Think you can escape America? Think again

Horrified by what I was seeing from Americans, I left the country a decade ago. But I came to learn that wherever I go, the American people determine my fate.

On 2 November 2004 I made a fateful choice. I was living in Chicago at the time, and was watching that year’s presidential election results at a friend’s apartment. We were all pretty sure that Democrat John Kerry was going to win. After all, sitting president George W Bush had been completely discredited by the Iraq War debacle, right?

It didn’t work out that way. Despite polls predicting a Kerry win, Bush emerged victorious. People at the apartment were perplexed, some were crying. I left by myself and walked to Lake Michigan. I stared out at the water and decided I did not see a future for myself in the United States. I vowed to move to Europe.

America unhinged

Perhaps the only thing more depressing than this weekend's assassination shooting of US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was the fact that it was so utterly unsurprising. The shooting, which for the moment remains an attempted assassination as its intended target fights for her life in hospital, so far has a death toll of six out of 20 people shot. For many observers in the US, the shooting is the culmination of two years of incendiary rhetoric from the right, an episode of far-right violence that people have been warning was coming soon. When you have mainstream American politicians telling people that the government is trying to establish "death panels" in its healthcare legislation and that there has been a "Socialist takeover" of the government that can only be brought to an end using "second amendment remedies", it was only a matter of time before some unhinged person on the far right acted out in violence.

The motives of the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, are not yet clear. In fact authorities are looking into the possibility of a second shooter. It is not yet known whether Loughner had any specific ties to the Tea Party movement, whether he was an admirer of Sarah Palin, or whether he was a fan of incendiary Fox News hosts such as Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly. But from his online postings and notes, it already seems clear that Loughner subscribed to far right ideology. His online postings and YouTube videos rant against government tyranny, using language that is eerily reminiscent of the language the mainstream right has been increasingly using. In one of his postings, Loughner refers disparagingly to 'currency that's not backed by gold or silver' - an idea that is the subject of regular rants on Mr. Beck's show (right before his commercials for gold investment). This idea that a non-gold-backed currency is unconstitutional was also a main focus of the anti-government 'patriot movement' of the 1990's that was responsible for violence in the middle part of that decade. Loughner also went on long rants about immigration, particularly Hispanic immigrants in Arizona.

The United States of Paralysis

The results are in, and there were no big surprises from last night's US midterm election. As predicted, Republicans have wrested control of the House of Representatives from Democrats but failed to take the Senate. But maintaining "control" of the Senate is surely cold consolation for the Democrats today. As the Washington Post's Ezra Klein writes in his blog this morning, there was perhaps no worse outcome from the perspective of actually getting anything done in the next two years than the result delivered yesterday.

"Republicans don't fully control Congress, so they don't have enough power to be blamed for legislative outcomes," he writes. "But Democrats don't control the House and they don't have a near-filibuster proof majority in the Senate, so they can't pass legislation. Republicans, in other words, are not left with the burden of governance, and Democrats are not left with the power to govern. Republicans don't have to be responsible, and Democrats can't do it for them."

That's the rub, isn't it? Given that the Senate is the institution that has given Democrats so much trouble during the past two years in the first place, holding on to it is not much of a consolation prize for them. By overusing an ancient procedural rule that can block any vote with just 40 out of the 100 senators, Republicans in the Senate were able to block almost every bill the House of Representatives passed. Indeed yesterday's result is really stinging because it was the House Democrats that really showed political courage over the past two years, casting tough votes even though they knew they would be politically unpopular. There were few such profiles in courage among Democrats in the Senate. And yet it's the senate Democrats that have clung onto power. Nobody ever said politics is fair.

The real tea party

The other day I was at a conference here in Brussels and one of the speakers, who was German, made a joke about America's tea party movement. Making the case that European consumers would not like paying extra taxes in order to pay for recycling, he joked, 'but in the United States I understand they have the tea party to take care of this kind of thing'. The audience laughed, and I laughed as well, because I assumed it was said tongue in cheek. But then when I thought about it I realised, wait, maybe he's serious...

I wouldn't blame Europeans for thinking the American tea party movement is motivated solely by their opposition to taxes, after all this is how its portrayed in the European media - particularly by the British press. And they in turn are taking their cues from the American mainstream media, who have also been portraying it as a movement of libertarian fiscal conservatives concerned about deficit spending and taxes. But even as this narrative continues, there is clear and unavoidable evidence that this is not what the movement is mainly about at all. In fact the movement has no real focus, serving mostly as a confused jumble of rage. Its participants – who show up to street demonstrations and rallies wearing funny hats and revolutionary war costumes - appear to have various grievances, and some seem to have no specific grievances in particular. But one thing is clear – the leaders of the tea party movement, and the candidates they have elected to represent the Republican Party in November's midterm election, are the same old social conservative culture warriors that have been around for years. Only this time, they're wearing funny hats.

Be careful what you wish for, teabaggers

The Tea Party movement in the United States saw its most high-profile electoral success last Tuesday with the primary election of Rand Paul, son of the notorious Texas Libertarian Ron Paul, to be the Republican candidate for Senator in Kentucky. The pundits told us it was a “victory over the Washington establishment” delivered by voters seething with anger. Paul’s mainstream Republican challenger had received the endorsement of long-serving Republican senators, while Paul had been endorsed by the Tea Party and Sarah Palin. “This is a message to Washington from the Tea Party!” shouted an elated Paul at his victory speech.

But it wasn’t long before the reality began to sink in about exactly who the teabaggers were pushing into power. Like his father, Paul is an adherent to a uniquely American brand of ultra-orthodox Libertarianism. This strain of thought opposes almost all government interference in people’s lives. It is opposed to income tax, the environmental protection agency, the FBI, the Americans with Disabilities Act, government pensions, medicare, you name it. If the government does it, they want it killed.

Lately this kind of non-government ideology has been gaining popularity amongst an increasingly radicalized American public. The Tea Party movement, born out of citizen anger over Barack Obama’s efforts to give all Americans health insurance, has morphed into a snowballing anti-government crusade that seems like it won’t be content until Washington has been burned to the ground. Spurred on by Fox News, the most watched news network in the US, the Teabaggers believe that the US government is “out of control”, developing into an authoritarian super-state that seeks to regulate every area of their lives.

Populism, David Cameron, and the gulf oil spill

The election campaign is in its last heated days here in London, and it really is inescapable. I’m just here for a few days staying with my partner, and it seems like it’s been all anyone can talk about. Sarah Brown, the prime minister’s wife, even made a bizarre special appearance at a Vauxhall gay club Saturday night. Hey, gotta get those votes wherever you can! But I found it amusing that the next morning she was up early to attend mass at a black church in South London.

I’m on the Eurostar back to Brussels at the moment and feeling pretty bummed to be leaving right before the big day. I have a feeling the real excitement is going to begin Friday when the parties have to somehow hash out how they form a government from a hung parliament.

If I had to sum up the mood of my London friends in one word it would be anxious. They all come from various political stripes, but interestingly most everyone I know is planning to vote Lib Dem. Whatever their political ideology they have one thing in common – David Cameron makes them very nervous. They fear the former PR-turned-politician is all window-dressing with little real policy ideas, and in reality it will be the “nasty Tories” of the 1990’s that will be taking power. Having not lived through this period in Britain I can’t entirely relate, but some of them feel very strongly about this fear. But an opinion piece in the Independent this weekend compared the situation with the campaign of George W. Bush in 2000. He also promised "compassionate conservartism" but in the eyes of many he turned out to be just a populist front man for a Neo Conservative cabal with a very specific agenda. That agenda included going to war with Iraq.

Back to the culture wars: Palin's brilliant debut

I just watched the Sarah Palin RNC speech on CNN Europe, and all I can say is wow. A star is born.

The speech was brilliant. In one fell swoop Palin managed to deliver one of the most vicious political speeches in modern history while at the same time coming off as sweet and domestic. While trumpeting her own "small town values" of compassion and simplicity, she outlined a series of blisteringly cynical attacks on Obama's 'elitism.' Trust me, this will play in Peoria.

Every European should watch this speech if they want to fully understand the current American political climate. The strategy employed here is classically American, and I think it will work. For a week the McCain campaign let the media criticise the Palin choice because of her inexperience (she's only been governor of Alaska for 20 months, and before that she was a suburban housewife - she's only left the United States twice) without seeming to offer any defense of her. Throughout the revelations about her teenage daughter's pregnancy, her questionable dealings while in the governor's office and her past as an Alaskan separatist, the McCain campaign refused to put her forward to answer reporters' questions, and even McCain himself was unavailable for comment. From the outside, it looked like the campaign was in full implosion.

But in reality, it was a set-up. The campaign was using the media circus around Palin to draw a record number of viewers for her speech last night (early speculation is that viewership will rival Obama's speech). Once they were there, she made herself out to be the victim of media elitism. How dare they question her lack of relevant experience for the presidency! They just don't appreciate small-town values like you and me. They are "entrenched interests" who don't want to see a "Washington outsider" come in and shake things up. It was brilliant, and the anti-elitist message will play big in the US.

The crowd went nuts. It's definitely been a long time since a group of Republicans felt so enthused. You can see from the reactions of the crowd, as the camera pans to their faces and they mouth "I love her!" This woman is going to be a force to reckon with.

What was also clear from this speech is that the GOP intends to once again frame this election in the context of the 'culture wars,' an us-versus-them mentality which seeks to capitalize on the fact that one half of the country seems to despise the other half. It's small-town, regular Joe Americans versus those liberal urban elites, and it's a tried and true tactic.

Yet the fact remains the idea of Palin becoming president is almost absurd, with her complete lack of relevant experience. This was echoed by the fact that she didn't bring up a single policy issue in her speech. And yet with McCain's age and his history of melanoma, this is a very real possibility. I'm reminded of the fictional situation that was presented with the short-lived NBC drama "Commander in Chief," in which Geena Davis plays a woman who was selected as vice president as a gimick, but then shortly into her running mates' term he falls ill and dies. She's expected to resign and allow the speaker of the house to become president, but instead she stays on. One can imagine that if something were to happen to a President McCain, such a situation would present itself.

It will be interesting to see what happens after this speech, but its hard to see how the McCain camp won't get a huge poll boost from it. And yet, it will be a tough act to follow for McCain's speech tonight. Perhaps all the enthusiasm and excitement that Palin has generated for the demoralized GOP will fizzle if McCain delivers a lacklustre acceptance speech.