American politics
I wrote this for Labour Uncut when I was on holiday in the USA recently.
On the day before his brother’s attendance at the royal wedding, David Miliband was in Washington DC. This followed his tentative steps back towards the philosophical front line with a speech at the LSE on the decline of the left in Europe. Then, at the centre for American progress, he addressed the politics of identity and fear. On both occasions, therefore, he tackled in an international context issues of profound domestic significance.
This approach, obviously, has the advantage of minimising any sense in which David is stepping on Ed’s toes. But such internationalism is also instructive. The challenges facing Labour are similar to those facing social democratic parties elsewhere. The rise of the English Defence League is not the only instance of the search for identity turning ugly. In different ways everything from the birther movement to the success of the True Finns and Thilo Sarrazins can be seen through the same prism.
Miliband identifies “a backlash against globalisation. In the context of a big shift in power from west to east, there are no votes in being an internationalist and there are votes in being nativist”. The west-east shift is involved with a deepening of the global economy, but political impulses form a counter-reaction to this. They may be less pronounced where economies are strong. Canada’s economy is relatively healthy and Bloc Québécois, who might be considered a nativist element in Canadian politics, suffered in recent elections.
Michael Sandel, a voice worth listening to from across the Atlantic, argues “in the age of NAFTA the politics of neighbourhood matters more, not less”. Particularly given that the UK is, according to Miliband, “an over centralised country with underpowered communities”, the renewed importance of neighbourhood politics makes the movement for change more consistent than it might initially seem with the international focus of his politics.
Sandel sees contemporary dilemmas mirrored in debates of the progressive era. “Some sought to preserve self-government by decentralising economic power and bringing it under democratic control. Others considered economic concentration irreversible and sought to control it by enlarging the capacity of national democratic institutions”. With Maurice Glasman’s praise for the “worker representation on the management board, works councils, pension co-determination, regional banks and vocational regulation” in Germany, blue Labour might parallel the former instinct. The later has an echo in calls for stronger European and global governance.
Miliband noted that Labour faces a strategic question over whether to support such calls and make the EU more central to Labour’s politics. We should – for example, on international co-ordination of financial and environmental regulation – when only joined-up policy will suffice. While the international forums that should respond to these issues are vital, they are too technocratic and remote to be rallying points towards progressive senses of identity.
The less technocratic and closer-to-home institutions championed by blue Labour are now important precisely because they remain capable of forming the stuff of such identities. Miliband credited Glasman and Jon Cruddas with “genuine insight” when asked about the contribution of blue Labour by Uncut.
New Labour, like other centre left parties, embraced the opportunities of globalisation from the 1990s onwards. However, such policies as re-skilling, industrial policy and city renewal, Miliband conceded, have not enabled enough of these opportunities to be grasped for all to be convinced of globalisation’s virtues. The response to this is only partly to be found in the emphasis of centre left parties on seizing the economic benefits of globalisation. Economic growth, particularly when equitably shared, can dampen the discontents of globalisation but it cannot alone eliminate them.
It needs to be buttressed by the left winning arguments about identity. “The paucity of the economic answer”, said Miliband, “means that we can’t vacate the identity terrain”. He spoke of a “demanding pluralism”, stressing the responsibilities that should come with the rights of citizenship, as part of this.
Both David Miliband and James Purnell continue to be spoken of as potential leaders of the Blairites. Both have recently spoken internationally on domestic matters. Both are grappling with some fusion of new Labour and blue Labour. This was implicit in Miliband’s remarks last week and has been stated more explicitly by Purnell.
We need the economic openness and aspiration of new Labour. And its willingness to confront change squarely where necessary. We also need the reassurances provided by the continuity and preservation of blue Labour where these instincts can be nourished. The challenge is in knowing where and when change must be embraced and where continuity is the appropriate virtue. Simply having the later gear seems an adaptation to the vintage new Labour model. For this to move us forward it must contribute towards a hopeful and credible account of what Britain can become. This has always been provided by Labour at its best and is the most potent antidote to the politics of fear.
I wrote this recently for Labour Uncut when I was in holiday in the USA.
I recently saw a TV pundit – admittedly on Fox News, which I watch for perverse laughs – assert that Barack Obama will not win the next presidential election. Another pundit came back that he would, because the Republicans don’t have anyone to beat him. This is the prevailing establishment view. Andrew Neil recently tweeted: “A prediction you can hold me to: Obama will serve a second term”.
Obama’s position now is probably about as ascendant as that of George H W Bush at the same stage in 1991. Then Bill Clinton fatefully emerged. Few today deny that Obama has vulnerabilities. The existence of a Republican Clinton is more uncertain, however.
Mitt Romney has the kind of business background that helps in sustaining a claim to economic competence. This matters, particularly in the present economic climate. He may be the strongest Republican candidate and Obama may fear that further economic turbulence, as well as carrying its own risk, will lead Republicans to put aside their reservations about Romney-care and his religion to select him.
Romney is hardly Clintonesque, but Obama hasn’t always been so either. Can you imagine, for instance, Clinton being as remote as Obama seemed during the Gulf oil slick? James Carville blasted him for this. He has done better with recent tornados and, of course, the capture of Osama Bin Laden.
What kind of rocket would Donald Trump have fired at BP if he were then president? While his birther views diminish his limited credibility, his tough stances on China, oil producers and anyone else who is perceived to threaten immediate American economic interests both push at a promising political marketplace and position him as a robust operator who would have had no compunction about getting tough with the likes BP.
Trump’s colourful private life means that he has bridges to build with the religious right if he is to secure the Republican nomination. That said, the economic climate is such that the Republican candidate may end up being someone closer to the party’s business-friendly tradition, rather than someone, like Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee, enamoured by the religious right.
A Republican Clinton – a candidate capable of beating Obama – would need to pacify the religious right enough to secure the Republican nomination without so pandering to them as to infuriate the independent voters who will decide the presidential election. They would also trade on Obama’s vulnerabilities: lack of empathy; having come to embody the Washington establishment that he once ran against; a tentative economic recovery; indecisiveness; and a reluctance to assert American leadership and authority.
“America must lead”, said John McCain recently on Libya. Obama’s multilateralism – insistent, for example, upon unambiguous UN support for intervention in Libya – and realism about gas prices – “there is no silver bullet to address rising gas prices in the short term” – may be to European tastes. But Trump’s line may be closer to the views of Americans irate at the gas pumps and war weary: “Either I’d go in (to Libya) and take the oil or I don’t go in at all”.
If the fundamentally un-presidential Trump can get closer than any other Republican to hitting the soft spot of Americans, then Obama is likely to serve a second term. Nonetheless, Obama should act as if the Republicans were possessed of the kind of Clinton figure who would be able to consistently hit these spots.
This person might be Tim Pawlenty. While he probably isn’t, the former Minnesota governor may end up as the GOP nomination by having fewer major weaknesses than anyone else. Jon Huntsman and Mitch Daniels are also both intriguing figures, who might be capable of winning a Republican race that no one is yet dominating.
Whether or not any of these candidates fulfils their potential, the point is that Obama has big enough flaws that he should be compensating for them, irrespective of whether the other side has yet found the candidate to exploit them. Such a Republican could yet materialise and even if they don’t (as seems most likely), this approach would produce the biggest possible Obama win.
Which means rejecting any inclination towards a safety-first, steady-as-she-goes strategy. It calls for a sufficient emotional connection to embody the latest manifestation of the American dream. Winning presidential candidates always make it morning again in America – except that it has long been winter in America for many. The annual incomes of the bottom 90 per cent of US families have been essentially flat since around the time Gil Scott Heron recorded that song in the early 1970s.
Hard working families felt that Clinton was on their side. His secretary of labour, Robert Reich, now argues for putting “money into the pockets of average working families. Not until they start spending again big time will companies begin to hire again big time”. Obama should boldly lead the debate on national debt by placing tax reforms that would ease the squeeze and power economic recovery at the centre of his response.
I wrote this recently for Labour Uncut when I was on holiday in the USA.
“I know America to be a forward thinking country because otherwise why would you have let that retard and cowboy fella be president for eight years? We were very impressed. We thought it was nice of you to let him have a go, because, in England, he wouldn’t be trusted with a pair of scissors”.
With such jokes, Russell Brand, as host of the MTV awards, initiated what is becoming an Anglo-American tradition: the cheeky Brit at a major American award ceremony. Ricky Gervais followed up at the Golden Globes this year. These comedians aren’t short of lines ripping George W Bush, but what assurance can we have that the British head of state can be trusted with a pair of scissors? Or even know what scissors are?
We can, of course, have no such guarantee. Birth right determines our head of state, irrespective of their abilities with scissors or other qualities. In contrast, the commander-in-chief is subject to the most gruelling of recruitment procedures. This fundamental difference between our monarchy and their republic convinces me that no matter what wise cracks Brand may make and how many William and Kate themed souvenirs American tourists may buy, ultimately, Americans are laughing at us. The idea of Donald Trump being president is preposterous, but selecting our head of state by birth is infinitely more so.
The royal couple competes with Lady Gaga for coverage in American tabloids. Cat Deeley vomits at the prospect of fronting the US TV coverage of the big event. Such is the nerve inducing size of the audience. Every major US TV and news network had teams in London well in advance. “It’s all so royally romantic”, a CNN anchor cooed.
All of which means they are interested, right? Well, certainly. But largely in the way that museum artefacts fascinate without tremendous contemporary relevance.
Americans are fiercely proud of their constitution. Their forefathers crossed the Atlantic to enact and enjoy its rights. The royal wedding is a throwback to the world they left behind. Not a world they want to return to. They are peering through their TV screens and digital cameras at the crazy Brits. But that doesn’t mean they want to be us or see us as being especially important. Some of them are enticed. All of them are, at core, pitying. We are crazy, after all.
We’re crazier than Arabs who recently seemed so separate and peculiar. Where once the terrain was deemed too arid for freedom and democracy, now Egyptians proclaim the same rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as have always defined Americans. We, on the other hand, remain subjects, not citizens.
The Arab spring is as inspiring as the Gettysburg address, but its outcome remains uncertain and, as with an increasing amount of things, beyond America’s control. America still wants to be the shining house on the hill. But it knows the world is changing. And it is worried.
Whatever else is achieved by William and Kate, they will not encourage the US to see the new allies that they need in the UK. The wedding reinforces the perception that the key global axis no longer exists in the Atlantic but in the Pacific. Europe is ageing, uncompetitive and stuck in a past exemplified by the royal wedding. Asia is rising, assertive and in command of events. Millions of Europeans flocked to Barack Obama even before he was president, but he is deeply pragmatic. He has limited emotional attachment to Europe and wouldn’t allow himself to be distracted by one even if he did.
He might think more of Europe if we were able to punch our weight in military and economic affairs. While the euro threatens to collapse amid its contradictions, European states struggle to muster a credible military response to a crisis happening on the other side of the Mediterranean. Just because the UK isn’t in the euro-zone and is one of the more militarily capable European states (though, one whose military ambitions threaten to outstrip our capacities) doesn’t mean we should congratulate ourselves. Instead of leaving an empty chair at the negotiating table – David Cameron’s style – the UK should be leading in Europe. On Friday, rather than taking such steps as will be necessary to create a Europe fit for the twenty-first century, the prime minister will be eulogising the hereditary principle.
The continued application of this principle distorts what we think of ourselves and what others think of us. So long as it is applied it won’t be possible to bring up children in the UK and truly tell them that they can ascend to any station, nor will others see us as fully engaged in modernity. The Arab word has boldly embraced the future (in spite of our endorsement of the past by having the crown prince of Bahrain attend the Royal wedding). So should we.
In some ways American politics now reminds me of British politics six months or so before the last general election.
Let’s begin with the challenge posed to America’s elites by E. J. Dionne Jr in the Washington Post:
“A funny thing happened to the American ruling class: It stopped being concerned with the health of society as a whole and became almost entirely obsessed with money … The ruling class now devotes itself in large part to utterly self-involved lobbying. Its main passion has been to slash taxation on the wealthy, particularly on the financial class that has gained the most over the past 20 years. By winning much lower tax rates on capital gains and dividends, it’s done a heck of a job … And you wonder where the deficit came from. If the ruling class were as worried about the deficit as it claims to be, it would accept that the wealthiest people in society have a duty to pony up more for the very government whose police power and military protect them, their property and their wealth … Where are those who will now take up this banner?”
The answer, it would seem, is resident in the White House but on the road. The Post also reports:
“President Obama will hit the road this week and forcibly deliver his message that a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes on the rich is necessary to rein in the nation’s rocketing debt — a high-stakes effort to rally public support ahead of a series of contentious budget battles in Congress. From Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale to Facebook’s headquarters in Silicon Valley, Obama will make a series of campaign-style stops in an effort to block a Republican plan that would reduce the deficit by dramatically changing Medicare and reducing spending on education and other social programs.”
I don’t think this strategy is really such a big risk for two reasons.
First, the Republican plan from Paul Ryan is absurd. The more it is debated the less credible it will appear. As Robert J. Samuelson notes:
“He achieves big savings by assuming deep cuts to most of the federal government beyond Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Ultimately, it would shrink to almost nothing. That’s defense, food stamps, highways, federal courts, basic research . . . and much more.”
Second, the polling evidence suggests that the principles behind Obama’s approach to deficit closure are popular. The Post reports:
“Polls show that Obama has work to do on the deficit but that many Americans agree with his broad approach. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll in mid-March, 55 percent of respondents disapproved of his handling on the issue, with 39 percent approving. But, playing to Obama’s advantage, only about a third of Americans prefer a “cut only” approach to the deficit; nearly two in three say spending cuts and tax increases should be included.”
So in taking up the challenge set by Dionne Jr Obama is providing the tax element that two thirds of Americans want to see. However, Samuelson is right to point out that this element on its own is not enough:
“We won’t make much progress until (a) Democrats concede that spending control requires genuine cuts in Social Security and Medicare, which now total $1.3 trillion annually and represent 35 percent of federal outlays; and (b) Republicans acknowledge that, even after significant spending cuts, tax increases will be needed to balance the budget. Last week, there was little sign of either. President Obama rebuffed Social Security and Medicare cuts. Most Republicans held fast on taxes.”
The evident impracticality of the Ryan plan means that Obama can convincingly win this key debate. But to do so he has to be prepared to do what Gordon Brown was so unwilling to do six months or so out from the general election: talk about cuts.
Brown’s unwillingness to do this meant that the economic debate in the general election reduced to a debate about whether or not to begin deficit reduction in 2010 (Labour said “no”; the Tories said “yes”; and the Lib Dems said “no” in the campaign and “yes” in government). A wider debate about the deficit would have better suited Labour. It was apparent by the end of 2009 that significant cuts over the next parliament would be necessary. Gordon Brown could have presented himself as a sensitive surgeon to the public services Labour had cultivated, in contrast to the brutal destroyer that David Cameron would amount to (and is now proving to be).
The Post reports:
“The Treasury Department has concluded that the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling will be breached next month and will have to be raised by early July. Republicans want legislation to reduce government spending to be part of the vote to raise the debt limit; the Obama administration has said that further deficit reduction is needed but that the issues should not be joined.”
I wonder whether there is a case for Obama calling the bluff of Republicans on this and going where Brown feared to tread. By being prepared to introduce such legislation Obama would close off the Republican attack that he has no plan for closing the deficit. Once this attack is closed then scrutiny will increasingly fall upon the inadequate Ryan plan and support for the mix of tax increases and spending cuts proposed by Obama will translate into support for the President. Taking the bull by the horns in this way is the stuff of the radical centre and bold leadership. This translates into the colour purple on both sides of the Atlantic.
I called upon President Obama to get a grip the other day. I don’t make such calls lightly and nor, I am sure, does Clive Crook. But Mr Crook also made such a call in the FT today when he wrote:
“When race came to the fore in his presidential campaign, in the form of the Jeremiah Wright scandal, he responded brilliantly, with a fine unifying speech that challenged the country to be calm, sober and enlightened. The mosque debate was a moment for a speech of that kind.
“Whether or not he made the case for the project to go ahead – as, on balance, I think he should – he could have reminded the country of its common purposes, he could have sought to unify, he could have insisted on tolerance and understanding on both sides. That was the Barack Obama the country elected. Where did he go?”
This is surely a question to ponder as we reflect upon the essential features of the Cordoba Centre as Charlie Brooker described them in the Guardian yesterday:
“When I heard about it – in passing, in a soundbite – I figured it was a US example of the sort of inanely confrontational fantasy scheme Anjem Choudary might issue a press release about if he fancied winding up the tabloids for the 900th time this year. I was wrong. The “Ground Zero mosque” is a genuine proposal, but it’s slightly less provocative than its critics’ nickname makes it sound. For one thing, it’s not at Ground Zero. Also, it isn’t a mosque.
“Wait, it gets duller. It’s not being built by extremists either. Cordoba House, as it’s known, is a proposed Islamic cultural centre, which, in addition to a prayer room, will include a basketball court, restaurant, and swimming pool. Its aim is to improve inter-faith relations. It’ll probably also have comfy chairs and people who smile at you when you walk in, the monsters.”
