Good news or bad news – depending on if you’re an optimistic Democrat or a pessimistic one – on the economic front. Some indicators point to an economic recovery. Car sales and factory orders are up and private companies added 43,000 jobs in October.
For glass half-full Democrats, this is fodder for arguments that their policies were working but impatient voters just didn’t give them enough time. For glass half-empty Democrats, this sucks, because now Boehner and McConnell will take credit for rescuing the economy from the clutches of the inept Democrats. But one thing on which I’m sure most Democrats will agree: with Republicans reversing course and returning to lower taxes (on the rich, on capital gains, or inheritance), to less regulation on wall street, and to a “drill-baby-drill” mentality on energy, our nation’s long slide from superpower status will be accelerated.
For those of us who see the American political system as fundamentally broken – unable to govern in the face of seismic shifts in world events -- it’s tempting to see a silver lining in the Republicans’ resurgence: a hastening of the inevitable slide which would provide the impetus to make meaningful change of the constitutional convention type.
I recall the motivation of the Emperor Claudius, as portrayed in that Robert Graves I Claudius miniseries on PBS 34 years ago. A lifelong supporter of the Republic, Claudius found himself in the unlikely position of emperor due to military coups, assassinations and palace intrigue. He spent much of his tenure trying to improve what he knew was an essentially flawed and unjust system. In old age, he realized that his efforts had made the empire acceptable enough to withstand any attempt at change. This is why, according to author Graves, Claudius named as heir his adopted son Nero over his own real son: he knew Nero was bats and likely to drive the empire into ruin and the Roman people into a revolt that would resurrect the Republic.
Of course, no such thing happened. Romans endured many more emperors – a few good, most suffering from lead-induced mental deficiencies -- and the Roman Empire continued for another 500 years in an every declining, internally rotting state, until pieces fell off like gangrenous limbs.
Fans of American Empire, with its non-stop wars to somehow ensure elusive domestic tranquility, might take comfort in the Roman example. Even the most posterity-minded citizens who want to leave our great nation to their grand children and great grand children will think 500 more years of hegemony is sufficiently long run. Our political existence, however, is affected by evolution just as our physical existence is. (Republicans will no doubt not believe in this kind of evolution either.)
Time marches on, exponentially so. Empires don’t last as long as they used to. Charting the progression of the earliest empires to ones in the common era, it is clear empires spawn, grow, zenith, and collapse in diminishing spans of time. Our model won’t be the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Egyptian or Roman; it won’t even be the Dutch, Spanish or British models; it will be much quicker. And China’s ascendant superpowerness? One would expect it to hit its peak and start to wither in a shorter span than it took the U.S.to rise from the ashes of Europe’s world wars and start slouching toward averageness as soon as it became apparent that world oil supplies weren’t infinite.
Yes, China might enjoy a mere 20-30 years as king of the mountain. Whoever replaces them (India? Brazil?)might then enjoy hegemony for 10-15 years. After that: perhaps South Africa or New Zealand or Peru or Kenya? Eventually, world superpower status will be as much a revolving thing as the presidency of the E.U.
For glass half-full Democrats, this is fodder for arguments that their policies were working but impatient voters just didn’t give them enough time. For glass half-empty Democrats, this sucks, because now Boehner and McConnell will take credit for rescuing the economy from the clutches of the inept Democrats. But one thing on which I’m sure most Democrats will agree: with Republicans reversing course and returning to lower taxes (on the rich, on capital gains, or inheritance), to less regulation on wall street, and to a “drill-baby-drill” mentality on energy, our nation’s long slide from superpower status will be accelerated.
For those of us who see the American political system as fundamentally broken – unable to govern in the face of seismic shifts in world events -- it’s tempting to see a silver lining in the Republicans’ resurgence: a hastening of the inevitable slide which would provide the impetus to make meaningful change of the constitutional convention type.
I recall the motivation of the Emperor Claudius, as portrayed in that Robert Graves I Claudius miniseries on PBS 34 years ago. A lifelong supporter of the Republic, Claudius found himself in the unlikely position of emperor due to military coups, assassinations and palace intrigue. He spent much of his tenure trying to improve what he knew was an essentially flawed and unjust system. In old age, he realized that his efforts had made the empire acceptable enough to withstand any attempt at change. This is why, according to author Graves, Claudius named as heir his adopted son Nero over his own real son: he knew Nero was bats and likely to drive the empire into ruin and the Roman people into a revolt that would resurrect the Republic.
Of course, no such thing happened. Romans endured many more emperors – a few good, most suffering from lead-induced mental deficiencies -- and the Roman Empire continued for another 500 years in an every declining, internally rotting state, until pieces fell off like gangrenous limbs.
Fans of American Empire, with its non-stop wars to somehow ensure elusive domestic tranquility, might take comfort in the Roman example. Even the most posterity-minded citizens who want to leave our great nation to their grand children and great grand children will think 500 more years of hegemony is sufficiently long run. Our political existence, however, is affected by evolution just as our physical existence is. (Republicans will no doubt not believe in this kind of evolution either.)
Time marches on, exponentially so. Empires don’t last as long as they used to. Charting the progression of the earliest empires to ones in the common era, it is clear empires spawn, grow, zenith, and collapse in diminishing spans of time. Our model won’t be the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Egyptian or Roman; it won’t even be the Dutch, Spanish or British models; it will be much quicker. And China’s ascendant superpowerness? One would expect it to hit its peak and start to wither in a shorter span than it took the U.S.to rise from the ashes of Europe’s world wars and start slouching toward averageness as soon as it became apparent that world oil supplies weren’t infinite.
Yes, China might enjoy a mere 20-30 years as king of the mountain. Whoever replaces them (India? Brazil?)might then enjoy hegemony for 10-15 years. After that: perhaps South Africa or New Zealand or Peru or Kenya? Eventually, world superpower status will be as much a revolving thing as the presidency of the E.U.
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
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