Hope and Obama

Before I start writing this post, a brief disclaimer; I am not American, do not live there and do not have extensive first-hand experience of the political situation over there. This post is inspired entirely from stuff I’ve seen other people talk about online and a few bits of joining the dots from me, but if anyone feels I’ve gone wildly off-target please drop me a line in the comments. OK? Good, let’s get started.

The ascendency of Barack Hussein Obama to the Presidency of the USA in 2009 was among the most significant events in recent history. Not only did he become the first black person to sit in the Oval office, he put the Democrats back in power (representing a fairly major shift in direction for the country after eight years under George Bush Jnr.) and manage to put his party in control of Congress too, the first time any Democrat leader had been in that position for quite some time. With bold claims regarding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which had been… talking points  during Bush’s time in charge, and big plans regarding the US healthcare system, this had all the hallmarks of a presidency dedicated to making change happen. Indeed, change was the key buzzword during Obama’s campaign; change for the punishing effects of US society on its young and poor, change for the recession-hit economy, and even change for the type of person in the White House (Bush had frequently been portrayed, rather unjustly for a man of notoriously quick wit, as stupid and socially incapable by satirists and left-leaning commentators, whilst even the right would find it hard to deny Obama’s natural charisma and intelligent, upright bearing) were all promised to voters, and it was a dream many took with them to the polling stations.

One of the key demographics the Democrats targeted and benefited from with this ‘pro-change’ style campaign was the youth vote; early twenty-somethings or even late teens, many of whom were voting in their first elections, who had grown up both physically and politically during the Bush administration and railed against his management of everything from the economy to the welfare system with all the ardour and uncluttered train of thought of young people everywhere. I should know: living through the period as a young person in a left-leaning family getting my news via the liberally-inclined BBC (and watching too much satirical comedy), one could hardly escape the idea that Bush was an absolute moron who know nothing about running his country. And this was whilst getting daily first-hand experience of what a left-wing government was like in Britain- I can imagine that to a young American with a similar outlook and position at the time, surrounded by right-leaning sentiment on all sides, the prospect of a Democratic president dedicated to change would have seemed like a shining beacon of hope for a brighter future. Indeed, the apparent importance of the youth vote to Obama’s success was illustrated during his 2012 re-election: when the news broke that Microsoft were planning on releasing a new Halo videogame on election day, conspiracy theorists had a wonderful time suggesting that Microsoft were embroiled in a great Republican plot to distract the youth vote by having them play Halo all day instead, thus meaning they couldn’t vote Democrat*.

Now, let us fast forward to the 2012 election. Obama won, but narrowly- and given he was up against a candidate whose comments that he ‘didn’t care about the very poor’ and thought that the windows in passenger aircraft should be able to be opened were very widely circulated and mocked, the result was far too close for comfort (even if, despite what some pundits and conservative commentators would have had you believe, all the pre-election statistics indicated a fairly safe Democrat victory). Whilst the airwaves weren’t exactly awash with anti-Obama messages, it wasn’t hard to find disillusionment and cynicism regarding his first term in office. For me, the whole thing was summed up by the attitudes of Jeph Jacques, the cartoonist behind the webcomic ‘Questionable Content’; reading through his back catalogue, he frequently had to restrain himself from verbalising his Obama-fandom in the comments below his comics during the 2008 election, but come election season in 2012 he chose to publish this. That comic pretty much sums it up: a whole generation had been promised change, and change had refused to come on a sufficiently large scale. The youthful optimism of his rise to power was replaced by something more akin to the weariness Obama himself displayed during the first live TV debate, and whilst I’m sure many of these somewhat disillusioned voters still voted Democrat (I mean, he still won, and preliminary statistics suggest voter turnout actually rose in 2012 compared to 2008), the prevailing mood seemed to be one less of optimism than of ‘better him than Romney’.

Exactly what was to blame for the lack of the promised change is a matter of debate; apologists may point to the difficulties had getting such radical (by American standards) health reforms and similar through a decidedly moderate congress, followed by the difficulties had trying to get anything through when congress became Republican-controlled, whilst the more cynical or pro-Republican would probably make some statement referring to the corporate-sponsored nature of the Democratic party/American political system or suggest that President Obama simply isn’t quite as good a politician/person (depending on the extent of your cynicism) as he came across as in 2008. Whatever the answer, the practical upshot has been quite interesting, as it has allowed one to watch as an entire generation discovered cynicism for the first time. All these hopes and dreams of some brave new vision for America went steaming face first into the bitter reality of the world and of politics, and the dream slowly fell apart. I am not old enough to definitively say that this is a pattern that has repeated itself down the ages, but nonetheless I found the whole escapade fascinating in a semi-morbid way, and I will be intrigued to see if/when it happens again.

Damn, I’m really going for conclusion-less posts at the moment…

*Interestingly, this kind of tactic has, so the story goes, been deliberately used in the past to achieve precisely the opposite effect. When Boris Yeltsin attempted to get re-elected as Russian president in 1996, voting day was designated a public holiday. Unfortunately, it was soon realised that many urban Russians, Yeltsin’s main voter base, were going to take this as a cue for a long weekend in the country (presumably hunting bears or whatever else Russians do in their second home in Siberia) rather than to go and vote, so Yeltsin went to the makers of telenovela (a kind of South American soap opera) called Tropikanka that was massively popular in the country and got them to make three brand-new episodes to be aired on election day. This kept the city dwellers at home, since many country spots didn’t have TV access, and meant they were around to go and vote. Yeltsin duly won, with 54.4% of the vote.

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Other Politicky Stuff

OK, I know I talked about politics last time, and no I don’t want to start another series on this, but I actually found when writing my last post that I got very rapidly sidetracked when I tried to use voter turnout as a way of demonstrating the fact that everyone hates their politicians, and I thought I might dedicate a post to this particular train of thought as well.

You see, across the world, but predominantly in the developed west where the right to choose our leaders has been around for ages, less and less people are turning out each time to vote.  By way of an example, Ronald Reagan famously won a ‘landslide’ victory when coming to power in 1980- but only actually attracted the vote of 29% of all eligible voters. In some countries, such as Australia, voting is mandatory, but thoughts about introducing such a system elsewhere have frequently met with opposition and claims that it goes against people’s democratic right to abstain from doing so (this argument is largely rubbish, but no time for that now).

A lot of reasons have been suggested for this trend, among them a sense of political apathy, laziness, and the idea that we having the right to choose our leaders for so long has meant we no longer find such an idea special or worth exercising. For example, the presidential election in Venezuela – a country that underwent something of a political revolution just over a decade ago and has a history of military dictatorships, corruption and general political chaos – a little while ago saw a voter turnout of nearly 90% (incumbent president Hugo Chavez winning with 54% of the vote to win his fourth term of office in case you were interested) making Reagan look boring by comparison.

However, another, more interesting (hence why I’m talking about it) argument has also been proposed, and one that makes an awful lot of sense. In Britain there are 3 major parties competing for every seat, and perhaps 1 or two others who may be standing in your local area. In the USA, your choice is pretty limited to either Obama or Romney, especially if you’re trying to avoid the ire of the rabidly aggressive ‘NO VOTE IS A VOTE FOR ROMNEY AND HITLER AND SLAUGHTERING KITTENS’ brigade. Basically, the point is that your choice of who to vote for is limited to usually less than 5 people, and given the number of different issues they have views on that mean something to you the chance of any one of them following your precise political philosophy is pretty close to zero.

This has wide reaching implications extending to every corner of democracy, and is indicative of one simple fact; that when the US Declaration of Independence was first drafted some 250 years ago and the founding fathers drew up what would become the template for modern democracy, it was not designed for a state, or indeed a world, as big and multifaceted as ours. That template was founded on the basis of the idea that one vote was all that was needed to keep a government in line and following the will of the masses, but in our modern society (and quite possibly also in the one they were designing for) that is simply not the case. Once in power, a government can do almost what it likes (I said ALMOST) and still be confident that they will get a significant proportion of the country voting for them; not only that, but that their unpopular decisions can often be ‘balanced out’ by more popular, mass-appeal ones, rather than their every decision being the direct will of the people.

One solution would be to have a system more akin to Greek democracy, where every issue is answered by referendum which the government must obey. However, this presents just as many problems as it answers; referendums are very expensive and time-consuming to set up and perform, and if they became commonplace it could further enhance the existing issue of voter apathy. Only the most actively political would vote in every one, returning the real power to the hands of a relative few who, unlike previously, haven’t been voted in. However, perhaps the most pressing issue with this solution is that it rather renders the role of MPs, representatives, senators and even Prime Ministers & Presidents rather pointless. What is the point of our society choosing those who really care about the good of their country, have worked hard to slowly rise up the ranks and giving them a chance to determine how their country is governed, if we are merely going to reduce their role to ones of administrators and form fillers? Despite the problems I mentioned last time out, of all the people we’ve got to choose from politicians are probably the best people to have governing us (or at least the most reliably OK, even if it’s simply because we picked them).

Plus, politics is a tough business, and what is the will of the people is not necessarily always what’s best for the country as a whole. Take Greece at the moment; massive protests are (or at least were; I know everyone’s still pissed off about it) underway due to the austerity measures imposed by the government, because of the crippling economic suffering that is sure to result. However, the politicians know that such measures are necessary and are refusing to budge on the issue- desperate times call for difficult decisions (OK, I know there were elections that almost entirely centred on this decision that sided with austerity, but shush- you’re ruining my argument). To pick another example, President Obama (and several Democrat candidates before him) have met with huge opposition to the idea of introducing a US national healthcare system, basically because Americans hate taxes. Nonetheless, this is something he believes very strongly in, and has finally managed to get through congress; if he wins the elections later this year, we’ll see how well he executes.

In short, then, there are far too many issues, too many boxes to balance and ideas to question, for all protesting in a democratic society to take place at the ballot box. Is there a better solution to waving placards in the street and sending strongly worded letters? Do those methods at all work? In all honesty, I don’t know- that whole internet petitions get debated in parliament thing the British government recently imported from Switzerland is a nice idea, but, just like more traditional forms of protest, gives those in power no genuine categorical imperative to change anything. If I had a solution, I’d probably be running for government myself (which is one option that definitely works- just don’t all try it at once), but as it is I am nothing more than an idle commentator thinking about an imperfect system.

Yeah, I struggle for conclusions sometimes.

The President Problem

As one or two of you may have noticed, our good friends across the pond are getting dreadfully overexcited at the prospect of their upcoming election later this year, and America is gripped by the paralyzing dilemma of whether a Mormon or a black guy would be worse to put in charge of their country for the next four years. This has got me, when I have nothing better to do, having the occasional think about politics, politicians and the whole mess in general, and about how worked up everyone seems to get over it.

It is a long-established fact that the fastest way for a politician to get himself hated, apart from murdering some puppies on live TV, is to actually get himself in power. As the opposition, constantly biting at the heels of those in power, they can have lots of fun making snarky comments and criticisms about their opponent’s ineptitude, whereas when in power they have no choice but to sit quietly and absorb the insults, since their opponents are rarely doing anything interesting or important enough to warrant a good shouting. When in power, one constantly has the media jumping at every opportunity to ridicule decisions and throw around labels like ‘out of touch’ or just plain old ‘stupid’, and even the public seem to make it their business to hate everything their glorious leader does in their name. Nobody likes their politicians, and the only way for them once in power is, it seems, down.

An awful lot of reasons have been suggested for this trend, including the fact that we humans do love to hate stuff- but more on that another time, because I want to make another point. Consider why you, or anyone else for that matter, vote for your respective candidate during an election. Maybe it’s their dedication to a particular cause, such as education, that really makes you back them, or maybe their political philosophy is, broadly speaking, aligned with yours. Maybe it’s something that could be called politically superficial, such as skin colour; when Robert Mugabe became Prime Minister of Zimbabwe in 1980 it was for almost entirely that reason. Or is it because of the person themselves; somebody who presents themselves as a strong, capable leader, the kind of person you want to lead your country into the future?

Broadly speaking, we have to consider the fact that it is not just someone’s political alignment that gets a cross next to their name; it is who they are. To even become a politician somebody needs to be intelligent, diligent, very strong in their opinions and beliefs, have a good understanding of all the principles involved and an active political contributor. To persuade their party to let them stand, they need to be good with people, able to excite their peers and seniors, demonstrate an aligning political philosophy with the kind of people who choose these things, and able to lay everything, including their pride, in pursuit of a chance to run. To get elected, they need to be charismatic, tireless workers, dedicated to their cause, very good at getting their point across and associated PR, have no skeletons in the closet and be prepared to get shouted at by constituents for the rest of their career. To become a leader of a country, they need to have that art mastered to within a pinprick of perfection.

All of these requirements are what stop the bloke in the pub with a reason why the government is wrong about everything from ever actually having a chance to action his opinions, and they weed out a lot of people with one good idea from getting that idea out there- it takes an awful lot more than strong opinions and reasons why they will work to actually become a politician. However, this process has a habit of moulding people into politicians, rather than letting politicians be people, and that is often to the detriment of people in general. Everything becomes about what will let you stay in power, what you will have to give up to allow you to push the things you feel really strong for, and how many concessions you will have to make for the sake of popularity, just so you can do a little good with your time in power.

For instance, a while ago somebody compiled a list of the key demographics of British people (and gave them all stupid names like ‘Dinky Developers’ or whatever), expanded to include information about typical geographical spread, income and, among other things, political views. Two of those groups have been identified by the three main parties as being the most likely to swing their vote one way or the other (being middle of the road liberal types without a strong preference either way), and are thus the victim of an awful lot of vote-fishing by the various parties. In the 2005 election, some 80% of campaign funding (I’ve probably got this stat wrong; it’s been a while since I heard it) was directed towards swinging the votes of these key demographics to try and win key seats; never mind whether these policies were part of their exponent’s political views or even whether they ever got enacted to any great degree, they had to go in just to try and appease the voters. And, of course, when power eventually does come their way many of their promises prove an undeliverable part of their vision for a healthier future of their country.

This basically means that only ‘political people’, those suited to the hierarchical mess of a workplace environment and the PR mayhem that comes with the job, are able to ever get a shot at the top job, and these are not necessarily those who are best suited to get the best out of a country. And that, in turn means everybody gets pissed off with them. All. The. Bloody. Time.

But, unfortunately, this is the only way that the system of democracy can ever really function, for human nature will always drag it back to some semblance of this no matter how hard we try to change it; and that’s if it were ever to change at all. Maybe Terry Pratchett had it right all along; maybe a benevolent dictatorship is the way to go instead.