Mid-Term Wake-Up

Nothing if not fascinating to witness the calm, deliberate demeanour of President Barack Obama crack under the pressure of protests by Republicans in the United States against the state of the economy of their country, the high unemployment, the insecurity, the housing collapse, the mess that has resulted through enforced 'universal' Medicare, and the reputation that was to have been rescued internationally by the Democrats which hasn't happened, along with the country's military remaining mired in Afghanistan.

"Yes we can", should have included "but it takes time". Two years, given the circumstances when the Democrats took triumphant office, declaring their readiness to engage in bipartisan politics for the good of the country, would not be enough time under ordinary conditions. The global financial crisis shattered any initial illusions that everything would just gently flow into another mode of political-social action with the glowing, avuncular-cerebral presence of Barack Obama in the White House.

His serene self-confidence so stimulated the voting public, particularly the young and educated that they felt they had finally found a champion. And he agreed with them. Proud to be their champion. Some thought his high-flown rhetoric was a trifle too studied, too airy-fairy, but it most certainly did resonate with those who saw profound meaning where critics saw puffery. And now although he has not had leisure to contemplate what might have gone awry, he is experiencing stress in anticipating a Republican sweep in the mid-term elections.

It is as though some of his supreme self-confidence has seen an untoward erosion. One that appears to have surprised him no end. People can be so ungrateful; the electorate is a ravening beast. A temporary set-back, one that will be recovered swiftly enough. It is only, after all, a mid-term exchange of seats, and he has yet two years to govern. He may get it right. It couldn't get much worse, after all, and he is a quick study. He has been seen to turn himself around on occasion, to take positive steps to ameliorate situations he has been responsible for that have not reflected well on him.

The process by which he seeks to induce guilt in the academic circles of the young, impressionable and committed to social justice and forward-looking politics of inclusion is instructive. They're sitting on their hands now, where two years earlier they were out campaigning feverishly for their candidate. Who is manning the barricades against the barbarian horde? He's no longer their candidate. Miracles obliquely promised, never materialized. Even intellectuals believe in miracles and become downcast when they fizzle out.

Confidence shaken, he has gone out to hector and lecture and demand and cajole, where once all he had to do was indulge in soaring paeans to the potential that resides in ordinary people who had the right to insist that all should be positive and hopeful with the world that they inhabit. Now his speeches are patronizing, moralizing, paternalistic; verbal spankings have taken the place of high-flown promises. And he seems to be failing in galvanizing his previously-entranced supporters.

He has lost too many of his former fervent supporters, in fact. And that has occurred as a result of his ideological policies, his firm belief in his way of achieving progress in areas where he feels he has the right answers, and that they can be imposed upon others, without penalty to himself. He has not reacted very differently than the Republicans in pursing the stimulus that benefited corporations and financial houses, leaving a huge swathe of unemployed.

The Golden Grail of universal health care eluded his grim determination, and its substitute may not in the end have been worth the effort, let alone the cost and the resentment it has aroused. He has managed to unleash the ugly and ignorant element of the country's political culture in an unreasoning backlash against his politics. He promised to govern even-handedly, to represent every American's interests.

His all-too-human tribal instincts have sometimes played him for a reckless manipulator. But while the Republicans will take the day, President Obama still has the presidency, and he will still have ample opportunity to change minds if he has the courage, the stamina, the foresight to change his mind and direction when occasion demands.

And increasingly the occasions present themselves, demandingly.