Several prominent republicans and internet organs, state that Obama leadership is an ism, and that Obamaism =socialism.
Firstly you have to point to the hypocrisy of this because so much of the US economy has been dependent on China, a post communist, quasi command economy. Apple are the largest listed valued company in the world now, and this is based on production in China and brains in the USA.
Furthermore it is not just the consumer industries which are on the breast of mother China: 100 USD plus per barrel crude oil is a phenomenon of the demand in China. Otherwise deep sea in the Gulf, oil shale/sand extraction, and oil well rejuvination would not be economic at perhaps 80 USD and certainly 50 USD.
Also the US in the term of the last two Presidents has seen the two largest catastophic storms hitting major metropolitan centres, which basically require cross state, federal intervention and planning for the future. This includes a realistic evaluation of the scenarios, conservative as they probably are now, for global warming and how the US can lead and benefit from reduced carbon emission technologies and life styles. Wall Street has finally had a taste of climate change on its doorstep quite literally.
Further hipocrisy comes from the bail out plan, basically state intervention and a socialist related policy dating back to the 1930 great depression. Yes there are some free market fundamentalists who say "let them fail" but they would have been rounded up and shot by all the other free market fundamentalists who knew knew the irony was that to uphold the free market as they know it, it needed saving from its own blindness. Post great depression there was the war, and that was the biggest and most successful exercise in state planning for the US and indeed the UK. In the latter it lead to the labour landslide and a slow economic recovery, while in the US it lead to the implementation of new technologies and a consumer revolution.
So trying to stick a clumsy, big old label on things can end with you getting it stuck on your own fingers when you first peel it off.
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Personally I do not see the US moving to anything like a socialist state, while I do see the state being more of a referee in the organisation of some provision such as more of the parallel primary health care provision, environment and transport and of course education.
America is the largest entrepreneurial state in the world, but it also has the largest education and research national budget in the world. It is a mix of the spirit of succeeding if you work, and also government that wants to succeed in implementation of programmes. The Tea Party and even now the soft end of the republican party seem to have lost touch with the level of comfortableness the voters have with government which achieves things for them;: despite congress (ie the house) being able to frustrate and fillibuster ANY movement of government to be able to plan and implement. The nation has voted, the nation has moved, the socio-demographics are starting to stack up against the republicans and voters DO remember that it was the rich banking elite and their white russians who caused the economic catastrophe and not the Democratic Party. More poison is not the cure.
Government in the US is very aware and in touch with the entrepreneur but for too long now it has been influenced by hidden corporate interests which are actually quite detached from the general economic well being of say, Ohio.
Further into the new soul of america, both aspirational and liberal in attitudes, I see that the hispanic communities are going to be the new "hand worker man-soccer mum-lawyer and doctor offspring" ie both being entrepreneurial and hard working while also benefiting from greater access to education. ( whether current day doctors and lawyers are a net benefit to the US economy is probably debateable, i should have said engineer).
The battle grounds have for Romney been about preaching to the converted who are a declining socio-demographic. What good are tax cuts and spending cuts to bankrupted small business people? Successful gay and open minded people are turned off by the Tea Party. "yeah all the perverts and the niggas voted for Obama" I saw a tweet earlier. Well if that is the swing vote then it doesnt pay to be a white, socially backwards looking orginisation.
Romney has show a huge amount of grace in losing this campaign, and he is really intelligent economically expert guy: however he has been "shifty" on things like health care and the whole 47% debacle showed his economic side rather than an actual cynicism as it was easy to interpret. Obama has already seen that Romney should be the leader figure in the forthcoming negotiations, and in fact he should probably be on the board of consultants to the president and congress. Romneycare is by no means a million miles away from Obamacare, really Obama care has quite a few veryprofit handcuffing clauses which do not please the immense health corporate lobby.
I actually see Romney and other right-ist adivsors being able to help Obama balance the books, and to accept various compromises;: defence cuts, obama-esque care, some tax rises for the rich and the higher earning waged middle classes, some environmental taxes, cut backs in some road infrastructure, and on the other hand stimulation for business and long term investment- what they want
Also on this subject of what they want, business now will be able to see that the socio demographic is shifted and the Tea Party are not the new, future america, but an echo of a 1950s Hampton's and Country Club past. Social conservatives are in dramatic decline as voters, and the race card is now a whole hand being played on the table. So business thinks with it's wallet, not with a sunday morning at church heart, and will come to have to understand how to tame the democratic party and engage in change in society away from the older values. Like in the EU, business has to understand the benefits of more public provision in the economy when it relates to more than infrastructural planning and back door, dressed up subsidies.
America is probably the most entrepreneurial and aspirational society in the world, but it has also the largest liberal population in the world. For the Republicans and corporates, they had better wake up tommorrow once the hang over is gone, and have a long hard think about that.
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