[Texgreen] What Difference Will a Democratic Congress Make?

[Roger Baker]

Oct. 15, 2006, Commentary No. 195

"What Difference Will a Democratic Congress Make?"


It now seems quite likely, short of a major miracle for the  
Republicans, that the Democrats will win at least one, and probably  
both, houses of the U.S. Congress in the elections on Nov. 7. What  
difference will that make? I should say that I personally will vote  
the Democratic ticket. But like a lot of people, I will vote it  
primarily as a negative vote against George W. Bush and secondarily  
against the Republican majority in both houses. I shall do this for  
many reasons, but first of all because I think the invasion of Iraq  
was immoral, counterproductive, and in general a fiasco - for the  
United States, for Iraq, and for the entire world. There are many  
other complaints I have about the current regime - its attacks on the  
fundamental liberties of the American people, its retrogressive  
domestic economic and social policies, and its inept and unwise  
foreign policy in general. But Iraq tops them all as a reason. So I  
shall vote in protest, and to try to stop things from getting even  
worse.

But what will a Democratic Congress do that is better? That, as  
everyone has remarked, is not at all clear. Indeed, one has to doubt  
that the Democrats collectively have a really better foreign policy  
to offer. The primary problem of the leadership of the Democratic  
party is that they believe, at least as much as the Republicans, that  
the United States is the center of the world, the font of wisdom, the  
great defender of world freedom - in short, a deeply virtuous nation  
in a dangerous world.

Worst of all, they seem to believe that, merely by purging the  
element of exaggerated unilateralism practiced by the current regime,  
they will be able to restore the United States to a position of  
centrality in the world-system, and regain the support of their  
erstwhile allies and supporters, first of all in western Europe and  
then everywhere else in the world. They seem really to believe that  
it's a matter of form, not substance, and that the fault of the Bush  
regime is that it wasn't good enough at diplomacy.

It's true that not all Democrats feel that way, and indeed for that  
matter not all Republicans and independents. But at this moment,  
those who are ready to take a real look at the fallacies of U.S.  
policies are a minority - furthermore, a minority without a clear  
agenda themselves and certainly without a major political leader to  
express an alternate view.

So what will happen? It is probably, not certainly, the case that the  
United States will be forced to withdraw from Iraq before the  
presidential election in 2008. It is also almost certainly the case  
that the Republicans will blame the Democrats for "losing" the war,  
and the Democrats will say it isn't so. But beyond the usual  
political claptrap, the withdrawal will come as a deep shock to the  
American people, even if a majority will see no alternative.

One has to put such a withdrawal in the context of wars the United  
States has fought since 1945. The Korean War and the first Gulf War  
ended at the starting line. Neither side really won. The most  
important war for the United States - in terms of its geopolitical  
impact, its economic cost, and the emotional involvement of the  
American people - was Vietnam. And that war, the United States lost.  
The result has been a deep cleavage in the American people - about  
"who" lost the war, and whether the war could have been "won," had  
other policies prevailed.

The so-called Vietnam syndrome has never been healed. With the  
attacks of September 11, 2001, there was a patriotic upsurge among  
the American people, and the country seemed temporarily reunified.  
But George Bush has squandered all that, and no Democratic president  
can resurrect it. Withdrawal from Iraq will, I predict, be even more  
traumatic than the flight from Saigon in 1975. Two defeats will be  
devastating and also persuasive of the real limits of U.S. power.

There are really only two possibilities at that point. One  
possibility is that there occurs a sort of profound soul-searching  
which would lead the United States to reevaluate its self-image, its  
sense of what is possible in the world-system now and in the future,  
and what kind of values it really believes in. If that happens, maybe  
forces within the Democratic Party will come forward to incarnate  
this reevaluation. Or maybe the whole political framework of the  
United States and its parties will change to reflect such a  
reevaluation.

But of course there is a second possibility. It is that the nation is  
overcome with deep anger about the "loss" of its primacy, will seek  
scapegoats (and find them), and eventually move in the direction of  
gutting the U.S. Constitution and the liberties it presumes to  
defend. Something like that happened in Weimar Germany. And while the  
situation is different in many respects, and while I am not  
predicting in any sense the emergence of a Nazi party, nonetheless it  
will be a grievous disaster for the United States and the world if  
the United States moves to any significant degree in this direction.

It is what the United States thinks about itself and does about  
itself that matters, not only for the United States but also for the  
rest of the world. For a wounded elephant can indeed go on a rampage.  
On the other hand, one can think of times when the rude shock of the  
kind that a defeat in Iraq would inflict could have the salutary  
effect of reviving the best in the American tradition - that of a  
libertarian, socially-conscious people who would once again welcome,  
in the words engraved on the Statue of Liberty, "the huddled masses  
yearning to be free."

by Immanuel Wallerstein

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