In the 2008 election which brought to power America’s first
black president, 131 million people went to the polls – five million more than
before, most of the new votes coming from Black and Latino communities.
Barack Obama’s victory raised huge expectations. They have
been largely dashed as the 2012 race for the White House hots up with this
week’s nomination in Tampa of Republican candidate Mitt Romney.
Despite around $6 billion being spent on the US elections,
the latest Washington Post-ABC opinion poll reveals that US voters are hardly
budging in their voting intentions.
Disenchantment and concern over the economy has produced a
doldrums in the electoral sphere. Around 47% of registered voters support
Romney and Obama has 46%. Obama has maintained his base largely by portraying
his opponent as simply a rich businessman, bereft of charisma or personality.
Romney’s appointment of fiscal right winger Paul Ryan from Wisconsin as his running
mate is of course a sop to red neck Republicans who see Romney as too
“liberal”.
Ryan’s claims about Obama’s economic policies have earned
him a high place in the porky-pie stakes. So much so that the Washington Post has added him to its “Pinocchio
Tracker”, which monitors candidates’ distortions and lies.
And Republican representative Todd Akin’s reprehensible remarks
about “legitimate rape”, for example, have been seized upon by the Democrats in
an effort to win women’s votes. (And Akin is of course, only one of many
“pro-life” Republicans who seek to boost their support by appealing to the
religious right.)
But the irony is of course, that only 2% of American voters
are likely to change their party affiliations in any case. So how much does
that add up in spending per vote? As blogger, Don
Lichterman notes, the only states that really matter for the outcome of the
election are the “swing states”, so it adds up to millions of dollars per vote.
Obama’s spokespeople are excusing his performance by saying
that “people’s expectations were too high”.
And they blame the Republican-dominated Congress for blocking his policies.
But, although there are indeed differences between
Republicans and Democrats over how to deal with America’s $16 trillion debt,
the reality is that Obama has continued where the previous president George W.
Bush left off, particularly with regard to foreign policy.
He backs the Pentagon’s drone war strategy on the
Afghan-Pakistan border in which people are killed on a daily basis, many of
them innocent civilians. He has, as democracy campaigner Amy Goodman notes, “presided
over more deportations than any president before him, and the targeting of
Muslims by undercover agents”.
In reality, Americans’ greatest concern is the state of the US economy –
and their own poverty and lack of opportunity. This is hardly surprising
considering that income inequality in the United States is deepening rapidly.
United Nations health economist and
statistician Howard Friedman, comparing
the United States to 13
other wealthy nations in health, education, safety, democracy and equality,
concludes the US
has fallen far behind in most of these areas.
The US
health care system, he has found, ranks 37th in the world by the World Health
Organisation and America
also has the lowest life expectancy of the world’s 13 wealthiest nations. The
figures say it all: the bottom 40% of Americans, own 0.3% of the wealth; 0.3%,
almost nothing, whereas the top 20% own about 84% of the wealth.
Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats – both capitalist
parties in their origin and practice – can or will address the true interests
of voters concerned about rampant banks, gross inequality, unemployment,
healthcare and extreme weather resulting from climate change. Perhaps four in
10 won’t vote in November.
The economic and financial disaster that signals a turning
point in America ’s
fortunes and position in the global economy is running parallel with an
historic crisis of democracy. The US political system is broken and
whoever wins in November won’t fix it.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary
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