Midterm "Day-After"
By Partha Banerjee
04 November, 2010
Countercurrents.org
So, yesterday, in the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans with support from far right Tea Party got a big victory; Democrats lost the House and state governorships, but kept the Senate.
Many compared 2010 with the midterm elections of 1994 when far right Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchanan and their so-called Contract with America swept Republicans to huge Congressional victories. I see some differences between the two; I see some similarities as well.
Let's find the differences first. In 1994, Republicans captured both the House of Representatives and the Senate. In 2010, Republicans got the House taking back 60-odd seats across the country; but they failed to capture the Senate. In fact, in some bellwether Senate seats, Democrats fought off well-oiled, big-funded Tea Party candidates: Senate majority leader Harry Reid defeated a fiercely right wing Sharron Angle by a not-so-narrow five percent points; in California, Ebay CEO billionaire Meg Whitman got defeated in the governor's election; in West Virginia, Joe Manchin won over another Tea Party resurgent.
The one single, primary factor in this election was the state of the economy: many call 2010 a "Great Depression 2" year (more "popularly" called the Great Recession) with huge unemployment for the ordinary people, with no end in sight. In contrast, years preceding the 1994 midterm elections were not so catastrophic, although economic hardship returned with the beginning of the first Iraq war and the resulting spike in oil prices, which in turn increased inflation and for the next several years, high unemployment, massive government budgetary deficits, and slow GDP growth. Contrary to the economic disaster now that caused a global havoc, in 1994, the rest of the world was less affected.
But because of a strange, exclusive way corporate media reported the economic crisis and the measures Obama government took to try to bring the down economy back to life, the ordinary electorate never understood it; my personal experience to work with thousands of labor union workers over the past three years has been that even some of the more politically savvy and informed workers did not understand some of the primary causes the meltdown happened (years of deregulation, lobbying and financial law overturns, and extreme inequality), or the basic, pro-people actions Obama implemented that actually stopped the U.S. economy from completely imploding. One of the measures was the $787 billion economic stimulus package that brought back many individuals and small businesses from the brink of death; yet, media’s portrayal of the stimulus was indifferent if not negative, compared to how they covered Bush government’s historic $1.3 trillion bailout money with which many financial giants gave themselves big bonuses.There was no comprehensive discussion at all as to the root causes of the crisis.
But, going back to comparing the two elections four midterms apart, there were certain similarities too between 1994 and 2010. Just like Contract with America, the forces of Tea Party were propelled to national limelight with backdoor support of mega corporations and super-rich individuals such as the Koch brothers, and not-so-secret support from avidly pro-Wall Street, anti-labor media behemoths such as Murdoch's Fox Network. In fact, Fox political commentator Glenn Beck, with help from far right "star" politicians like Sarah Palin, was able to put together a major rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, on the anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. That was ominous. Ilks of Rush Limbaugh and their right-wing radio shows created knee-jerk paranoia about Obama’s “socialist” and “big government,” "high tax" measures – an allegation never refuted or analyzed by other so-called objective media organizations, some of them having dubious connections with Wall Street and with perennial disdain for the labor movement. They conveniently forgot to mention that the big bank bailout was also big government, or the $1 trillion-plus deficit-exploding Iraq-Afghanistan warfare was also big government (pushed by war and oil industries). They used a double standard to report and analyze facts; worse, they didn't analyze them. They never reminded today's voters that FDR and his America-transforming New Deal were also labeled socialist back in the forties.
There’s one other important similarity. After the Republican landslide of 1994, it was the elite, centrist Democrats that pushed Bill Clinton to drastically get rid of pro-people laws and reforms to make compromises with the Republicans. The threat to pull political support out of Clinton was real: the day after the election results came in, Alabama’s senator Richard Shelby quit his Democratic Party and joined Republicans. The rest of his first term, Clinton complied, passed anti-labor NAFTA that broke the backs of workers both in Mexico and the U.S., and accelerated Reagan's mantra of shipping jobs out of the U.S. Under pressure from the right wing, he also “reformed” welfare for the American poor. His Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) replaced a 60-year-old program initiated during the New Deal-entitled Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). What Republicans couldn’t do since the New Deal, Clinton did it in 1994, and corporate America loved it. In two years, Clinton got re-elected, trouncing Republican Bob Dole.
Now, 2010 on, corporate America is determined to do the same with Obama, with help from their people in Congress; not just the Republicans, status-quo centrist Democrats will join hands with them, just the same way they did it almost two decades ago. Two of the major victims on their chopping block would perhaps be the health care reform and financial sector reform; in all likelihood, they will push for drastic reversals on both fronts, turning the clock back on America’s working people and families. In all likelihood, pro-labor Employee Free Choice Act would now be forced to be put on the back burner, or else, pushed into oblivion. A meaningful immigration reform would perhaps be shelved for a long time to come, keeping millions of enslaved immigrants underground.
Corporate America and its media want it. If Obama shows guts to resist their red eyes, in two years, they’ll find a complying president – Republican or Democrat. The selection process will begin soon. Just watch out.
And a post script: why was Hillary Clinton MIA during the campaign of such a critically important election, especially when her husband was stomping for his favored candidates? Who did her followers vote for this time?
Media wouldn’t discuss it either. We the ordinary, working Americans must find out.
