America is Becoming Ungovernable: MAX HASTINGS' Chilling Verdict on the Visceral Political Hatreds Behind the Shutdown of the US Government
By Daily Mail UK, 12 October 2013
Washington this week has basked in autumnal sunshine and bitter hatred. Like players in one of those Hollywood movies about a divided hick town with lynch mobs baying, the legislators of the greatest nation on earth trade insults about blame for the government shutdown, resulting from the stand-off on the U.S. budget.
‘These people are Neanderthals,’ thundered a Democratic congressman. The Senate’s chaplain, Barry Black, rolled his eyes skywards and said: ‘Save us from this madness.’
The ‘madness’ is, of course, the insistence of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives that they will vote to enable the federal government to pay its bills only if the White House agrees to suspend or scrap its national health scheme, which they loathe to the point of obsession.
Madness: Protesters display placards during a demonstration in front of the US Capitol in Washington last week urging Congress to pass the budget bill
Obamacare (properly known as ACA, the Affordable Care Act) is the greatest — cynics say the only major — achievement of this disappointing presidency. It provides subsidies and new regulatory procedures to bring health insurance within reach of the poorest Americans. Long-term, it is intended to lower the horrific costs of public healthcare.
Republicans hate the scheme because they claim that it will make medical care more costly for middle America, and extend the reach of the hated federal government.
Yet it is still an extraordinary step to attempt to blackmail the Democratic administration into dropping a measure that became law in 2010.
As a host of commentators point out, if Obama gave way on this issue — as assuredly he will not — the road would be open for his congressional enemies to pull the same stunt about any other law they dislike.
They could defy the intentions of the Founding Fathers of the constitution as flagrantly as the gun nuts who exploit the 1776 provision for militias to bear arms, to enable modern mass murderers to equip themselves with machine-guns. But the Republicans are seized with a self-righteousness which is impervious to reason.
Not backing down: If Obama gave way on this issue, as assuredly he will not, the road would
be open for his congressional enemies to pull the same stunt about any other law they dislike
All week, a procession of fat, solemn, smug legislators has filled the country’s television screens, blaming the current farce on Barack Obama.
‘The President is using his enormous powers against the American people,’ said Utah Senator Mike Lee, ‘by refusing to recognise the enormous harm Obamacare is doing.’
One of the foremost advocates of the shutdown, Texan Congressman Randy Neugebauer, had the brass neck publicly to berate a Washington park ranger who had to explain to a couple of veterans they could not visit the World War II Memorial which — like all museums and monuments — has been forced to close to the public.
Bobby Jindal, Republican Governor of Louisiana, accuses the President of ‘obstinacy’, while another congressman charges Obama with ‘shamelessly pursuing his own political interests at the expense of the American people’.
This is serpent-speak, of course. But seldom, if ever, has the chasm between the sophistication of America’s East Coast and the primitive passions and thought processes of middle American lawmakers yawned wider.
At dinner parties in the capital this week, I have listened to government officials and academics venting fury about the irresponsibility of the Republicans.
‘Their behaviour is holding America up to ridicule,’ said my neighbour on Tuesday night. A State Department official said crossly: ‘We’re still working in my department for the next couple of weeks at least, but we can’t spend any money. This is a huge embarrassment.’
Impervious to reason: Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah has accused the President
of using his 'enormous powers against the American people'
In Britain, most MPs of all parties consider Westminster to be as much home as their constituencies.
But the United States is different. The senators and congressmen who fly into Washington on Monday nights and jet out again on Thursdays never cease to belong first and always to Kansas, Montana, Alabama or wherever else they hail from.
President Eisenhower said ruefully about Washington: ‘Everyone is too far from home.’
Most Republican constituencies are not merely thousands of miles from the capital; they are also culturally light years distant.
Many of the legislators orchestrating the federal shutdown feel as foreign among East Coast smart-asses — as they would characterise Washington’s elite — as did the Tennessee frontiersman Davy Crockett when he was elected to Congress in 1826.
Constituency boundaries have always been ruthlessly manipulated to create safe seats for either Republicans or Democrats. The consequence is that party primary elections are often decisive in determining who gets to go to Washington.
This is how the powerful Right-wing Tea Party, dedicated activists, have gained such leverage. Incumbent Republicans live in mortal dread of being ousted at election time not by Democrats, but by far-out Right-wingers on their own side.
Divided: Seldom, if ever, has the chasm between the sophistication of America's East Coast and the primitive passions and thought processes of middle American lawmakers yawned wider
Even if they would like to act temperately in this crisis, they dare not.
What a crew they are. Steve Stockman, a Texan who sits in the House of Representatives, is a former homeless man who has faced drugs charges. He distributed bumper stickers during his last election campaign urging the arming of foetuses: ‘If Babies had Guns, They Wouldn’t be Aborted!’
The grassroots are obsessed with firearms. I have sometimes struck up casual conversations about gun law in rural states such as Kansas or Wyoming; it is like holding a dialogue with Martians.
Many people out there sincerely believe the federal government may descend on their homes at any moment to confiscate their pistols and assault rifles, to appease the evil socialist anti-gun lobby. They insist that they must be ready to defend themselves. I have even heard one group cite a threat from extra-terrestrials.
In Britain, we sometimes deplore the decline of religion. But we should take heed of how malign its influence can be, not only in the Muslim world but also in much of the U.S. To be sure, American churches are packed on Sundays, but the gospel of intolerance which some espouse contributes mightily to today’s Washington political gridlock.
Fear is what a lot of this is about.
The Fox TV channel — the Wailing Wall of the American Right — currently advertises a hot best-seller entitled National Bankruptcy — Why The Middle Class Is Doomed. Most Republicans hate 2013.
They want to reset the clock to around 1955, when the world lived in terror of nuclear annihilation, but when Dwight Eisenhower occupied the White House, women and blacks knew their place, there was no swearing on TV, and sex was kept in its proper place under the carpet.
The British middle classes relish nostalgia: some root for UKIP because they fancy the weather would improve if we could leave Europe. But in our hearts, most of us accept that life moves on; even that some change is for the better.
But rural Republicans are not like that. They believe they have the right, duty and even power to roll back the 21st century. This week I chatted to a diplomat’s wife who attended both 2012 party conventions, who remarked on the contrast between them.
The Democratic event in Charlotte, North Carolina, featured delegates who were every colour of the rainbow, many of them young, all willing to hope.
The Republican get-together took place in a heavily-armed fortress in Tampa, Florida, and was attended almost exclusively by white-haired, white-skinned folk bereft of hope, moved only by their fears. If that seems a caricature, fast forward to now.
Those same Tampa dinosaurs have shut down large parts of Washington for 11 days. There is a real possibility that rather than give way, they will drive the jalopy over the cliff and subject the U.S. and the rest of the world to a traumatic debt default.
America has become the test-bed for a crisis of democracy.
'Exclusively by white-haired, white-skinned folk bereft of hope, moved only by their fears,' Republican senators Mike Lee, Mike Enzi, Tim Scott and Ted Cruz leave the White House yesterday
For centuries, the system has operated on the basis that societies acquiesce in majority poll verdicts.
Now, however, this principle is being fiercely challenged. Obamacare may have passed into law, have been tested in the Supreme Court, and upheld there in 2012. Yet the Republicans refuse to sanction government spending unless the measure is suspended or repealed.
Can anything be said in mitigation of their behaviour?
Obamacare is indisputably flawed — but so are all welfare systems.
There is a frightening debt chasm between U.S. government tax- raising and spending for which both parties share blame, but which Obama has made no real effort to address.
Even Democrats privately fume about the fact that their President may do some statesmanship, but he does not do much politics.
It is vital for all political leaders to privately meet, smooch and cut deals with legislators on whose votes they depend to implement their policies. Yet Barack Obama recoils from glad-handing.
This cool, even cold, man finds it hard to charm his friends, never mind his enemies. His natural habitat is a platform from which he can broadcast to a multitude. All successful reformers in U.S. history, notably including Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, owed most of their achievements to backroom skills such as Barack Obama lacks.
He would argue: ‘Yeah, but that was before the Tea Party came along.’ That was also before a substantial minority of the American people became seized with such manic distrust of their own government that they decided that any and all means are justified to frustrate its purposes.
Their hatred of President Obama is truly frightening.
It is no exaggeration to say that though they call themselves Christians, a terrifying number would rejoice to see him dead. That is how poisonous is the political climate of the U.S. today.
What Happens Next?
Polls show that the American people hold the Republicans chiefly responsible for the current mess. The party’s moderates are desperate to extricate themselves. But behind them stand the Tea Party’s gunslingers, holding ****ed pistols to their heads.
Outrage: Protestors in front of the closed Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
rally against the shutdown, many are angry that America is being held up to ridicule
A year ago, Republican House Speaker John Boehner said that he would have no part of an attempt to exploit the budget to wreck Obamacare, ‘the law of the land’.
Now, however, the wretched man is doing exactly what he promised not to, because he is battered and bullied by the extremists.
That description seems perfectly just, after listening to some of their commentaries on the crisis.
For example, Florida Republican Congressman Ted Yoho asserts that a continuing refusal to raise the government debt ceiling — forcing America to default on its obligations — ‘would bring stability to world markets’.
A Louisiana comrade calls Obamacare ‘the most existential threat to our economy since the Great Depression’.
In a way, the Republicans have done Obama a favour by hoisting their flag of defiance behind a demand so extravagant that the President cannot possibly yield.
He must win in the end, though, because defeat would spell the shipwreck of America’s system of government.
But this is already holed on the waterline.
I wandered down Pennsylvania Avenue the other evening, reflecting on the recorded message that greets phone-callers to the White House: ‘Due to the lapse in federal funding, we are unable to take your call.’
For all: The affordable care bill - known as Obamacare would bring bring health insurance within reach of the poorest Americans and long-term, is intended to lower the horrific costs of public healthcare
Among the gawkers outside the railings of the Obama residence, I noticed a perspiring, overweight man wearing a T-shirt bearing the enigmatic message;
‘GAME OVER’.
Alas, it is not.
America remains the greatest society on earth, but its leadership looks sickly and feeble, for reasons that relate partly to this President but mostly to the fact that the U.S. constitution and its standard- bearers are failing their country.
In the name of freedom, the Supreme Court, third pillar of the check-and-balance system, persistently hands down conservative decisions which worsen the politics. For instance, the Court upholds the right of billionaires to provide unlimited campaign funding. This means that tiny minorities are empowered by Right-wing billionaires who use their riches as a club to bully and blackmail elected representatives.
The scariest part is that, even if somehow America struggles out of this crisis without precipitating a global financial disaster — which we should not take for granted — we are getting a preview of the likely pattern of American politics.
So sclerotic is the system, so mountainous the obstacles to reform, that the greatest democracy on earth looks set to shuffle and stumble towards the future, rather than march boldly as its allies hope and need.
The shutdown crisis shows that democratic freedoms, when brutishly abused, can produce consequences almost as scary as those of tyranny.
The United States of America looks frighteningly close to being ungovernable.