Compromise and American politics

By Louis EA Moyston:



In recent months, weeks and days we have been listening to news on American politics and the search for a compromise. The history of this word is rooted in American politics from the Constitutional Convention in the post-1776 period to the civil war of the 1860s. The American system of government is based on a compromise - a reasonable agreement between two or more parties. The emergent Tea Party politics that has fuelled the Republican Party has outlined the ideological framework for the Republicans in Washington, creating an inflexible political atmosphere. It is this ideology that has caused the stalemate - the ideological thrust has no room for compromise because their inflexibility is rooted in the idea that they must get rid of Barack Obama, making him a one-term president.

Just look at the BRICS nations and you will understand the magnitude of America's problem. America has lost its industrial edge and has been in two major wars that have been sucking the nation's resources. This combination has led to the decline of the USA. If they manage to get rid of Obama, a nativistic agenda will emerge in the USA - blacks and foreigners will become the focal point of their aggression. Norway has given us an important lesson. The weakness of the sharing of power in the US government may require new reforms regarding decision-making of this nature.

There is a rich history of compromise in American politics. It was the compromise between the Virginia and the New Jersey plans on the idea for the system of government as it is today. Other major compromises - 1820, 1850 and 1877 - more or less had to do with slavery, the politics of the South and the new territories in the West. American politics is built on compromises - the ability for parties or others to arrive at a reasonable conclusion; it is about making deals.
Interestingly, many of the compromises in the past had to do with slavery. This is a history that Obama has to live with. The objective of the Tea Party-led Republicans is to get rid of Obama by bringing the government to its knees at all costs. It is important to look at the Tea Party and its last election campaign. There was a convergence of traditional right-wingers and Tea Party adherents in a campaign to demonise Obama. They insisted that he was not an American citizen and that he intended to apply the "Kenyan model" to America. There are two leading Tea Party women in the Republican Party who spend their time describing Obama as a person who lacks the capacity to lead. What is evident is not a new plan but the right-wing ideology that is linked to the fact that they cannot stand to see a black man in the White House. The world was in awe - the morning after - when Barack Obama became the president of the USA, and so too were many Americans. Obama has the capacity to lead. Indeed, he is among four great intellects of the American presidency - Lincoln, Wilson and Clinton. I write not as a fan of Obama but I respect his intellect and his story.

Generally speaking, political parties in America are different from political parties in England, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Jamaica. Parties in America are renewed, re-energised and re-inspired by external "locomotives". In recent decades there have been two clear regroupings of conservatives to play a "revolutionary" role in American politics. In the 1980s there was the emergence of the role of interest and lobby groups and their use of the media to influence American politics in their ideological interest. In the 1980s it was about the "Reagan revolution" and today in another "revolutionary" coat there is Tea Party politics. It was the surge of the Tea Party that significantly assisted the victory of the Republicans in the mid-term elections that put the Republicans in a leading political role on Washington. There is nothing easy about politics, but it is wise to defend a position as an end and not as a means. To treat political decisions like desire-satisfying desires is far from doing the right thing for the right reason. There is that inclination to remove Obama that has landed American politics in a morass of moral pollution.

It is important to look at America beyond Obama. Who landed the country where it is now? Who landed America in two major wars costing the country much of its wealth in a period when America was unable to create adequate wealth to satisfy its appetite? There are some practical things for the Americans to be concerned about like increasing (not regaining) its competitive edge. It must produce more scientists and increase the role of science and technology in national development. By not recognising American current weaknesses, right-wingers aim their anger at blacks and immigrants for America's declining and decaying economy. Other implications include the use of right-wing politics to invade and capture strategic resources from the developing countries. The European aspect of nativistic politics was illustrated by that mass killer in Norway on July 22.. Ominous clouds are on the horizon of American politics.


Louis EA Moyston
thearchives01@yahoo.com

Saturday, July 30, 2011

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