The end of the Obama honeymoon
JUST SEVEN months after taking office on a wave of
hope and euphoria at the end of George Bush’s rule, President Barack
Obama has seen a sharp fall in public support. Discontent is building
from all sides, as disappointment with Obama’s inability to bring real
change has brought about the end of his honeymoon.
Obama’s job approval is down to about 50% from a
high of 70% on inauguration day. On Obama’s signature issue – healthcare
reform – there has been a sharp fall-off in support for his approach. A
CNN/Opinion Research Poll conducted at the end of August found that only
44% of Americans supported his handling of healthcare, while 53%
disapproved.
According to David Brooks, columnist for the New
York Times, "all presidents fall from their honeymoon highs, but in the
history of polling, no newly elected president has fallen this far, this
fast. Anxiety is now pervasive… Fifty-nine percent of Americans now
think the country is headed in the wrong direction". (1 September)
Reflecting general disgust with the political
establishment, 57% say they would vote to replace the entire Congress
and start all over again; 42% say people randomly selected from the
phone book could do a better job than the current Congress! (Rasmussen
Reports, 30 August)
The driving force pulling down Obama’s popularity is
the economy. There is deep anger among workers and broad sections of the
middle class at the state of the economy. Millions have lost their jobs
or homes, while tens of millions are still working but are barely able
to pay their bills and have seen the value of their homes and retirement
savings plummet.
Opposition is also growing rapidly to the
deteriorating war in Afghanistan, which Obama has sent more troops into.
Support for Obama’s handing of the situation in Afghanistan is down 18
points since March, to only 49% (CNN/Opinion Research Poll, 1
September).
In the 2008 presidential election tens of millions
of workers and young people voted for Obama hoping for a fundamental
change from the big-business, right-wing, militaristic policies of
George Bush. However since taking office Obama, while striking a more
sympathetic tone, has fundamentally carried out a corporate agenda.
Measures that would make a real difference for
working people – such as a massive public works
programme, bailing out ordinary homeowners from their crushing
mortgages, or a single-payer (general taxation-funded) healthcare system
– have been rejected. At the same time Obama has continued Bush’s
enormously unpopular bank bailouts, giving billions of dollars with no
real strings attached to the very Wall Street crooks that sparked this
crisis.
As a candidate Obama promised unions he would be a
strong supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a bill
strengthening workers’ right to organise
unions. Yet since taking office, under pressure from big business, Obama
and the Congressional Democratic leaders have virtually dropped any
mention of it.
On democratic rights, Obama has deeply disappointed
his supporters by continuing Bush era policies on rendition and other
‘national security’ measures, at the same time refusing to prosecute top
Bush officials for their criminal policies on domestic spying and
torture.
While opposition to Obama has boiled up most visibly
around healthcare, it is linked to anger at broader economic issues.
Paul Krugman, a liberal supporter of Obama,
commented that opposition to Obama’s healthcare policies are "a proxy
for broader questions about the president’s priorities and overall
approach… I don’t know if administration officials realise just how much
damage they’ve done themselves with their kid-gloves treatment of the
financial industry, just how badly the spectacle of government-supported
institutions paying giant bonuses is playing". (New York Times, 21
August)
Right-wing populists have tapped into this anger at
the bailouts and economic anxiety in general, directing it against a
‘big government’ takeover of healthcare and runaway deficits, while
whipping up racist sentiments. Republicans have been emboldened by the
Congressional town hall meetings on healthcare reform, which were
dominated by protests fuelled by right-wing talk shows and Rupert
Murdoch’s Fox News.
These protests, while financed and backed by wealthy
interests such as health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, have
demagogically tapped into a broader anxiety about the economy among a
section of more conservative, mostly white, workers and middle class
people. This has been given a particularly reactionary twist by strong
overtones of racism.
Some liberal leaders have pointed to these
developments as evidence of the supposedly conservative nature of
Americans, arguing Obama has no choice but to move to the ‘centre’ to
remain popular. However, the reality is that it is Obama’s big business
policies and his failure to effectively address the economic misery
facing workers that is leading to the accumulation of discontent. The
question is, how will this anger be expressed?
If the left and trade unions continue to cling to
Obama and the Democratic Party, it will inevitably lead to the
strengthening of right-wing populist forces which can harness
anti-establishment anger at the economic crisis by denouncing the
‘Washington elite’ and the bailouts, while
channelling anger in a racist direction. Of course, this in
itself can act as a spur for struggle among African Americans, Latinos,
women, and young people who will see a dire need to confront and combat
this poison.
Lost in all the media’s talk about the right-wing
attacks on Obama is the fact that he is also losing support from the
left. Obama’s back-peddling on the public option – a government-run
health insurance plan that would compete with private insurance
companies – has brought to the surface growing frustration among his
more left-wing supporters.
The public option was the key ‘progressive’ element
in Obama’s healthcare plan that kept left-wing supporters from rebelling
and demanding an end to for-profit healthcare through a single-payer
system. If Obama eventually abandons the public option, which looks
increasingly likely, it will strike a serious blow to the illusions in
him among a politically active minority.
While Obama is still very popular among progressive
workers and youth, his support is falling. Paul Krugman argues that
Obama now faces a "backlash in [his] progressive base" over healthcare,
bank bailouts, Afghanistan, LGBT rights, and torture. "Progressives are
now in revolt. Mr Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process
lost it. And now he needs to win it back". (New York Times, 21 August)
Of course, these are still early days. Obama still
rests on a deep reserve of illusions and support from wide sections of
workers and youth. Public opinion polls are fickle and can swing back in
Obama’s direction on the basis of new events. As Krugman alludes to,
under pressure from falling support or Republican attacks, Obama may
move in a more populist direction at a certain stage, which could
temporarily boost his support on the left.
Further, it is one thing to register discontent in a
poll, it is another thing in an election when the danger of a return to
the Republicans looms. Given the disastrous experience of the Bush
administration, there will inevitably be a strong revulsion to going
back to Republican rule. However the experience of the first period of
the Obama administration makes it absolutely clear that Obama, and the
Democratic Party as a whole, are tied to Corporate America and US
capitalism.
Real change will only be won through
organising mass struggle from below, such as for single-payer
healthcare, jobs, union rights, an end to the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq, and for full and equal rights for LGBT people. History shows again
and again it is only the self-organisation and
preparedness to struggle by workers and the oppressed that has won
progressive gains.
The emergence of the reactionary forces
mobilised at town hall meetings with their thinly veiled racism
is a stark warning to workers and youth. Today these right-wing forces
are a minority. But if no fighting left-wing, anti-corporate movement is
built to give a coherent lead to the growing anger in US society,
right-wing populism can grow and benefit from the inevitable discontent
that will develop in the next period.
Fundamentally, this requires a break from the two
parties of Corporate America – the Democrats and Republicans – and the
building of a new political party that provides a genuine voice for
workers and young people.
As TV host Bill Maher asked recently, "Shouldn’t
there be one party that unambiguously supports cutting the military
budget… gay marriage, higher taxes on the rich, universal health
care?... What we need is an actual progressive party to represent the
millions of Americans who aren’t being served by the Democrats".
This is a question that will increasingly be raised
in the coming period by the most politically conscious workers and young
people. Socialist Alternative will be at the forefront of this process,
popularising the need for a new, broad party representing working
people which fights at the ballot box and in our communities for
fundamental change.
Philip Locker
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