Daily Times

Last week was an emotional roller coaster. Pakistan’s cricket team overwhelmingly won a Test series against Australia after decades. Bravo! A suicide bomber killed dozens near the Wagah border and maimed and mutilated many more. Horrible. The Muharram processions all end peacefully. Great. A young Christian couple is burned to death by a mob accusing them of blasphemy. Terrible. All of these need a separate column but I will leave them alone for now. I just cannot take too much of such goings on.

So, I will instead try and make some sense of what went on in the US on November 4, 2014. Yes, we had midterm elections — the real, constitutionally mandated ones. And the Democratic Party suffered a significant defeat. It lost its majority in the Senate and lost more seats in the House of Representatives. This election was essentially a referendum on President Obama and his performance. Obama has become quite unpopular and his unpopularity was the major reason behind the extent of the losses that his party suffered.

Obama is the first Democrat in more than 60 years to win two consecutive presidential elections with a majority of the popular vote. However, after his victory two years ago, his popularity has gone down and, in most polls, a majority of US citizens now have an unfavourable opinion of his policies and performance. This, in spite of the fact that under his presidency the US has recovered nicely from what was called the “great recession”. Unemployment that was hitting 10 percent six years ago has now dropped to below six percent and the stock markets have made record-breaking gains. Also, for the first time in a decade, the US will no longer be involved in direct military combat anywhere in the world. And, more importantly, after the passage of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), millions of previously uninsured US citizens now have affordable health insurance.

Most presidents could well be quite popular for such accomplishments but Obama has had the people turn against him. The reasons for such a rapid turnaround in public opinion are difficult to figure out. However, three major reasons could, in varying degrees, be responsible for Obama’s fall from grace. The first perhaps is that Obama is African-American and as such his race is a factor. Many have called this recent election the “revenge of the white male voter”. Whatever anybody might say, the so-called red-blue divide in US politics definitely has a racial tinge to it. And, historically, minorities that usually support the Democrats do not turn out for midterm elections in the same numbers that they come out for presidential elections.

The second factor that is often given considerable prominence is Obama’s pragmatic, laid back political style, especially when it comes to international affairs. Over the last few years, the murder of a US ambassador in Libya, followed by the Russian ‘conquest’ of Crimea and, most recently, the rise of the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria are all being blamed on a passive US foreign policy under Obama. Of course, the fact that the Republican Party has been on an anti-Obama media blitz focusing on these foreign policy ‘failures’ has reinforced the image of Obama as a weak leader. The one thing US citizens want more than anything else is that the world should “tremble with fear” when the US president threatens any military action. The fact that the US has essentially ‘lost’ two wars over the last decade at a tremendous human and financial cost is suddenly forgotten.

The third reason for Obama’s unpopularity is that he has not been able to work with the Republican members of Congress and, as such, has limited legislative success to show. Obamacare was passed by a Democratic controlled Congress without any Republican support and that perhaps alienated the Republicans to the point where after winning control of the House of Representatives, they have essentially blocked all initiatives put forward by Obama. However, the president had a relatively progressive agenda that the Republicans could never support in any case. In the background is a national malaise due in part to the fact that wages have not kept up with the improvement in the national economy. Why this happened could well be due in part to the fact that the president and Congress were unable to come forward with legislation to help this situation. The fact that people are not happy always translates into displeasure with whichever party controls the White House.

Even prior to the midterm elections it was clear that the results would favour the Republican Party. Now that the Republican Party has gained control of both houses of Congress for the next two years, the question is what, if anything, will change. Since the Republicans still do not have a veto-proof majority, they cannot pass any legislation that the president is unwilling to approve of. What this means is that any movement on important issues like immigration reform, tax reform and infrastructure improvement will have to wait for the next president and the next Congress. Small stuff will still go through but then the next presidential election cycle has already started and we might see some interesting moves on both sides of the aisle to act in a conciliatory fashion.

Since Obama has only two more years left as president, therefore, as time passes he will become less relevant. The one area where presidents have a relatively free hand even with a hostile Congress is in foreign affairs. Obama is still the commander-in-chief and, as such, can initiate military action anywhere in the world without Congressional approval, as long as he does not officially declare war. With the crises going on in Ukraine, Iraq and Syria, it is possible that Obama might suddenly become a military ‘hawk’ and initiate robust military action, and then leave his successor to extricate the US from the involvement that he initiated. Probably not.

The writer has practiced and taught medicine in the US. He can be reached at smhmbbs70@yahoo.com