Analysis of 2006 Election
By Tom Hayden
Michael Klare, in Resource Wars, writes that military and economic agendas have been fused in US national security strategy since the Cold War. Bill Clinton declared as a presidential candidate in 1992 that “our economic strength must become a central defining element in our national security policy.” The Pentagon’s strategy institute declared that “national sccurity depends on successful engagement in the global economy.” [p. 7]
For example, the Iraq War has been fought, on the one hand, to project America as a military superpower and, on the other hand, to secure control of Iraqi oil resources and privatize state-owned Iraqi enterprises through incorporation into the WTO and IMF dependency. [Remember: “Bremer discussed the need to privatize government-run factories with such fervor that his voice cut through the din of the cargo hold.” NYT, June 29, 04].
Social movements have contributed to shaping a public opinion opposed to ending the Iraq War and supporting “fair trade” instead of corporate-led globalization.
1. The anti-war movement arose from the margins in 2002 to the mainstream by 2004 to become a majority sentiment by 2006, when sixty percent of voters favored bringing the troops home in no longer than one year. The Machiavellian advisers to both parties sought to avoid or neutralize the Iraq issue at the beginning of the campaign, but failed. The Democrats were forced to move towards a peace posture, from merely criticizing Bush [2004-5] to supporting the beginning of a phased withdrawal by 2006.
Neither party is willing to accept that the war is a lost cause, because that would be a major retreat from their Machiavellian need for superpower status. Both parties will begin considering a “no-fault” compromise solution proposed by the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group.
The argument to “stay the course” in Iraq has been abandoned, at least in rhetoric. The neo-conservative proponents of “preventive war” strategy, described in the Bookman article, are in retreat [see Vanity Fair interviews, next issue. ]
A center-right counter-movement, including many Democrats, is building to eliminate “immediate withdrawal” as an option, despite several Illinois cities voting Tuesday to call for precisely that option.
The post-election adjustment also includes the removal of Donald Rumsfeld from office, a change of personnel designed to defuse anti-war sentiment and achieve breathing room for the Administration. The new defense secretary, Robert Gates, is associated with the conservative “realism” school around the first President Bush. Also a member of the Iraq Study Group, he is likely to support a partial redeployment but in the context of continued occupation. In the short term, Democrats will be under pressure to support more American troops for door-to-door fighting in Baghdad, and to replace al-Maliki with a more compliant Baghdad “strongman”, moves that will deeply disappoint their base. When and if that fails, diplomatic and political solutions will be on the table, especially as the 2008 presidential campaign begins.
The seeming paradox is that the anti-war movement has a broader peace mandate than ever, but may have to maintain critical and independent pressure on the new Congress for de-escalation and bringing the troops home.
2. In addition, the Wall Street Journal [Nov. 6] reports that fair trade politics became a tipping factor in the election. Only ten years ago, the Democratic Party decided to join the Republicans in pushing for acceptance of NAFTA and similar trade agreements. An”anti-globalization” arose in Chiapas, gained a mass audience in Seattle in 1999, and evolved into lobbying and electoral campaigns against the WTO. Symbolized by Sherrod Brown’s Senate win in Ohio, fair trade politics is propelled by deep resentment of corporate outsourcing of jobs. Top executives identify “protectionism” as second only to “terrorism” on their list of threats to American prosperity [Financial Services Survey].
The turning point for Congressional Democrats will come in six months when President Bush’s “fast track” authority on trade agreements expires, ending his unilateral power to send draft trade agreements to Congress for an up-or-down vote without amendments. According to the Journal, the expiration will “give Democrats leverage to seek Bush commitments to help US workers, such as putting labor rights and environmental protection alongside corporate concerns like patent protections in negotiations with other countries.”
This change reflects the progress of the social movement that surfaced in Seattle in 1999, from the tear-gassed margins to the mainstream to majority status in seven years, toppling the dominance of neo-liberal free trade ideology in the Democratic Party. Party strategists and candidates even used fair trade as a “wedge issue” in 82 House and 16 Senate races. But the Democrats still remain more pro-corporate than social democratic in character, so the struggle for workers’ [and environmental] standards is likely to be a contentious, gradual and limited one.
But the rank-and-file of the Democratic Party, and most independents, seem increasingly committed to an anti-war, pro-fair trade political platform. This trend is a victory, and good news, for progressives at the grass-roots, like Move.On and the Citizens’ Trade Campaign.
3. Additionally, the election marked a setback for the social conservatives, best understood as a counter-movement against the great reforms of the Sixties generation. Their demise was triggered by the outings Foley and Haggard, but the discontent seems to be more than scandal-driven. For example, when South Dakota voters rejected the anti-choice initiative Tuesday, they were upholding the hard-won American majority consensus to prevent the criminalizing of abortion. While it is true that same-sex marriage is not yet supported by a majority, the election returns indicate that voters are beginning to realize that the issue is being used for an unpopular right-wing agenda.
In summary, the militant faction of the Machiavellians lost the election by trying to go “too far”, rupturing a mainstream consensus that is in part the legacy of past struggles of past social movements. Unilateral war, domestic spying, torture, denying workers’ and womens’ rights, reversing environmental protection, tampering with the voting process – all these aggressive policies were beyond the Republican mandate and the voter consensus. There being no checks and balances on Republican power, it was inevitable they would drive over the edge.
Social movements should have more confidence that their legacies leave new norms, laws, memories and understandings in the mainstream, even during times of apparent apathy and decline. Those legacies underlay the massive anti-war demonstrations of 2002 through 2004, the millions who turned out for Howard Dean, the unpredicted growth of public suspicion over stolen elections, and finally the turnout across the country this week. At the same time, social movements have real reasons to worry that their successes become inevitably watered down, their base demobilized, their best leaders marginalized, their legacies co-opted into the naming of streets. The movements simply do not have the resources and numbers to prevent these inevitabilities. But neither do the Machiavellians have the capacity to erase the gains and expectations unleashed by social movements from the Thirties to the Sixties to the present generation. Movements win their core demands, but so painfully and gradually that sometimes they are unrecognizable to the more principled among us. #
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Tom Hayden is national co-director of No More Sweatshops!, a coalition of labor, clergy, community and campus advocates of "sweat-free" guidelines on public procurement and enforceable labor standards for corporate behavior.
