a budget surplus. She came close to claiming that the US could produce enough of its own oil and gas to avoid dependence on unstable foreign supplies. Not true, of course. As is typical of Republicans, her claim was that all the US needs to do is produce more and more power of all kinds. This failed "policy" has been the Republican mantra since Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Republicans always focus on enlarging the supply, forgetting about the far more easily achieved possibility of reducing wasteful demand.

Palin also attacked Obama, of course, the usual task of vice presidential nominees being to attack the other side. She said that having run a small town of 6,000 was more valuable experience than being a community organizer, because she had real responsibility. She did sink to a new low, however, in ridiculing the idea that people of accused of terrorism have legal rights. This sounds like the Bush approach to human rights. Of course she did not mention that she has at best a sketchy idea of law, having never been the law school. Obama has taught constitutional law at one of the finest law schools in the United States, the University of Chicago, and he was editor of Harvard Law Review. McCain finished in the bottom 2% of his undergraduate class and has no further education.

Palin accused the Democrats of preparing to raise taxes. She managed to avoid mentioning anything about the Bush Administration's large and unfunded reductions in taxes, most of which went to the wealthy. She managed to avoid any admission that the largest dificit in American history was created under the present Republican administration. Listening to her, it seemed that the Democrats actually were responsible for the deficit and unbalanced tax system.

In a particularly Orwellian moment, Palin presented McCain and herself and the Republicans in general as the enemies of special interests! But which candidate has accepted their contributions and filled his staff with lobbyists? Which candidate has voted with George Bush more than 90% of the time? It is absurd to pretend that McCain is an outsider who is against the establishment, against lobbyists, against Washington. His father was a 4 star admiral, he went to the Naval Academy, he has been a Senator for decades. McCain is the insider in this election, though you would not guess it from Palin's speech. And indeed, that is one of the reasons she was selected, because she is from the place farthest away from Washington. (Except Obama's Hawaii, of course.)

There was little content in Palin's 38 minute speech, often punctuated by wild cheering and sign waving, as is the custom. At the end she stood on the stage with all her children, holding her baby. The crowd loved it, and went completely wild when McCain made a surprise appearance on the stage.

Conclusion: this was a successful speech for the party faithful, but an empty Orwellian moment for anyone who thinks about it. There was not one new idea anywhere in that speech. Palin made it sound like the Republicans had not been in the White House the last eight years, and that she was running against the party in power. She scarcely mentioned the terrible state of the economy. She wrapped herself in the flag and ran against Washington. The old cliche is that when a politician has nothing else to offer, then it is time to campaign on God, the flag, family values and apple pie. That is all we got from Surah Palin.

Palin's speech illustates once again H. L. Mencken's aphorism, "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the Ameican public." Palin will appeal to many precisely because she has no new ideas, because she repeats clichés with enthusiasm and apparent conviction, and because she has five children.

VP Picks Reveal Contrasting Election Strategies of McCain and Obama

After the American Century

McCain and Obama have chosen quite different campaign strategies, as their choice of vice-presidential running mates reveals. McCain has adopted the polarizing tactic of going to the Right. Sarah Palin has extreme right-wing positions on most issues. Should Creationist ideas be given credibility? Yes, teach them in schools. Should gays be allowed to marry? Never. Should guns be controlled in any way? No way. Should abortion be permitted in any situations, for example when pregnancy is due to rape or incest? Absolutely not. Is global warming caused by human beings? Certainly not. Should alternative energies be developed? No. Should women's bodies by commodified? She was runner-up in Miss Alaska.

Huckabee supporters are delighted with her selection. So what if she has no law degree, no knowledge of history, no experience in government, and no ideas? She is a religious woman, an athlete, a gunslinger mother, and she wants to drill for every drop of oil that God in his infinite wisdom, as part of his intelligent design of the universe, deposited in American wilderness areas and wildlife reserves. Sarah Palin thus qualifies as the worst imaginable vice-president for the liberals and the best possible one for cultural conservatives. Selecting her is an example of mobilizing the base, or getting a high percentage of your side out to vote. At the same time, McCain's strategy now must be to run negative advertisements about Obama, in order to demotivate his base. Rather than win over opponents, it is just as effective to convince them to stay home. McCain has, in other words, adopted the Karl Rove theory of divisive and negative politics.

Obama has chosen the opposite strategy. He has softened many of this positions, so they are more mainstream. He has chosen Joe Biden, the experienced, moderate insider, who has a history of working with Republicans to get legislation through Congress. Obama is appealing to all Americans, including even the evangelicals, and he has tried to reassure them that he is religious himself. A careful reading of his acceptance speech reveals several passages sprinkled with religious references. He has positioned himself as the champion of the middle class. Almost everyone in the US thinks of themselves as being middle class, so he is promising the middle class a tax cut.About the only people Obama has written off are the big oil companies.

Until the selection of Sarah Palin, the election looked close. But now it is possible it will not be. Conceivably the American voters will become excited by Palin and will lose enthusiasm for Obama after a barrage of negative ads from the Republicans. But the more likely result is that Independents and moderate Republicans will be disenchanged with the McCain-Palin ticket. The Republicans are the smaller party, numerically, and they need the moderates to win.

This choice makes McCain more popular on the Right, but has apparently not been inspiring to his fellow Senators. Of the 49 Republicans from that chamber, it now appears that 10 find their schedules so busy they will not be able to attend the convention in St. Paul. Are ten of the most powerful Republicans treating McCain as a pariah? Are they afraid they might be photographed together, or worse yet, be seen shaking hands with President Bush?

Republicans Mortgaged the Future

After the American Century

The US housing market continues to falter. When houses are worth less than people paid for them, some owners will conclude that declaring bankruptcy is their best, perhaps their only option. In June, 2008, one out of every 501 homes in the US was foreclosed - a total of 252,000 properties. That was 50% more than June the previous year. If that monthly rate continues for a year, then 3 million homes will have been given up for auction or sale at reduced rates by the repossessing banks. That represents housing for about 10 million people.

December 12 last year I wrote in this space that "Bush Administration policies encouraged housing prices to soar while undermining the strength of the economy as a whole. A correction is unavoidable. One hopes it will not be too severe." In the ensuring 7 months the correction has continued, and now seems to be nearing a crisis. The news today is that many analysts are worried about the financial health of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - names which make them sound like two people. But these are billion dollar institutions that back up the mortgage lending of banks. Both are traded on the stock exchange, and in good times they are stable, safe investments. But their stocks have been falling steady for months, and yesterday each dropped by more than 15%. That's one sixth of their value lost in a single day. Government spokesmen are all "walking on eggs" - treading with the utmost caution, trying to put the best face on how the continuing foreclosures are affecting these institutional cornerstones of the economy. On the bright side, the rate of foreclosure in June was lower than the month before, so the worst may have passed. On the dark side, interest rates already are quite low, so there is not much the Federal Reserve can do to stimulate the economy or make home-buying more attractive.

Everyone assumes that the Federal Government will pour additional money into these institutions if they need it. But the US government is already running a large deficit, borrowing money from abroad to pay some of its bills. In 2007 the deficit grew by $162 billion, an impressive figure, but nothing compared to 2008, which may be the worst year of overspending in US history at more than $410 billion. The worst so far was 2004, when Bush spend $413 billion he did not have. Much of that was for the wonderful war in Iraq. It is easy to forget now that this was the war which we would win quickly and that would pay for itself, because all that oil would be sold to pay for redevelopment. Well, this was not what happened, but the oil has certainly increased in value. All oil producers are benefiting, but not US home and car owners.

Probably the economic storm will pass, housing prices will stabilize and prices will climb again. In that case, the dip in the market has been good for people who wanted to get into the market like my niece who just bought her first house. But if the market continues to fall, at some point the dead weight of unpaid mortgages will put tremendous strain on the economy as a whole. How does anyone sell a house, in order to relocate for a new job, for example, if there are several million foreclosed properties on the market? What happens to the older couple who expected to sell their large house to downsize into an apartment, now that the kids have grown up and moved away?

The crisis is hardly over, in other words. The worse it gets, the more Republicans running for re-election will take the blame in November. Because they mortgaged the future.

You have been reading After the American Century

Will Americans Get an Accidental President?

After the American Century

In 2000 Americans did not elect the president, the Supreme Court did, by a vote of 5-4. For democracy to retain legitimacy, it was crucial that the 2004 election ended with a clear result, which it barely did. However, there were charges that Republicans played games with the balloting in Ohio, and the contest was close. This time around, Americans rather desperately need a clear choice that will give a mandate to the winner.

If the candidates have their way, the election will be decided by clever advertising campaigns and speeches. But accidents and unforeseen events may play a decisive role. For example, if John McCain has health problems between now and November, it would devastate the Republicans. If either of the presidential candidates collapsed from exhaustion on the campaign trail, such a small health failure could undermine them. But let us hope and assume health will not be an issue. In that case, there are four categories of disaster that are beyond the candidate’s control: economic collapse, natural disaster, a terrorist attack, and bizarre events. Let us look at all four, to see who might have an advantage in each case.

The worst disaster for the Republicans would be massive economic failure. The American economy is teetering between recession and recovery, the most dangerous possibility is a stock market collapse, perhaps caused by the persistent housing crisis. Historically, the American market has not been strong in October, and twice it has crashed in that month. In late October, 1929, the market collapsed, devastating the economy for years, and dooming Herbert Hoover to be a one-term president. Likewise, in October 19, 1987 the New York Stock Market lost 23 percent of its value in two days. Nothing quite like that has ever happened in an election year, but McCain would almost certainly lose if it did. Al Gore’s campaign was hurt by the rapid fall in computer technology stocks in March 2000. When the dot.com bubble broke, many realized that the “new economy” was over. Had the market kept surging until after November, Gore presumably would have won more popular votes. If stocks fall in the month before the election, expect Obama to win, assuming he has not made a major mistake.

Natural disasters can also play a role in the campaign. September and October are huricaine season, and anything remotely resembling the Katrina (mismangement) disaster would also hurt the Republicans. However, in general, natural disasters tend to help the party in power, assuming it makes the most of the opportunity to show compassion and leadership. Just as importantly, a disaster can release huge sums of money to help an afflicted region, while the party in power can tour the area to inspect the damage, sweeping opponents off the front pages of the newspapers. The current floods in the Midwest thus favor the Republicans if they respond credibly to the disaster. As fate would have it, at least two swing states are affected by the surging waters, Missouri and Iowa.

The most unpredictable event would be a terrorist attack. Potential terrorists might try shape the outcome of the election, as they did in Spain with the Madrid train bombings. Depending on the target, the timing, and the administration’s response, would an attack strengthen McCain or hurt him? To put this another way, would an attack be more like an earthquake, giving the Republicans a chance to look heroic and sympathetic in the face of adversity, or would it be more like a stock market crash, a sign that the party in power is incompetent and unable to preserve the nation from harm? These are not easy questions to answer, and each party would try to put political spin on any attack. However, assuming that an attack did not reveal an egregious, gaping hole in Homeland Security (in which case Republicans get the blame), any terrorist activity would make national security, not the economy, the main issue. This presumably would favor McCain, because of his military background.

Finally, in America one cannot rule out the bizarre event. Any number of things might take everyone's mind off the election. A major sex scandal; a police case resembling the O.J. Simpson murder, chase, and trial; a major riot in an American city; a high-profile disaster in the space program; some new Brittney Spears antics; the authentic return of Elvis to a major shopping mall; a surreal hostage drama involving Osama bin Laden himself in Pakistan - who knows? A bizarre event that distracts the voters could have unpredictable consequences. One should even include the weather. Generally speaking, bad weather means a lower turnout, which is good for the Republicans, who as a group are wealthier and more able to get to the polls. An early blizzard sweeping through the "blue" states would not be good for the Democrats.

In a close election extra-political factors could be decisive, and the result might be an accidental president. You think this is impossible? Before the 2000 election, who thought the hanging chads in Florida was possible? This time around, what if the new computerized voting machines are erratic? We must hope for a decisive victory, not a roll of the dice. After Bush, Americans need a new president with unquestionable legitimacy.