Election Result Instant Reaction

There is no news in the Republican victory. It was expected and deserved. They played a good political hand over the past two years while the Democrats waffled, meandered and failed. Do I like it? No. But the Democrats had it coming.

But let’s not draw the wrong conclusions. This was not a victory for the center or the right wing. This was almost entirely a negative vote. Throw the bums out. They failed so let’s try something else.

We will be subjected to all sorts of incorrect analysis: especially the view that the Democrats lost because they were too leftist. That is utterly wrong. They lost because they were inept at government. They could not articulate and press for an agenda. They could not rally around an economic program worth a damn.

Now there are those, some of you reading this, who adhere to the argument that the Democrats and Obama were fatally wounded from the get go. The arcane and undemocratic rules in the Senate prevent solid policy making; and there were sufficient “blue dog” Democrats to stop anything resembling a coherent jobs plan. Thus you say, compromise was the order of the day, and so my attack on their ineptitude is unfair.

Not so.

All of those flaws were known. That means that a sound strategy was to confront the opposition and to pursue it relentlessly. Hammer away at the obstruction. Take coherent stands and stick to them. Do not spend weeks negotiating with so-called centrist Republicans who cut and vote along party lines and leave you looking weak and indecisive. The failure of the past two years was the attempt to find middle ground where there was none. That left the Democrats looking incapable and neutered.

Which they were.

This is why I say that the Republicans played a good hand. They got themselves re-elected without ever being forced to articulate anything. They have no discernible policy and yet they managed to get they voters to ignore that huge and important fact. The “just say no” approach was vindicated.

It was up to the Democrats, as the party in power, to do something or say something that resonated with the public. Instead they dithered and lost the narrative almost immediately.

They deserve to get thrashed.

Examples?

There are three.

The bank bail outs were a Bush policy. They were unpopular and expensive. People hated the banks and failed to see why tax dollars had to be spent on saving the jobs of anti-social millionaires while millions of regular folks were being thrown out of work as a direct result of the banker’s incompetence. This issue had all the makings of a huge populist win for the Democrats. Yes, the bailouts were essential for the economy. But the subsequent reform was a total disaster. The administration caved into the industry at every significant turn. Bankers are now back to their old tricks. And the economy is still wounded. Where was the anger? Where was the attempt to dismantle the banking stranglehold on Congress? Where was the sympathy for the regular people trodden down by the traders who surely laughed at the “reform”? Even as recently as October, Obama found himself supporting the continuance of foreclosures that are probably illegal. His inability to tap into mainstream anger is extraordinary. It may well cost him his job in 2012.

The stimulus was next. What a mess. Here the fault lies in the Administration. It gave up to the GOP without a fight. It failed to understand the severity of the crisis, and then massively understated the amount needed to fix it. Whether this was due to the economic team being useless, timid, or incompetent, we will never know. But the upshot was that the half hearted stimulus was always a sitting duck for criticism: it was beautifully positioned to appear a failure because it was never enough to make sufficient difference that regular folks would notice. Because of his immense timidity and failure to understand the problem, Obama may have dealt sensible economic policy a body blow. He is an economic disaster.

The last error was in health care reform. By pressing forward with a watered down version and never properly explaining to a skeptical public that the reform actually saved money, Obama left the field wide open to the anti-big-government attacks that seem to have rallied the GOP troops. Not only this, but he left his own supporters tired and despondent. He didn’t fight his own corner. Health care reform was tepid at best. That Obama never truly fought for a public option is an example of his own centrist leanings. That makes it more than ironic to hear analysts argue he would be better off had he tried to govern from the middle. His own troops deserted him precisely because that’s what he tried to do.

So here we are.

Stuck in the no man’s land of a hung government. The next two years are already destined to be acrimonious and ineffective. No doubt the 2012 campaign will kick off immediately. The country has committed the ultimate error by splitting the government between the two parties. Unlike other countries where coalitions can be formed, that cannot happen here. There are two reasons for this: first the government is already divided into branches, each capable of nullifying the other. So stalemate is inevitable. Second: there is no middle ground. American politics are deeply divided. The hatred and anger on the right has moved the Republicans sharply out rightward. It was extreme under Bush, it is even more so now. With the Senate in Democratic hands the power of “no” shifts to them. For the Republicans, what goes around comes around. Now they have to govern. They appear to have won, so they are now to blame. Unless unemployment improves rapidly on their watch they will suffer. But the country didn’t give anyone a clear win. The ongoing cultural differences that so divided us under Bush remain a barrier to effective governance.

America has just demonstrated how ungovernable it now is.

It has half elected a party that has no policies.

It has two thirds rejected a party that was insipid. But the rejection was not complete.

So we stumble into stagnation and further decline. Our interminable elections continue without throwing up anyone sufficiently capable that we can resolve our malaise.

Under normal circumstances the American predilection for divided government is vaguely acceptable: it stops government from doing anything, so the country just muddles along without any interference. Now, however we need decisive leadership. We need coherent policy. And we cannot get it.

Two years of stalemate followed by another election, is the result of today’s election.

Anger is not a policy. Nor is it coherent. All it does is to cloud judgement and, in our case, prevent progress.

Too bad, because there’s lots to do.