I could not stop thinking the November election results through the prism of my Indian heritage and collective wisdom of thousands of years. Pundits, reflecting on democracies of India and America, predicted results mostly based on a singular factor. They highlighted the anti-incumbent wave in deciding the fate of the ruling party in both the nations.
However, we need to look into these election results from the socio-political, economic, racial, gender, national and local point of views. It has been, it is, and it will be very difficult to predict these results based on above factors. What lessons can we learn as intellectuals and pundits from this election? I want to share some thoughts from my understanding and also from people’s point of view.
Anti-incumbent sentiments in the nation and in the state of California dominated, according to some analysts. I will keep my focus mainly on California election with some references to the national election results. Many supporters of Meg Whitman encouraged her invest $140 million of her own fortune in the fray.
She was convinced of the fact that buying Governor’s office would make her most eligible to serve people of California without any fear or pressures from the outside. Maybe she would be the only governor to keep herself free of lobbyists and special interest groups.
Meg Whitman projected her success as CEO of a corporation to be the yardstick for her future success. However, people did not believe her agenda. People of California did not believe that a person’s own financial fortune and also being a CEO of a corporation was enough to be the governor of the State of California and to be able to do people’s business.
Her opponents struck where her strength was most centered. They tried to change people’s perception by stressing that she did make millions of dollars in bonuses while working as CEO of E-Bay and laid off thousands of workers to make profit for her shareholders. Some humanists accused her of following capitalistic policies for making few people very rich while keeping the masses very poor.
Gender may also have played the role by projecting a woman running against a man. Some negative comments in regards to her gender during their debate at UC Davis last month were noticed.
The politicians and policy makers do need to think about the “so called middle class that has been shrinking in this country”. This has led to a lot of frustration and anger in hard working men and women in this country and especially in California. The policies of both the major parties are focused on two extreme positions i.e. one party (Democratic) focusing on politics of minoritism and tapping into anger of the poor while other one (Republican) focusing more on protecting the bottom-line of rich corporations and so-called small businesses.
Both of these major parties need to think about the middle class (and common good) which is more and more being squeezed as they are only generators of tax revenues for the country. It is very clear that large corporations and some big small businesses do not pay the taxes at all as they are able to show more losses in their tax filings.
The other thing Republican Party representatives are talking about the disbanding the health insurance improvements which White House and Capitol Hill has made tremendous achievements to bring some sanity to the prices of health insurance plans and policies.
I have been in this country practicing as a psychologist for the last 21 years, not even a single time I have seen increase in my payment by the insurance companies, rather than I have seen a decrease or cut in my payments. Both the parties need to work on making sure that everyone in USA gets an affordable health care. As it happens in the family that parents have to take care of all the children irrespective of their cognitive or physical strengths.
Some kids parents’ know they cannot compete in the open market due to their disability or learning deficits, however, they need to be protected to reduce resentment and anger and promote fairness among siblings. The Government has the same role.
For all the people on disabilities, our Government at State and Federal levels spends billions of dollars in providing the needed services to the most needy population of our society, i.e. disabled, seniors and victims of natural disasters.
Whereas private health and life insurance companies are only catering to people who can afford to pay their high premiums. Once those high premium paying individuals become dysfunctional or laid off or disabled they also become dependent on the Government and private insurance companies refuse to participate in providing any benefit to those once functional people.
The tea party euphoria also did not help Whitman in California. It bears some resemblance to India’s political system. The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) a right-wing party in India reacts similarly as Tea Party here does. Whenever, the Congress or other left-wing parties come to power in India, BJP rakes up issues like the site of Babri Mosque and building of a Hindu Temple. In the same manner, Tea Party was the one to make Ground Zero controversy more distracting. Most constituents of BJP in India and Republican Party in the US control a major portion their country’s wealth.
However, whenever Congress Party was in power in India, it had hard time controlling prices of the commodities. People would cry from Mehengai (higher prices than their income). During this election also Republican Party did not let President Obama create more jobs for the unemployed. Even when he tried to give some respite to unemployed by extending their unemployment benefits, Republican Party vehemently opposed it and then they blamed his policies for not creating the economic growth.
They blamed everything on the Government rather than seeing what their party has created while continuing multiple wars which did lead to too much deficits as no one wanted to cut the defense budget in the name of the security.
The regional results of Eastern and Mid-Western States have a different meaning as compared to election results in California. The lesson is that people are fed-up with politics of extremism all over the world.
There is a recent movie (Live from Peepli) by Indian actor, producer and director, Aamir Khan which demonstrated very clearly what is more important to politicians and media. It is not the common-good but how to protect their political interest without any consideration for the human suffering.
There was another argument people did not buy in California, it was the age of Jerry Brown. They claimed that his ideas are too old, stale and not innovative as compared to new comers.
One lesson is very clear that it is not the age of the person what makes him or her win the election it is social, economic and political context along with his or her luck.
However, it is very hard to predict the results based on one or two factors. One thing is very clear that Mr. Jerry Brown has been a very seasoned politician. I happened to listen to him at various Indo-American forums where he was heard making jokes that when he ran for Governor in 1975, his mantra was “new ideas” and now at the age of 72, his mantra was, “experience matters”.
The other things we need to consider that there were many factors which did lead to Republicans taking over the House and Democrats losing their anchoring. It was very sad that our President was making fun at one of the campaign rallies of the man, “Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), who wants to be the Speaker of the House”. Nobody knows the future including our President who was predicting that Rep. John Boehner was not going to win the house back which he did and he will be Speaker of the House.
I was very touched by the humaneness of Rep. John Boehner when he was almost choking with emotion while talking about his humble beginning when he worked as a waiter in his family restaurant.
It was his hard work which paid off as he put it, “chasing his American Dream”. The lesson from this story I see is that our President should know better, especially with his higher cognitive abilities as compared to his predecessor not to make fun of his colleagues.
The spiritual aspect in politics cannot be ignored. The Supreme Soul or Higher Power can “make a king a beggar and a beggar a king” in seconds as this is very common saying in India I heard from my elders while growing up.
I am also reminded of the spiritual Shloka (poetry) of a Sufi poet, Baba Farid, “Dushman Mare Ta Khushi Na Manyaiye, Ke Sajana Be Marjana”, i.e. if our enemy dies we should not be excited as our friends will die too. I wish our politicians and pundits will keep this in mind while serving people and hopefully we will see some positive changes to alleviate human sufferings not only in this country but all over the world.
Dr Harmesh Kumar
