By Ronald Austin
The nature of American politics in the past made it possible for a politician to take a principled position on an issue if he felt that it was in the best interest of his party and country. In signing the Civil Rights Act in 1965 Lyndon Johnson said that the Democrats would lose the South for the next ten years.
Johnson had rejected the siren racial voices in his own party and affirmed the rights of Black American citizens. We have come a long way from this kind of politics. It can already be detected that even before the platform of the Republican Party has been written the identified candidate, Willard ‘Mitt’ Romney, is a prisoner of the powerful conservative movement which has captured that party. Romney does not seem driven by a personal agenda. He is prepared to appease this movement over a range of issues. But this should not have come as any major surprise. As early as the beginning of the Republican primaries Romney was determined to capture the glittering prize of the White House and the governance of the American state. If the road to this holy grail has to be labyrinthine, then so be it. This adherent of the Mormon religion will endure the taunts of flip-flopping and being unprincipled by the liberals once his goal is achieved. Experienced politician that he is, Romney saw a way of getting to the White House via a road carved by America’s economic crisis, a strong conservative tide, and a confederacy of rich men intent on dismissing the first Afro-American President of the United States. The auspices for their victory have never been this good.
During the primaries to select the Republican candidate, Romney was widely regarded as being insufficiently conservative. Those opposed to him such as Rick Santorum and the inimitable Newt Gringrich said as much. Instead of attempting to ‘educate’ his party as so many British politicians have done at different periods of UK history, Romney did his best to burnish his conservative credentials and will be responsible for the ongoing regression of the Republican Party.
Mitt Romney, who is Harvard educated in business and law, must have known that the agenda of the Republican Party is out of sync with the requirements of the 21st century and inappropriate for solutions to America’s deep-seated economic and social problems. To the most neutral observer it did not make sense to hold to the belief that reducing taxes could lead to the reduction of the budget deficit or the National Debt. But Romney, whose business background is evidence that he certainly should know better, continued to voice this belief. The debate on women’s issues also could hardly be said to be enlightened. But Romney joined in the conservative chorus that women did not have the right to an abortion, even though he had held a different view in the past.
It also did not make sense for him to join in the attack on President Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) when he was responsible, as Governor of Massachusetts, for one of the more progressive health care systems in the nation. I suspect that Romney’s heart is at war with his mind. It is very odd for an educated man to embrace a movement and a philosophy which can only do irreparable harm to his country. Romney’s mind might have driven him in the direction of warning the Republican Party about the direction it was taking. But his heart had already started measuring the drapes in the White House.
Mitt Romney realized that he had to ride the conservative wave to win the nomination and succeed as a candidate. He must have seen how the strong conservative current has made Grover Norquist, the Conservative lobbyist, a powerful power broker and the Tea Party one of the most influential movements in the United States. It has been responsible, for example, for creating the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
It is clear that Romney was not prepared to buck this tide. In fact, he has exploited it to his own advantage, skilfully using the profound dislike of the conservatives for Obama to remain popular with them. And he does not scruple to feed the belief that the President is against the private sector, knowing full well that this cannot be true. Outrageous statements about Obama’s origins are met with ‘diplomatic’ silence. The canard that Obama is responsible for the fiscal woes of the United States and its major economic problems is fed as red meat to a hungry conservative base. Make no mistake Mitt Romney has sensed that the economy has made Obama vulnerable and he is prepared to exploit this to carry him into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
But if Romney the candidate is cause for worry, then Romney the prospective President must be a source of concern to many in the United States and the rest of the world. If the conservatives become responsible for Romney acceding to office, he will have to govern according to their agenda. Some observers are already alarmed by the possibility of cuts to major social and entitlement programmes which can disturb the social compact and generate instability. For example, you have to see the importance of Social Security to thousands of poor families to have an idea of the likely reaction to its reduction, which the conservatives have threatened. Moreover, to appease the Republican right wing Romney has promised to increase military spending and make greater use of American power. It is an agenda that Bush the Younger would have loved.
When Mitt Romney paid a visit to Britain, Israel and Poland many of us watched closely to see if he would pander to the wishes of the right wing in the United States. He certainly did so in Israel, virtually telling the Israeli government that as President he would support a strike against Iran, and by belittling the Palestinians.
Anyone watching the unfolding presidential campaign must be concerned that the Republican candidate has embraced an agenda which is likely to have a deleterious effect on its domestic economy and put the US at odds with the rest of the world. This is a remarkable situation, as the lessons of the Bush administration should have caused Romney and his advisers to seek to lead America by different means and take a different road. Let us hope that the road to Damascus is still open.
