- FEBRUARY 9, 2010
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TIGHTROPE
Obama’s China-Taiwan Challenge
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DECODER
Parsing the State of the Union
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SUPREME COURT
Decision Widens U.S. Credibility Gap
America's new crisis of confidence
Posted By David Rothkopf
Monday, November 23, 2009 - 11:18 PM
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Hope is the life's blood of American politics. This is a country built on the premise of boundless promise. The president certainly understood this when he entitled his autobiography The Audacity of Hope and his handlers understood it as they openly sought to emulate Ronald Reagan, the modern American political figure who understood this truth best.
It is ironic then that in just a matter of months, Obama is more commonly associated with Jimmy Carter than Ronald Reagan. For Democrats, understanding why this is the case is the first step toward fixing a rapidly growing problem that may do what months ago seemed unthinkable: restoring the influence and competitiveness of the Republican Party. For Republicans, understanding why Obama is evoking the grim little man from Plains is key toward fulfilling their most critical goal: finding the next Ronald Reagan.
Clearly, by many measures Obama is nothing like Carter. He is not a micro-manager. He is vastly more charismatic. He is many times more gifted as a politician. His administration is yet to be riven by rivalries (although cracks in the façade of all-for-one discipline are beginning to be visible ... there is no more tell tale sign of cracks than leaks.)
What is it then?
I think it has more to do with circumstances than personalities. Jimmy Carter was elected as a reaction to America's first major modern bout with national self-doubt. He came in the wake of a series of blows to the national psyche: Vietnam, Watergate, and oil shortages. During his presidency he was further associated with our seemingly aimless wandering through the swamps of stagflation and our impotence in the face of the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The old policy foundations of the Democratic Party dated back to the new deal and in the United States as in the U.K. at the time there were real questions about whether the welfare state could actually produce growth.
Carter, like Obama, entered offering hope primarily through distinguishing himself as a person from the man who had come to be reviled as a symbol of what was wrong with America, Richard Nixon. (Even though Nixon was not his opponent in the 1976 election.) In a way, he was selling a similar message to Obama: because I am a good man, we will return to good times. But Carter was unable to reverse the national mood -- breakthroughs in the Middle East and China were not enough. And he became a symbol of the "malaise" he sought to combat.
Now, America is facing the second such crisis of confidence of the Post World War II era. Failed policies in Iraq, seemingly intractable problems in Afghanistan, an economic crisis that looks like to drag on indefinitely, staggering deficits that stretch as far as the eye can see, a system that seems rigged to favor the rich while sapping hope from middle America and endless petty, partisan bickering in Washington have contributed to this.
This particular downturn in the national mood is accompanied by something else though, with which Carter really didn't have to contend: the ascent of new rivals and alternative models. Last week's trip to China sent the message to many that the balance of power was shifting: they grow, they have cash reserves, they lend ... we borrow, we lose jobs to them, we fade. This was not the president's intent surely when he made the trip. He knows America remains vastly more economically and militarily powerful than China. He wanted to frame a new partnership. But it looked like he was, in the words of more than one analyst, going to see his banker.
This week the president turns his attention to India, showcasing another rapidly rising Asian power. Meanwhile, our closest traditional allies also seem to be floundering, underscoring the sense of the decline of the power structure that had emerged victorious from the Cold War. Japan has been on the canvas for over a decade. Europe last week cast a vote for irrelevance by picking a new president based on the criteria that he was the least objectionable man in the room. Virtually none of the European experts I know think the EU is currently on a trajectory that is strengthening its effectiveness or international role. Even our most dependable friendship, that with the U.K., is likely to weaken with the expect ascent to the PM's role of David Cameron, a conservative leader who is hardly a natural partner for Barack Obama.
Every day I sit with friends here in Washington or in New York, many highly successful, many with years of U.S. government experience, who say to me they are no longer investing in the United States or they feel that we are entering a period of irreversible decline -- persistent high unemployment, a chronically weakened dollar, limited resources forcing us to be much less active internationally.
There is a sense that no matter what Obama does, he will not be able to reverse these trends. In this respect we see his greatest similarity to Carter: both have demonstrated really bad timing, both seem to be victims of circumstance.
Of course, it is not over for Obama by any means. He might make progress. The economy may creep forward and unemployment may wind down a bit before 2012. Certainly, the president will focus, as he must, on doing everything he can to produce job growth next year. Paul Krugman has it exactly wrong in today's New York Times when he writes about "The Phantom Menace." He believes Obama's team mistaken feared the consequence of too big a stimulus ... thus not providing the big, manly stimulus we ultimately will need. He's wrong because there will undoubtedly be more stimulus next year. It won't be called a stimulus. It will be called a jobs bill or will come in the form of multiple initiatives to invest in infrastructure and jobs. There is zero chance any American president facing double digit unemployment and a mid-term election will fail to get out the checkbook to address the jobs issue. And that might help.
Unlike a growing number of friends and people I respect a lot, I still believe that there is a way that America can lead in the 21st Century ... but it will require a new vision, major new investments in infrastructure and education, courage to tackle the big fiscal burdens we face, a collaboration to reinvent the economy to lead in the industries of tomorrow from green energy to biotech, an openness to new global partnerships.
That said, for the first time in my life, the arguments of the doubters are actually gaining credence with me. I can see how America could be entering a period of irreversible decline in terms of its relative influence in the world. The deficits are too great. Demographics are creating a headwind. The economics of the global era are different from those of the industrial era and they don't favor us. It is certainly not promising when half of our economy is health care, financial services or government service. We may want a manufacturing base but it is hard to see how we will develop it.
Which is precisely where the next "Ronald Reagan" comes in. Whomever he or she is, they will offer a credible case that it can once again be morning in America. They will, like Reagan, have the advantage of their predecessor having taken the heat for many of the measures required to get out of the crisis. But they will also, like Reagan, have to offer an ideology suited to the times and to the American spirit.
While I don't know who this person is, I know two things. First, he or she won't be offering the stale, failed approaches of Ronald Reagan who restored hope in America by virtue of his personality but set in motion the forces that have led to the calamities with which we are dealing today. Next, they, like Reagan, will offer a formula that is not built around the novelty of the new man or woman in the White House, but rather is built around the energy and capabilities of the American people. (Neither, of which, excludes the possibility that Obama can be his own successor if he can go from talking about hope to actually restoring it.)
HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images
The problem is, if a person like that appears in the next election they'll probably have proven themselves to be 'conservative enough' to energize the party even if they don't offer something to the moderates. Admittedly I don't like conservatives, but I also just want to see moderate Republicans again.
I know two things. First, he or she won't be offering the stale, failed approaches of Ronald Reagan who restored hope in America by virtue of his personality but set in motion the forces that have led to the calamities with which we are dealing today.
Wrong. You do not know this. That may very well be what this person offers (if she emerges), and the American people may very well embrace it. And if columns like this -- peddling content-free, forced analogies to a certain recent sequence of presidential elections -- become a Beltway trope, as appears to be happening, that is exactly the way events will unwind.
This Jimmy Carter talking point is such a cliche
.. and is quite often used (or misused) by the very same people who were sympathetic to causes of neoconservatives.
Lets face it, America ****ed up! 8 years of aggressive blunders by Bush and his foreign policy team is the cause of this crisis of confidence.
I want the 9/12/01 President Bush back. Yes, I know that he made mistakes, but he had faith in this country at one of our darkest times. He knows that this country's strength is its people, not its government. He knew that he was the leader of the United States of America first and foremost. I want Dick Cheney back. I don't care how unpopular they are with the rest of the world. I want to know who is "for us or against us." I'm afraid for my country, and it's a horrible feeling.
Don't bother to trash me, I don't need or want to defend my opinions.
Historically, there is no other time throughout American history where decisions were made that severely crippled the United States as in the Carter administration. Thirteen percent inflation, twenty two percent interest rates, Iran Hostage Crisis, Relinquishing of the Shah of Iran which led to: (Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Iran/Iraq War, Islamic Revolution where Bin Laden’s mentor Abdullah Azzam began writing the book “Al-Jihad”), responsible for allowing the collapses that occurred in Grenada, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. The decision to relinquish support from the Shah in the name of human rights led to a domino effect that destabilized the entire region and resulted in the deaths of thousands upon thousands human beings. Although the policies of the prior eight years deserve the utmost scrutiny; in no other administration were presidential decisions more evident as a collective period of strategic stupidity, than those belonging to President Jimmy Carter. Victim of circumstance is a dishonest categorization of Carter as many of his decisions resulted in catastrophic results which impacted the lives of many people across the globe. The small business owner is citizen who carries the burden of our countries load and is responsible for the larger portion of the private sect; until an example can be produced that exposes the short-term vision associated with infrastructure jobs of which historically have never stabilized an economy along with raising taxes. Common sense dictates that upon completion of a three year contract where a man has been shoveling gravel on the side of the road; he is now out of a job again and needs to find another one. Long term stability is non-existent in infrastructure jobs and a "stimulus" package full of earmarks and no incentives for private sector small businesses will help keep the economy in the present state.
I think it starts and ends with the economy; there was a sense with Obama that we'd get a 21st-century president, the first one who used a blackberry, who would model his policies to drive innovation, a kind-of nationwide Silicon Valley. This would get us out of binary, two-party thinking, where the alternatives were either slavish adoration of Wall Street & big business v. slavish adoration of a growing bureaucratic state; he was supposed to spark new ideas to provide a 3rd way. Kind-of like Bill Clinton, but with morals. He was supposed to be competent, after 8 years of incompetency.
Instead we got the usual paint-by-numbers big government solutions that we know from history are inefficient and likely to fail.
Obama needs to channel his inner FDR
It doesn't have to be an either/or Malaise/Morning in America choice.
President Franklin Roosevelt led the country through a long and trying period to ultimate success.
There are ways to highlight the need for sacrifice and hard work without waving the white flag. Maybe President Obama could also channel his inner Churchill at the same time.
Americans have just begun to become reacquainted with the idea of saving money and relying less on their credit card for aspirational purchases.
But as any basic financial advisor will tell you, it takes time to build up one's nest egg. Even more effort to reduce one's debt. Obama can help himself in this fight by taking a seriously hard line with the practices of the financial community, from usurius interest rates to commercial banks and investment banks who can't be bothered to play good corporate citizens even as they received billions in taxpayer funded bailouts.
And that is only one leg of the fight. But it is a fight, and the President needs to rally Americans to this internal competition.
Concurrently, we need to re-establish our capacity to make things and not just hand over our wealth to rapacious mercantile nations who's only idea of 'global trade' is to build ever higher internal barriers for their own home markets. It happened in Japan, and its happening again in China. That needs to stop, NOW!
Please. Reagan ? Not to mention Bush.
Reagan was an actor idiot who de-regulated just about everything that has led us to the mess we are in today. He was the original dithering fool.
Carter tried his best and at least took action, however failed that action was. He recognized, even back then, that Israel needed to be dealt with.
Israel made an unwarranted invasion of Lebanon, Carter notified the prime minister of Israel that this violated US law, in that our sale of weapons to Israel was predicated on Israel using the weapons for defensive purposes only and threatened to withdraw their aid. That’s a present US law and was then. And so, they withdrew from Lebanon under that pressure.
That is more than Obama has done with all his handsome rhetoric to the contrary.
And no one was worse that Bush II, Cheney, Rummy, and the neocons, next to him Carter and Obama shine as bright lights. No one was worse for the country than both Bush II, not even Carter.
Foreign policy and domestic confidence for BHO?
As a 70 yr. old college pol.sci teacher and a pastor for now nearly 50 years, I have never seen a more incompetent Prez unless one wants to have a conjoined twin with Carter-Obama as the duo. Only Harding comes up to their incompetence. This naif in the WH is not only inexperienced in economic understanding unless one says his Alinksy connections of socialist pacifism and community organizing with ACORN-SEIU has made the Mafia look good! Domestically, this Man-Child is a pure socialist with redistribution as his goal for Care, Cap and Trade, ( and now we know that all of that climate stuff is baloney and a lie), amnesty for illegals, no choice in education(due to his slavish support for and by the NEA), and his non-action in protecting our borders. In foreign policy, this guy favors our enemies more than our allies. His latest trip was a huge failure. He is a small man who thinks his own Messiahship is more important than the reality of preserving our free enterprise system and liberty and freedom abroad. Confidence? Only brain-dead leftists who hate America would have any in this Quisling. Oh libs, look him up in the history books. Sort of like your Alger Hiss hero.
Only braindead rightests who hate American put up with Reagan and eight years of the Busg II. Clearly, your courses never covered diplomacy.
Why the Obama Carter connection?
It's the ideology, stupid.
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First of all, Americans must face the truth, and then they can change their course.They simply must have faith in each other, faith in their ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task which they face. It is a true challenge of this generation of Americans.
David Rothkopf is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and President and CEO of Garten Rothkopf.
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