The Problem With Non-Americans

At Culture11 there's some advice for the candidates before tonight's "debate." It's unlikely much of it will be taken. At her own blog Kerry Howley adds this:

I’ll just add that there is a massive gap between Obama’s actual rhetoric and the conservative portrayal of him as some sort of naive, starry-eyed internationalist. There is no globalist in this election, naive or otherwise. There is the candidate who insists that foreigners are bloodthirsty killers, and the one who keeps reminding you that foreigners will shutter your factories, poison your children, and destroy your domestic motorcycle industry. Yes, yes, I realize that we aren’t supposed to listen when the Obama campaign depicts economic engagement as un-American. That’s just smoke and mirrors for some nice folks in Michigan; the rest of us are supposed to shove our fingers in our ears, dream of container ships, and wait for Austan Goolsbee to fix the whole thing later.

Quite so. Alas. There are many reasons for preferring Obama in this campaign, not the least of them being that he's likely to be the better, more responsible, less ghastly President. But as Kerry says, his posturing on trade is perhaps the most depressing element of his campaign. Yes, we - foreigners that is - understand that it's "just the campaign" and yes we know we're not supposed to take it too seriously. And yes too we "know" that it's easy and convenient to blame the rest of the world for all manner of ills. Nonetheless, this is an area in which, shall we say, the promise of Obama is severely undermined by the reality of the campaign he has run. Fine.

But there comes a point when the people to whom you've written campaign cheques will want to cash them. Maybe not today and perhaps maybe not even tomorrow. But sometime. And for a political movement, that spells trouble. One reason the GOP is in such a parlous position today is that it has not, despite all the alarmist stuff suggesting otherwise, done very much for religious conservatives. Rhetoric is fine but after a while the base demands more. When that "more" doesn't arrive the movement loses interest and enthusiasm. And so you need to select someone such as Sarah Palin to keep the buggers believing...

Now obviously the Democrats are still some way short of reaching that point. But, still, Obama wants to restore America's "standing" in the world while also blaming them dirty furriners for America's troubles. He's fortunate the ret of the world just wants to be rid of the GOP. Nonetheless, this may all prove problematic once you're in office. I understand that you need to do what it takes to win first and then worry about governing. But still, this is an ugly, narrow-minded, ignorant, hostile element of Obama's campaign.

Like Kerry I guess, one just has to have faith in the candidate's faithlessness.

Comments

[Ruck]

It doesn't seem likely that your comparison of Obama's position on trade to the Republican party's courting of religious conservatives is appropriate. I think that the kind of trade protectionism that Obama is advocating is better understood as a show of solidarity with a large swath of (electorally important) American workers who have largely been left behind in the contemporary American economy. These people are not specifically interested in the greater economic questions that globalization introduces to us as global citizens- they are narrowly interested in their own economic situation, and have come to believe that they are where they are because of 20 years of isolationist rhetoric blaming foreigners. They "debt" that they are expecting to have repaid is economic viability writ large (which is probably attainable in the US with more liberalized economic policies), not the specific policy of trade protectionism. Christian conservatives, on the other hand, have specific debts that have been clear from the outset (banning abortion & gay marriage, etc.) which are at odds with the popular opinion of the American public, and will not likely be realized regardless of what George Bush tells them.

In essence, Obama endorses protectionism as a way of promising the general economic relief with which most Americans agree and wish to implement; Republicans endorse Christian conservative issues as a way of getting votes, despite the virtual impossibility of seeing these promises come to fruition.