In today’s Times, David Miliband examines the predicament of social democrats across Europe. He writes:
‘In Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden, six countries with good claims to represent the historic heartland of social democracy, there are now centre-right governments. This has not happened since the First World War.’
By contrast, a centre-left leader is in power in the United States. Despite the crushing defeat for the Democrats in the midterm elections, the early signs are that Barack Obama will be re-elected in 2012. Indeed, the success of the Tea Party in November means that the Republicans are more likely to elect a presidential candidate who is unappealing to the moderates and independents who tend to determine American elections. For example, the early frontrunner, Mitt Romney, knows he has a problem with Republican primary voters due to his role creating a universal healthcare system in Massachusetts when he was the state’s governor. Indiana governor, Mitch Daniels – seen by the New York Times’ David Brocks as the party’s ‘strongest candidate’ – has similar form, having committed the heinous crime of creating a scheme that provided 132,000 uninsured Indiana workers with health coverage.
Despite being in power, however, Obama appears unable to deliver a programme that would be recognised as social democratic in Europe. It should be remembered that this political philosophy doesn’t mean much to those on the left in America who prefer to see themselves as ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’. But both strands have much in common with European social democracy. Liberalism tends to combines social justice and support for a welfare state with a mixed economy. Progressivism tends to focus more on the distribution of power by seeking to enhance democracy and limit corruption. Through the legacy of the movement’s first hero, President Theodore Roosevelt, progressivism also has a conservationist and environmental strand.
Obama’s programme for government included much that was in this tradition including proposals to ‘renew the American dream, renew the American community, and renew American democracy‘. His problem has been delivering it. The main reason for this is money. A member of Congress has to raise $10,000 a week to get re-elected while the average Senator has to raise $7 million. These sums come with a price and mean that even Democratic support for key measures is hard to get. On financial regulation reform, there were huge concessions to Wall Street just to get Democrat support in the Senate. The healthcare bill was much weaker for all the corporate influence and many progressives believe that, if it fails to achieve its goals, it will probably be because industry weakened it. Meanwhile, the legislation that Obama trailed in his election campaign to create a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions was killed because of the influence that money from dirty coal has on numerous lawmakers.
Obama can point to one huge political victory. The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included stimulative measures to help the most vulnerable, provide tax cuts to middle-class families, and improve the country’s green infrastructure. A recent assessment from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC outlined that it was ‘an investment that worked’. The problem was that it proved very unpopular at the midterm elections and was an effective recruiting sergeant for the Tea Party movement.
Even if it had not been political damaging, Obama would be unlikely to repeat the achievement. In his state of the union address, the president called for investments in innovation, education and infrastructure. But with the US projected to run deficits of 3 per cent or above for each of the next 10 years, it is unclear where he will find the money to do this. Freshmen Republicans in the House are looking for $61 billion in cuts before they will even consider any new spending measures.
These setbacks have not diminished the scale of the challenge facing Obama. As in the UK, living standards are stagnant and employment is only starting to pick up. The problem for Obama is that he is hamstrung by the twin straightjackets of a rightwing legislature and a penniless public purse. Unless he wins back the House in 2012, a presidential victory for Obama will be as futile as the current plight of Europe’s social democratic left.
Read also… Douglas Alexander‘s speech to last week’s Progress event ‘Is there a crisis in international social democracy?’ at which Will Straw also spoke, and read David Coats’ review