NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/9656

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From: Hank Roth <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why Clinton Won
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{From: LIVING MARXISM, December 1992}
WHY CLINTON WON
by Nancy Morton

[Nancy Morton advises her fellow Americans not to believe the
hype about Bill Clinton's presidential victory]

Let's get a couple of things straight. Despite what the media
says, Bill Clinton has not won a popular mandate for any radical
programme of change. Nor is he about to lead America into a new
golden age. Things will be different; but for many Americans,
life under the Clinton presidency is likely to be even harder
than it was under George Bush.

Clinton's success in defeating the Republicans was a big
breakthrough for the Democrats, who had won only one of the
previous six presidential elections. However his much-vaunted
`mandate for change' looks shaky, even in narrow electoral terms.
Despite the highest turnout of voters ince 1972, 45 per cent of
eligible adults--some 85m people--didn't bother to take up the
offer. America has the highest abstention rate in the
industrialized world.

MR 24 PER CENT

Among those who did vote, Clinton won 43 per cent compared to the
57 per cent who voted either for Bush or Ross Perot. That gave
the Democratic Party's president-elect the support of under 24
per cent of those American's eligible to vote. It was hardly a
popular landslide.

IF the electoral arithmetic doesn't quite sustain Clinton's claim
to a popular mandate, the notion that his political programme
captured the hearts and minds of the American people is entirely
unfounded. Clinton did not win a positive endorsement. He won
because many Americans (including those backing Perot) voted
negatively, against the incumbent Bush and the Republicans.

Why did so many people reject Bush this time around? All of the
pundits seem to agree that the depressed state of the American
economy was a major factor. `It's the economy, stupid' read the
legend hung on the wall of Clinton's campaign HQ. This was partly
a response to Bush's attempt to revive the glories of the Gulf
War in the early stages of the presidential race, and partly a
reminder to the Clinton camp to focus their attack on the issues
of jobs, banruptcies, healthcare and pensions. Everybody now says
that this was the key to Clinton's success, as Bush paid the
price for presiding over a slump.

The recession has indeed had a devastating impact on the US
economy and the lives of many Americans. Yet why should this
necessarily lead them to vote for Clinton? As John Major can
testify, an economic slump is no reason why the leader of a
traditional conservative party should lose an election,
partcularly when his opponent offers no distinctive alternative
policy in the economic sphere.

NO MORE COLD WAR

Over the past two decades, many Americans who were worried about
the economy would have been more likely to trust the Republicans
to turn things around. The most important change this time was
not in the economy, but in politics. The Republicans have lost
the political authority and coherence which made them pre-eminent
in recent times. That was why people's economic fears took the
form of an anti-Bush vote. This political shift is largely a
consequence of the end of the Cold War.

Cold War ideology created the political framework within which
the Republicans could easily defeat the Democrats in the last
three presidential elections. First Ronald Reagan and then George
Bush was able to polarize debate around a package of issues, like
crime, terrorism and Soviet expansion, which were all underpinned
by the `us and them' mentality of Cold War politics. The result
was to put Americna liberals on the defensive, and distract from
other domestic problems such as poverty and unemployment. The
Democrats were routed.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and crumboing of the old world
order has changed all that. It means that an issue like the
economic slump is more likely to be seen in its own terms, rather
than being distored through the prism of Cold War politics. The
Republican Party's capacity to win by polarizing things in the
old way, around the old issues, has been badly undermined.

Contrast the fate of Bush's propaganda campaigns in the 1988 and
1992 elections, and the change of climate becomes clear. Four
years ago, the Bush campaign went for Democratic candidate
Michael Dukakis in classic baiting sytle. Bush delcared war on
`the L-word'--liberal--while the infoamous advertisements about
Willie Horton depicted Dukakis as soft on black rapists. Bush won
easily.

NO NEW DEAL

This time, when the going got rough, the Republicans tried a
similar line of attack. Clinton was portrayed as a womaniser
without `family values', as anti-American, as a man with past
links to the Kremlin and the KGB. But it made little impression
in the polls. The Republican right launched its `cultural war' to
try to recreate the atmosphere of the Cold War. It only succeeded
in making the Republicans seem ludicrous and out of date, and in
alienating the uncommitted. Where Dukakis had been crushed by the
power of Cold War politics, Clinton emerged as the first post-
Cold War president of the USA.

It is important to appreciate that Clint's victory reflected a
negative reaction against the remnants of the past, rather than a
positive endorsement of his plans for the future. Those who claim
that he has won a popular mandate for his policies of radical
change miss the point about how little Clinton has promised to do
for the majority of American people. His commitment to salvaging
American capitalism from the slump means that, for millions, the
future looks even grimmer than the present.

Clint's vague programme of economic action and welfare reform has
been hailed by many as a model of how government intervention
can combat the slump. Clint's `New Covenant' has been carefully
named to conjure up images of the New Deal with which Democratic
president Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to end the Depression of
the 1930s. But the comparison stops at the word `new'.

FDR's New Deal involved a massive injection of state funds into
the American economy, at a time when government investment on
such a scale was unheard of. Even that was insufficient to cope
with mass unemployment and poverty. Clinton's pale imitation can
achieve far less today.

The proposal to spend $20 billion a year for four years on
infrastructure investment might sound impressive. But $20 billion
will add just one per cent to the massive total which the US
authorities already spend in a year. It is hard to see why that
relatively small shot in the arm should make much difference to
an American economy which is already doped up to the eyeballs
with state spending.

Clinton's spending plans are held in check by the massive
government budget deficit, which is currently adding another $325
billion a year on to a total debt of some $4 trillion. The
president-elect has pledged to halve the deficit in four years.
Whatever new spending there is will go to help business. The
American people, meanwhile, are in for hard times of austerity
and cutbacks.

Clinton's approach to welfare sums up his economic priorities.
He denounces the idea of `government handouts' and says that `if
people don't work if they can work, they shouldn't eat'. His plan
is that people should get low-paid job training and welfare money
for no longer than two years. After that, they have to find a
job. If they cannot, their money will be cut off, and they will
be press-ganged into a `a community service' labour scheme.

Clinton's emphasis on individual responsiblity has more in common
with Reaganism than with traditional Democratic liberalism. He
see asks Americans to be concerned about `not just placing blame
but...assuming responsibility'. In other words, it's down to the
individual to pull himself up. This theme runs through all of his
vague policy statements to date.

Clinton's education plans include fining parents who don't attend
the regular meetings of their Parent Teacher Association. He
would link college loans to community service, and plans a sort
of domestic task force to deal with teenagers who drop out of
school. In his home state of Arkansas, this  `help' involved
prohibiting drop-outs from getting a driver's license, something
tantamount to making it impossible for them to earn a living. The
bottom line in Clinton's America is that if you can't get a job,
or you children get a poor quality education, it's largely your
own fault.

BAT TO WORSE

Much has been made of how Clinton's relative youth, his baby-
boomer sensibility and his talented wife, Hillary, will make for
better government. But remember how Bush was going to create a
kinder, gentler America post-Reagan, or how that nice Mr. Major
was going to change Britain for the better after Margaret
Thatcher? In reality, the combination of economic slump and
political exhaustion today ensures that, regardless of the
personalities involved, every capitalist government makes things
even worse than its predecessor. America is certainly in for
some changes under Clinton. But they won't be what the pundits
expect.

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[All typos are mine---HR]