The deepening of the divide between and within the US’s principal political parties foreshadows a deeply fractured presidential election
According to former US Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, the United States (US) confronts perhaps its gravest threat to security in our times. He has alluded to the alliance between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea “whose collective nuclear arsenal could within a few years be nearly double the size of its own.” Unfortunately, he laments, instead of a coherent response from the US, we are getting one that is fractured by the deep divide between its principal political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. But what happened this week—the removal of the Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy by his own partymen—suggests that the Republican Party in the Congress has itself become deeply polarised and difficult to manage. Just how deep this divide is became apparent in the refusal of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives to pass their own bill to temporarily fund the government. A shutdown was narrowly averted but the issues that brought things to this pass have not gone away. The shutdown would have been the fourth in a decade and, if prolonged, would have caused suffering to millions of low-income people who get food assistance and would have forced federal employees, including the military, to go without pay.
The shutdown would have been the fourth in a decade and, if prolonged, would have caused suffering to millions of low-income people who get food assistance and would have forced federal employees, including the military, to go without pay.
This is the result of an action of a small group of extreme right-wing Republicans who are holding their own party and the country to ransom. In June, there had been an agreement between the Republican congressional leadership and the Biden administration to fund the federal budget for the next 10 years and still cut the budget deficit by US$1 trillion. But “Make America Great Again" (MAGA) Republicans in Congress have overthrown conventional institutional processes that ran their party till now and did not allow the passage of the 12 appropriation bills before the start of the fiscal year on 1 October. What made this different from the past shutdowns was that this was less a Republican vs. Democrat quarrel and more of a fight between Republicans. This fight has not ended the temporary funding measure for the government passed last week, which expires in mid-November. The Congress needs to pass all of its 12 annual spending bills or approve another temporary funding measure. But before that, it must elect a new Speaker in a House where the Republican majority is deeply divided. On the surface, the US is doing well. Militarily, it outspends its rivals considerably. Its economy has defied doomsday predictions and is flourishing. Its new industrial policy is now underway and could increase the technological gap between the US and the rest of the world significantly. On the other hand, its rivals are not doing too well, with Russia mired in a war in Ukraine and China’s economy displaying persistent weakness. But there are warning signs related to issues connected to its debt. On the eve of the shutdown face-off, credit rating firm Moody’s warned that a shutdown of the US government could possibly lead to a downgrade of its rating. Moody’s is the only one of the top three credit rating firms that has continued to give the US a “AAA” rating—AAA are judged to be of the highest quality, with minimal credit risk. Two months ago, Fitch Ratings downgraded the US to “AA+” on account of the debt ceiling fight and governance issues. S&P Global had done so as far back as 2011 during a similar debt ceiling fight.
On the eve of the shutdown face-off, credit rating firm Moody’s warned that a shutdown of the US government could possibly lead to a downgrade of its rating.
Today, the US presents a picture of strange duality. On one hand, you have a flourishing US economy with its technology giants now vying to carve out a future powered by Artificial Intelligence. The US’ success is also being measured in another way—the relentless wave of migrants from all over the world thronging its southern border to enter the country. But there is real social dysfunction which manifests itself in its politics. Just how deep the crisis is became apparent on 6 January 2021, when there was an attempted insurrection to overthrow the outcome of the Presidential election. The alarming fact is that despite the attempted coup, there are still some 30 per cent of American voters who believe that Joe Biden won the election due to voter fraud. There are other manifestations of a longer-running crisis. The US was once the country of social mobility, but in the last 50 years, the number of multimillionaires has grown tenfold, but the relative wage of unskilled workers has nearly halved, and the real wages of 64 percent of Americans without a college degree, has actually shrunk. Such a situation cannot but create social strife and distress. Nearly 650,000 people in the US are homeless. According to the New York Times, there are a variety of reasons for this but the primary one is the “long-run erosion in wages” and the collapsing social safety net. There are other issues at play here such as mental health issues and drug addiction. But the primary cause is “the high cost of housing and difficulty of finding anything affordable.” The great cities—New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco—are in decline. In the last decade, 20 largest metro areas in the US lost nearly a million people combined. All this was accelerated by remote work brought on by COVID-19 as well. This shrinkage has come with inevitable problems—housing has become more expensive for the poor and the young, crime has grown, mass transit ridership has collapsed, and vacant office space has grown. Yet another negative indicator is the fact that life expectancy, always a mark of a nation’s economic and social health, has been declining since 2014, well before the COVID crisis. This phenomenon, says a Washington Post report, has been “exacerbated by the country’s economic, political and racial divides.” Not surprisingly, the gap in the death rates between the poor and the rich has increased 570 percent since 1980.
This shrinkage has come with inevitable problems—housing has become more expensive for the poor and the young, crime has grown, mass transit ridership has collapsed, and vacant office space has grown.
Issues of race, gender, and guns divide the nation and deepen the political divide between the Republicans and Democrats. These play out when anti-racism or abortion rights protestors are confronted by far-right groups and civilian militias. A lot of the threats and abuse are spread online. A major divisive issue relates to the regulations, or lack of them, on the possession of guns, including high-performance assault rifles. Till August this year, there have been more than 470 mass shootings and each of the last three years have seen more than 600 shootings. Americans support stricter gun laws but they are opposed by a well-organised lobby that opposes any new restrictions. The US Supreme Court, itself a bastion of the right-wing, created a major divide when it decided to nullify abortion rights to all women and this has resulted in 14 states banning abortion. As it begins the new term, it will tackle major cases relating to gun rights, the power of federal agencies, social media regulation and gerrymandering. The court with a right-wing supermajority of 6-3 could potentially further destabilise the American political system and society. Nothing in the unfolding American election, that is likely to pit Donald Trump against incumbent Joe Biden, suggests that things will improve. The election is likely to be a contest between someone facing several criminal and fraud trials over the next year, which could actually result in verdicts. On the other side will be an incumbent president who will be 81 if he gets another term, facing an impeachment inquiry in the US House of Representatives, and who is unable to enthuse his own party.
The election is likely to be a contest between someone facing several criminal and fraud trials over the next year, which could actually result in verdicts.
The failure of America’s vaunted institutions like the US Congress or the Supreme Court is only one part of the story. The deeper causes are the unravelling of democratic norms and gerrymandering, which ensures that there are just a few real contests in elections. As it is, the US Congress, itself constituted on the basis of archaic rules, has procedures which make change difficult. From the point of view of the world, the issue is: What kind of a US leadership can we expect in the coming years? We have already had a taste of Trump’s “America First” posture that disdained allies and partners and looked favourably to Putin and Kim Jong Un. Joe Biden by his policy of engagement and alliance building brought a certain stability and self-consciously restored the leadership of American policy. The 2024 election may look like a re-run of 2020, but that is not likely. There is no consensus, as evidenced by the fact that even support to Ukraine in its war with Russia does not have whole-hearted bipartisan support. Biden has pursued a policy of calling for investing in the US, aligning with allies and partners and competing with China. But it’s not clear what the Republican Party and Trump would follow. The former president’s divisive legacy overshadows the Republican position on all issues and in this, the uncertainties in US foreign policy will only become worse.
Manoj Joshi is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Manoj Joshi is a Distinguished Fellow at the ORF. He has been a journalist specialising on national and international politics and is a commentator and ...
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