Obama and the Bush Economic Legacy

After the American Century

The final debate is over, and again the American public has said in polls that Obama won. He has defeated McCain now three times, by a wider margin each time. Joe Biden also defeated Sarah Palin. If this were the World Series, then at 4 - 0 it would be all over. But there are 18 days or so left, when conceivably the Republicans can pull some improbable rabbit out of their economy-battered hat. I doubt it, however.

One thing that has become quite clear in these encounters is that Obama is not easily ruffled. Throughout the campaign, whenever McCain let off a nasty remark or a made an attack, Obama remained cool, even-tempered, often smiling. Voters clearly prefer a man who remains dignified to one who is irate, one who has specific proposals to one who mostly repeats the same generalizations over and over. (See, for example, McCain's utterly vague remarks on Social Security in the second debate.)

It also seems likely that McCain's endless claim that Obama was going to raise taxes simply did not convince anyone, even "Joe the Plumber" in Ohio, who, it now turns out, is not a plumber after all. What I do not really understand is why the Democrats have not said more often that all they want to do is go back to the tax system that worked so well in the Clinton years. No need for fancy explanations, just say the truth, that Bush lowered taxes on the rich, creating a deficit for all Americans to pay off.

While Obama seems likely to win the election on the economy, however, the financial mess he inherits is daunting. I checked the statistics today, and it is absolutely true that the average American, white or Black or Hispanic, lost real income during the Bush years, even before the current financial collapse. According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, from 2000 until 2005, the average white family lost $1,300 in annual income, in constant dollars. It was worse for African-American families, who averaged a $2,700 loss, and they were starting from a lower income to begin with. For Hispanic Americans the loss was "only" $1000. They did a bit better, on paper, but bear in mind that the undocumented immigrants, of which there are an estimated 10 million now, are largely Hispanic, and they get the lowest wages.

These losses continued in 2006, 2007, and the present year, so that the average American quite literally has been worse off because of George W. Bush's tax policies combined with no real support for unions or for a higher minimum wage. Indeed, as many commentators have pointed out, the Bush Administration oversaw the redistribution of wealth to those who least needed it. The poorest 40% of the American population, who are largely working poor and lower middle class, collectively got more than 13% of all income in 2001 when Bush took office. By 2005, however, this hard-working group, whose health care expenses shot up far faster than inflation, were collectively much worse off, with only 12% of the total income. While they were falling, the next 40% was holding even, i.e. keeping the same share as before. The only group that was getting higher incomes after Bush were the top 20% of wage-earning Americans. This is nothing short of a disgrace, when the economy as a whole was doing well (until two months ago). But it may be hard to redress this economic injustice when the economy is in recession.

Should John McCain somehow win, of course, the unfairness will worsen, and class discrimination continue. It was quite ridiculous to hear McCain call Obama's tax plans a form of class warfare. The unfairness began in 2001, and the Republicans knew exactly what they were doing. If they were honest, they would admit that their fantasies of a deregulated economy lifting all boats led to a tsunami of bad debt.

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.

Obama would win if the election were tomorrow. But it isn't.

After the American Century

With less than 30 days remaining in the presidential race, McCain seems to be falling behind. A series of recent polls has revealed that states once considered toss-ups like Michigan and Pennsylvania, now are clearly in the Obama column. Indeed, the McCain campaign has pulled its operation out of Michigan, probably because the money and the personnel are needed in Florida, where Obama has a slight lead (4%), or perhaps in North Carolina, where McCain also has fallen slightly behind according to some polls. The trend all across the country seems much the same, with swing states leaning toward Obama, including Nevada, Colorado (just barely), and Virginia. These states went to Bush in 2000 and 2004. McCain retains the lead in two swing states, Missouri and Indiana, in each case just 2% - within the margin of polling error.

The New York Times now estimates that Obama has 260 electoral votes secured, compared to only 200 for McCain, with 78 votes still up for grabs. That means Obama would only need to nail down 10 more votes to become president. However, the Times takes a smaller number of polls into consideration and is a bit cautious. In contrast, Real Clear Politics estimates that if the election were tomorrow, Obama would win easily, with 353 electoral votes, compared to only 185 for McCain. The national polls now uniformly put Obama ahead, Rasmussen Reports has a daily tracking poll, which for the last ten days has shown McCain trailing by 6 or 7% every day.

The focus of attention has narrowed to seven states, which between them have 89 electoral votes. These are Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Missouri, Ohio, and Virginia. Put another way, for McCain, four states that looked possible for him two weeks ago are now off the table: New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Michigan. Together they have 52 electoral votes.

Is it suddenly all over? The Vice-Presidential debate was so recent that it has not yet registered in polls, but it should only reinforce these trends. Initial polls suggested that Biden won it by a wide margin, especially among independent voters. If the trend is clear, however, the battle continues. Recall that McCain pulled ahead twice, briefly in August and then again in early September. Then the shocking collapse of the Wall Street investment banks clearly favored Obama.

In a campaign year of so many twists and turns, it seems unlikely that the Democrats will have clear sailing now. Look for an October surprise, perhaps from the Karl Rove trainees who manage the McCain attack advertisements.

Palinitudes, Palinites, Playing the Palin Card

After the American Century

Sarah Palin and Joe Biden have now debated. Based on the substance of the debate, no one could doubt that Palin lost. She continually retreated into a memorized script or gave short vague answers. She endlessly mouthed platitudes about growing the economy and seemed to have only a vague idea about what the problem is at the moment on Wall Street and in the banking system. Take away the folksy rhetoric and the smiles, and there was almost nothing there.

Joe Biden was a huge contrast. He had command of the facts on any issue that came up, and his vast experience repeatedly showed in his answers. He also has the gravitas that Palin forever will lack. Yet, it is entirely possible that after Sarah Palin fades into the obscurity she so richly deserves, the name Palin may remain behind to enrich our political vocabulary. Here are some of the useful possibilities.

Palinesque, loud, brassy and self-assured but without substance.

Palingo, using a grammar so fractured that all meaning disappears, although appropriate buzz words are prominent. Especially useful in debates.

Palinitude, a statement that appears obviously true to fundamentalist Republicans and obviously false to everyone else.

Palinites, white mothers with little education but passionate self-assurance, who embrace moralistic rhetoric, fundamentalist religion, creationism, and blind patriotism.

Palinicity, a word like ethnicity, to refer to this group. Future commentators might say that a certain candidate's palinicity had yet to be tested in the rural slums of the Bible Belt.

Palinize, 1. verb, to put lipstick on an animal, 2. verb, to attempt to distract attention from a bad idea. You can palinize a pig, but it's still a pig.

Palinoscopy an investigative probe to nowhere.

Playing the Palin Card, nominating such a women for an important position, in hopes that the Palinites will vote for the ticket.

The problem with Playing the Palin Card, however, as John McCain has begun to notice, is that while Palinites cheer wildly whenever they hear a Palinitude the same statements simultaneously alienate the rest of the electorate. Furthermore, McCain has begun to appear palinesque because he chose her in the first place.

I interviewed an Alaskan moose recently who told me that palinites are never environmentalists. They hunt from helicopters, take no prisoners, and eat their enemies. Hence the term palinity, which means "genial ferocity." (Do not confuse palinity with palinicity, defined above.)

The last month of the campaign is likely to be increasingly palinesque as McCain palinizes his proposals and spouts palinitudes. The whole painful process might be called palinization.
Should McCain and Palin lose the election, there may follow that investigation into her possible abuse of power in the Alaska trooper-gate investigation. Call it palingate if you must, but it might prove a palinoscopy.

The Language of McCain's "Foreign Policy"

After the American Century

The recent debate between Senators McCain and Obama has been discussed widely in the media, and the consensus seems to be that while there was no clear winner, Obama strengthened his position. A Rasmussen Poll found that on all the main issues Obama improved against McCain.

The debate was supposedly about foreign policy, yet most of the world was entirely ignored. McCain did not say anything about the two most populous nations on earth, China and India, both of which have economies that have been growing far more rapidly than the US. Japan was also completely left out of the debate, as were all the nations of Latin America and Africa. Europe received cursory mention twice, but no nation there was actually discussed.

Instead, McCain focused on a few countries. McCain mentioned Iraq the most (18 times), but also was worried about Russia (17), Iran and Afghanistan (12 each), Georgia (9), Pakistan (7), Israel (6), and North Korea (5). The debate thus was not really about foreign policy at all, but about military policy. This is to a considerable degree the fault of those who made up the questions, but it shows how American political debate has been militarized. To hear it, one would think there are no problems between the US and most of the world, and that only 7 nations in the greater Middle East posed difficulties.

Since the debate was so narrowly focused, I learned nothing new about either candidate's views. But I did begin to notice that McCain's language was extremely bellicose. If one ignores the sentences and looks only at the words employed, he appears to be a man obsessed with combat. He frequently was thinking about strategy (mentioned no less than 17 times), and was deeply concerned about failure (12 times) and defeat (11). When giving particulars in his answers he often spoke of troops (11) and the military (6). He appears to think about the world in terms of confrontations, as he frequently spoke of fighting (10) and security (6). He seems deeply concerned about honor (6) and he wishes to appear proud (4) and tough (4). His world is dominated by a sense of danger (4) and crisis (5), as exemplified by 9/11 (5), which makes defense (8) his central concern. He is ready to kill (4) if necessary.

McCain thinks only occasionally and in the short term about success (4) and peace (5), because he lives in a world of threats (8), aggression (4), violence (2), and genocide (2), where war (8) is often unavoidable and which it is essential to win (7). In this mental universe love (1) scarcely matters, and it is seldom useful to negotiate (1). It is a world without hope (0), with no reference to the future (0) and no interest in global warming (0) or ecology (0).

McCain's choice of words reflects a martial outlook and indicates his lack of interest in the arts of peace or the friendly relations that might be created through trade (0), cultural exchange (0), or international educational agreements like the Fulbright Program (0). McCain's choice of words strongly suggests a mind ill-equipped to deal with subtlety or shades of gray. Couple that mind with an impatient temper and the result might be a man better suited to taking military orders than to wrestling with hard policy choices. Unfortunately, this world view is yoked to a personality that is impatient with authority and that delights in being unpredictable.

All this is highly speculative, based on the words he chose to use during one debate. Yet are not these words a key to understanding his mental makeup?

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.

American Studies Research Engine

After the American Century

A new search engine is now available for all those interested in the culture, politics, history, and literature of the United States. It is the

American Studies Research Engine

Call it ASRE for short.

You can try it this handy tool immediately, as it is on the top right hand side of this page. Access more than 150 gateway sites that lead to approximately 25,000 web pages. These deal with all aspects of the United States, including collections in the Library of Congress, National Archives, Harvard University Library, Chicago Public Library, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and a great many specialized collections. There must be topics which it does not (yet) cover, but I have not been able to discover them.

This handy gadget is almost entirely free of commercial web sites, and it focuses largely on full texts. So, if you want to read a particular short story by Edgar Allen Poe or see original documents related to the building of Hoover Dam, for example, they are immediately available.

What has been left out of ASRE? All sites that want to sell you something. All sites that deal with other countries, other literatures, and most other subjects. Instead of getting 20,000 or 2 million sites to look over, which is impossible, ASRE provides a high-quality, selected list.

Using ASRE does not replace going into the library, and it does not replace using library data bases that are restricted to regular users, such as J-STOR, MUSE, and most newspaper indexes. In other words, ASRE is designed to cast a wide net that catches only good quality materials that can supplement what is available in library datebases. In many cases, such as finding materials for teaching or writing a short paper, it will be all you require.

I hope that this will be a useful tool for teachers and students and general readers. If anyone has suggestions for sites to include, please write to me at nye.technology@gmail.com