Could it be that much Obama optimism is simply ill-informed and misplaced? Could it be that there's more at stake than whether an alleged Democrat (or Republican) is in the White House? Could it be that simply looking at the facts and short-term consequences in a slightly different way we might be able to envision a long-term future that is not so rosy after all?
I'd say "yes", and if you follow me below the fold, I'll tell you why.
Recently an English friend of mine drew my attention to a talk by Larry Sabato, Director and Professor at the the University of Virginia Center for Politics. On 4 July 2013, he delivered the RISJ/BBC David Butler Lecture at the BBC Council Chamber in London. His topic was the media's portrayal of Obama's campaigns and elections in 2008 and 2012. (If you're in the UK, you can watch the lecture here; if you're outside the UK, you can read a transcript here.) What struck me most about the presentation was not so much the confirmation of suspicions I might have had about certain aspects of the American presidential electoral process, but rather the consequences that this situation has for all of us moving forward.
One point he made was that the actual number of swing voters ... you know, those folks who allegedly decide elections is much, much smaller than the media would have us believe. Instead of the 15-25% the media likes to talk about, it's probably closer to 2-5%. When seen in those terms, the spending on elections is grossly disproportional to the effect it is supposed to have. The waste of money is not the worst of it. No one ever accused Americans of not being able to waste money. More importantly, he pointed out just how much of an advantage the incumbent has in any election.
We sort of know this, but his review of the 20th century reveals that the party changes in the White House when the incumbent suffers a major scandal, gets involved in an unpopular war, or the economy tanks. Not only can these three factors, more than anything else, kick an incumbent out, they can prevent the party in power from continuing. Accordingly, since Bush II was two for three at the end of his term, the Democrats could have probably run Mickey Mouse and got him elected. OK, a bit of exaggeration, but the predictive power of his own models appear to bear him out. In addition, though, we have other factors in play.
Part of the problem here is that the two sort-of parties that we have, don't really talk to each other any more. Sabato points out that mobility has served us well: when we can, we move to those places (states, cities, neighborhoods) which are most like us. Birds of a feather are increasingly flocking together. What this means, and what the media landscape provides, is a way of spending all your time never having to truly engage your political opposition. It is quite obvious that there is no "talking across the aisle" in our current Congress and there seems to be good evidence to suggest that Red states are simply getting redder and Blue states are simply getting bluer. As that situation intensifies, and given the constraints of the current system, the notion of "swing voter" becomes even more nebulous.
As we all know, the core Republican constituency is older, white males. With the demographic changes occurring, with the influx of voters of darker complexion and foreign heritage, the base of Democratic voters is increasing. While this may be greeted with a lot of enthusiasm by those who have had enough of the absolutely insane antics of the Republican party, what it means in the end is that the Democrats will only get stronger and the Republicans weaker till we will have, as the good professor puts it, not a two-party, but something like a one-and-a-half-party system. Maybe its just me, but whenever one group thinks it has wisdom all sewed up for itself, dubious things start to happen.
Prof. Sabato merely indicates that things could very easily ... well, will most likely ... develop in one, single direction over the coming years. And that's my cause for concern. We should not forget that while we love to blame the ills of the (American) world on the Republicans, they are not solely to blame for the plight we are in. The degradation of the welfare state was completed as soon as a Democratic president replaced welfare with workfare. The seeds of destruction of financial markets were sewn not through the introduction of Reagan's voodoo economics (he was only laying the ideological groundwork), it was the nullification of Glass-Steagall and the final deregulation of the banking industry under that same Democratic president that did us in. When we look at the current Democratic administration with its nefarious record of war crimes (drone strikes), the prosecution of whistleblowers including the unnecessary and inappropriate reanimation of the Espionage Act of 1917, the growth of the surveillance state through programs such as PRISM, well, if you ask me, not all that is Democrat is necessarily democratic at all.
Those who remain unopposed come to believe that what they think and do is right, and what is currently happening to all of us is neither right, nor proper, nor in our best interests, and the "us/our" in there is you, your family, your neighbor, and all of mine as well. Perhaps it would do us all a bit of good to abandon the superficiality of much of what passes for discussion these days and start thinking about what "we the people" might have to say about it all. Lord Acton knew what he was talking about.