Second Innings: Bush may have won, but it’s not the end of the road for Democrats ap photo

At the outset, the very idea of a melting pot, as opposed to a crucible that nurtures various forms of diversity, has rendered American democracy increasingly monochromatic

As i was driving an old college mate around the San Francisco Bay area last month, the conversation veered to the outcome of the November federal elections. “What do liberals like you think the next four years are going to be like?” he asked, a question that was posed to me repeatedly in India, where I spent a couple of weeks recently. My rather unimaginative answer was: “More of the same, I am afraid.”

I see three broad and inter-related trends in the policies of the coalition that Mr Bush represents. The first consists of universalistic claims that have a bearing on the lives of millions of people in the US and abroad. They come in various forms. Some are in assumptions of civilisational superiority, especially, religious, such as the president’s speech in which he referred to the Axis of Evil. Some universalisms dictate how personal lives are to be led. The examples here are the assault on women’s right to choose and on the rights of gays. On a more global level, funds for population stabilisation have been cut, and with it, several critical social services with direct bearing on poor communities affected by aids. Some other universalisms dictate how societies run their economies. The Bush era has unleashed an old orthodoxy centering on huge tax credits for the rich and concomitant cuts in social welfare expenditure with fervent new evangelism. The result: growing starvation.

The second trend has been the dilution of democracy. At the outset, the very idea of a melting pot, as opposed to a crucible that nurtures various forms of diversity, has rendered American democracy increasingly monochromatic. An example is the huge fuss among the majority over the teaching of Spanish in the Latino community, as though a second language would challenge the spirit of nationalism. Moreover, in the wake of increasingly widespread evidence of environmental injustice, there seems to be little institutional space for popular worries — over issues such as toxic neighbourhoods, or bio-safety — to be systemically addressed. And to add injury to the insult, the popular vote has been denied in critical states during the last two presidential elections. All this in a context in which the major sources of information are controlled by three or four corporations, as a consequence of which there is little or no scope for the American citizen to learn the truth. Indeed, the line between news, investigative
reporting and unadulterated rhetoric has been blurred by outfits like Fox and the various rightwing radio programmes.

The third trend is that of institutionalised vindictiveness. Put simply, the War on Terror is a guise to wage three other potent and deadly wars — against innocent foreigners, against the poor and elderly at home, and against the environment at home and abroad. The continued offensives in Iraq are illustrations of the first war. Such campaigns inflict untold suffering on innocent people. In the process they also increasingly alienate the Islamic world from America, thereby contributing to the growing terrorist litter. An example of the second war is the proposal to dismantle Social Security. This has the potential to wreak havoc on millions of middle and lower middle class Americans who toil day and night to fill the coffers of big corporations. As for the third war, what is more symbolic and material than the proposal to dig oil in the national park in Alaska and the recalcitrance over Kyoto?

Although they now seem invincible, the laws of political gravity dictate that a combination of Republican hubris and misrule, effective new strategy gleaned from hindsight and some plain old-fashioned luck can once again bring the Democrats to power. Indeed, the closeness of the November elections, combined with the fact that a campaigner like President Clinton carried no less than 11 states, implies that contrary to the liberal doomsayers, America has not quite been captured by the evangelical or for that matter, neo-conservative right. At the same time, it is important to ask whether a future Democratic victory will reverse the trends. It is important to note here that many in the liberal camp work on the premise that a Democratic triumph, in itself, will result in a better polity. There is therefore a constant refrain among progressive circles about the need to be centrists, and to be in the “mainstream” to win the electoral game. I can indeed appreciate political strategy and can hardly blame politicians who propound “centrism” as the way to displace the Right. Needless to say, politicians can only work within the cultural parameters afforded them by the societies they work in. But there is a bigger question: What do Americans want their polity to be — politics based on values or on expediency? The Republicans have, over the past three decades, answered this question clearly and unequivocally and as a result appear consistent and principled. The liberal democratic camp, on the other hand, has consistently compromised. They have been complicit in perpetrating the excesses of globalisation, the loss of jobs, and the despoliation of the environment. It was in their watch, during the Clinton presidency, that a social welfare system that lifted millions of common folk from poverty was thoughtlessly destroyed.

The political dilemma for American progressives today revolves around a simple question: “What do they stand for?” Is the goal merely to be elected, or to re-think a New Deal suitable for the twenty-first century? The future of the American liberal tradition revolves around its ability to forge meaningful dialogues among the million mutinies across the Blue nation and bring forth fresh ideas. In this, the world’s oldest and biggest democracies have a great deal in common, and considerable scope to collaborate.

The writer teaches at
University of California,
Santa Cruz