Newt Gingrich as leader of the free world? God help us. Literally.

As I wrote a tongue-in-cheek article about a fictitious Presidential election between Obama and Gingrich last month, now it seems there's a real chance that I might get my wish.

In almost every way conceivable, Gingrich is the definitive "anti-Obama". Whereas Obama was hailed as a contemporary political messiah four years ago, by comparison Gingrich seems to be doing a great performance as the Anti-Christ, representing the forces of darkness.

Apart from the many ways in which the Republican party that Gingrich hopes to represent stands for all that is evil in human nature (as I wrote in a previous blog, "The Devil Votes Republican"), there are the many human flaws contained in Gingrich's own personality that makes him rationally seem as the least suitable person for the job.

That's the problem, though: rationalism. Obama gives every impression of containing quite a lot of it; a lot more rationalism than many of his peers, Democrat as well as Republican. One reason why he has failed to get through a lot of his programme is due to his misreading of the Republicans as being "rational" people he could do a deal with. Jimmy Carter had the same problem; Carter was intellectual and deep-thinking, but was out-manoeuvred by the more practically-minded Reagan.

Obama has the danger of falling into the same trap; except that Gingrich is a different sort of person than Reagan was. And rational people (such as much of the mainstream media) are wondering why Gingrich is as popular as he is.

Before I explain that one, it's only fair that we compare Obama's and Gingrich's personalities and personal life.

First, personal life.
Obama is a happily married man, with two children, and a moderate Christian (though more likely agnostic). Gingrich is a twice-divorced man, who cheated on his first wife while she was in the hospital with cancer, his mistress became his second wife, gained another mistress, and married her after his second wife refused to accept an "open marriage". Also, he's reportedly changed his religion; twice.
Then go figure which of them is meant to be representing the party of "family values" (which the Republicans claim to be).

Then we have the personalities.
Obama's problem with persona is that for all his apparent intelligence, rationalism, eloquence, thoughtfulness and good intentions, he still comes across to many ordinary Americans as aloof and weak-willed. Meanwhile, the Republicans portray him as a radical, trying to turn the values of the Founding Fathers on their head.
Then there's Gingrich. He comes across as arrogant, self-serving, hypocritical and reckless. And those are some of the better attributes. Using his "academic" background as a historian, he sees himself as intellectually superior to Obama - going so far as to challenge him to a number of debates, in the style of Lincoln. He has used his connections during years of service in the senate and as Speaker to feather his own nest; meanwhile, he tried to impeach President Clinton over his extra-marital misconduct at the same time as when Gingrich was cheating on his own wife. As Speaker he forced the closure of the government in a petty dispute with President Clinton (as the Republicans also tried to do with Obama last year); eventually, even his own party got sick of his dirty tricks, and dumped him from the role of Speaker. Since that time, he has been doing what he could to advance his own financial and political interests using almost any means possible.
In other words, Newt Gingrich is a political phenomenon; albeit, the polar opposite to the ideal candidate.

At first, no-one took his chances seriously when his campaign team started in the spring of 2011; by the summer, many of his own campaign team had quit in disgust at his personality and political style. The fact that he managed to re-invent his campaign after such a blow is a sign of Gingrich's determination and forbearance; he made a virtue of his lack of money and financial backing. He comes across as being anti-elitist; a man of the people (even though he is comfortably a millionaire). In other words, he is an archetypal demagogue.

That is one of Gingrich's various political talents, which makes him dangerous against any rational politician such as Obama: Gingrich has no shame, and has shown that he is very capable at making disingenuous and savage attacks against his opponents, even those in the same party. And yet, he also has had the political experience and expediency to know when to come across as moderate on issues (such as immigration towards the Hispanic population, to win their support in Florida), and also conciliatory and sympathetic to rivals (during his South Carolina victory speech).

Lastly, there are his policies, or at least, public statements of intent (which can change depending on who he's talking to at any one time). In as much as he has a domestic policy, it has been to undo all of Obama's work as quickly as possible (before Obama's even had chance to land in Chicago after leaving the White House, so Gingrich claimed), and make sure that taxes are kept as low as possible. No wonder, then, he has grabbed the support of the Ayn Rand-inspired philosophy of the Tea Party. As an apparent social conservative, he has won the support of the Evangelicals (though where he really stands on social issues, only he knows). He has claimed he supports all the major platform policies of his Republican rivals, thereby rendering them toothless; meanwhile, his major rival, Mitt Romney, has been effectively labelled an elitist and out-of-touch with the lives of average Americans. Gingrich, on the other hand, not having any major financial backers, shows himself off as being one of the people; furthermore, he has the cunning to know how to talk in a way the average American can relate to - marking him different to the likes of Romney and, naturally, Obama.

A word about Gingrich's statements on foreign policy, for that's where the fun really starts. He has stated that as Secretary of State he would have John Bolton; the infamous Ambassador to the UN, who didn't believe in the institution of the UN. Rather like having an Environment Secretary who doesn't believe in the environment (although George W Bush also managed to have one of those, too). So that would make life interesting from Day One.
Then, Gingrich has said so many controversial statements on the Palestinian situation that it makes me wonder if he isn't a sleeper agent for the Israeli ultra-right; for instance, that he would move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (supporting the Israeli view that it is their undivided capital, shared with no-one).
And then there are Gingrich's various pronouncements on Iran, which make for entertaining reading - entertaining in Tehran, that is, as it would bring about the Islamic regime's wish for a
Holy War with the infidel.

So that's more than enough to chew over, while we see if the Republicans do choose Gingrich as their candidate; and there is a lot of reason to think they will, as I've pointed out. Because Gingrich, while having many unpleasant characteristics, is a cunning political operator, moreso than his rivals. And that cunning might just be enough for him to achieve the unthinkable in November. The arena politics of America are suited to a unscrupulous gladiator like Gingrich; that explains how he has made himself a financial success, as well as re-inventing himself as the saviour of his party.
While the sane part of me guesses that most independent voters in the USA are as alarmed and repulsed by Gingrich as the Democrats are, politics is a fast-changing game.

The polls show that Gingrich would have almost no chance of beating Obama in November, if elected. Let's hope so. I like my "good-versus-evil" narrative just fine as it is.
Though the dark side of my personality wonders just how much "fun" it would be to have a person like Newt Gingrich as President of the United States. Like Dick Cheney, but with a sense of humour?

Obama/Gingrich 2012: a revealation.

As those you say that the apocalpyse is upon us, of the prophecy of the Mayans, that in the year of our lord two thousand and twelve, thus it has been said:

That there existeth a great Christian empire, founded across the waves from the Old World of lore, by those founders who consider themselves as equal to the apostles in their piety and morality, created for the equality and freedom of the followers of the lord.

And in this New World, their empire would be greater in influence and ideals than all those other kingdoms of the lord, which in its greatness, would dominate over all the others.

For this Christian empire would in its magnimanity, act as a magnet for all the oppressed of the world; this emigrants' empire would act as a beacon of light, speading the word of God to those other parts of the world as yet untouched by His word; from Mesopotamia to the lands of the Hindu Kush, emulating the reach of Alexander the Great.

And by the year of our lord two thousand and eight, this Christian empire will elect as its leader a man of great intellect, taught in the ways of jurisprudence and preach morality, and he will be the son of the man descended from the first men on the Earth, coming from the lands of those beyond the Nile.

His name will mean "a gift" to the empire itself (as will be said in its language, that of the men of Mohammed, "al-Barakka"), though some will consider him a messiah in his own right, born to lead the Christian empire out of a time of darkness and injustice.

For the empire that he inherits would be broken; wars in the lands of Alexander's conquests still to be concluded; the recklessness of his predecessor, unfortunately to share the same name as that of the empire's founder, would be legendary, and an insult to the founder's memory; the evil and baseness of his predecessor's followers would poison the country yet.

For this "messiah" would be tested like few others before him - many of the empire would doubt him; those who profit from poverty and debasement will continue to poison and curse his name; the party of his predecessor would plot to destroy every good act he does, and they would do so falsely claiming the name of the Lord, for these are the followers of the anti-Christ.

And so it would come to pass in the year of our lord two thousand and twelve, the decisive confrontation would take place between "al-Barakka", the leader of the greatest of all Christian empires, against the forces who seek to usurp the name of our Lord and bring about the fall of the empire into the hands of the followers of the Lord of the seven deadly sins; greed, vanity, wrath, sloth, lust, gluttony and envy.

And so the party of those forces, who would name falsely name themselves after the republic's ideals, who elect an anti-Christ who symbolises all these deadly sins. For this anti-Christ would be as intelligent as this greatest of emperors, versed in the histories of mankind and geography. He would use his skills of rhetoric to inflame the passions of the people, using falsehoods and wrathful words to distort the words of the emperor.

And so it would be that in the year of our lord two thousand and twelve, this anti-Christ, whose name would literally be "new town", would cause to call the emperor a traitor, using lofy words to encourage evil deeds, as is the wont of Lucifer.

For the apocalypse that is predicted is entirely within the hands of those with the power to elect; to choose the reign of the worthy and the intellectual, "al-Barakka"; or to elect an emperor who would seek to use fine words to usher in a new age of the anti-Christ, where the greatest Christian empire is ruled by a man of high intelligence but of no moral character, who would seek to destroy everything that holds the empire together, to turn man against man for the sake of greed, turn brother against brother for the sake of envy; to turn benevolence to malevolence abroad, for the the sake of wrath, and destroy the earth in a thousand fireballs.

Thus is written is the revealation of the year of our lord two thousand and twelve.

The Reluctant Empress and The Fallen Eagle

As the contemporary Eurozone appears as a neo-Holy Roman Empire, it is only fair to draw comment on the conduct of its "Emperor" (or "Empress"), Angela Merkel of Germany.
The current state of the Eurozone puts Germany in a morally awkward position. Having long recovered its status since the Second World War as the economic centre of Europe, its status as the home of the ECB and Europe's economic sentinel puts it in a position of unrivalled power compared to its Eurozone co-partners.
The awkwardness comes from the fact that since the fall of Hitler, Germans have been psychologically hard-wired to resist any temptation to use its strategic and economic muscle beyond its boundaries. The idea of a potential (Eurozone) "Fourth Reich" no doubt brings out most Germans in a cold sweat; their instinct is for pacifist non-intervention and stepping out of the spotlight at the earliest opportunity, as though they are terrified that somehow a jack-booted storm-trooper lies just under their skins, ready to burst out.
This thinking can be seen in the words and actions of the neo-Holy Roman Empress, Angela Merkel. As the governments of the Mediterranean collapse one after another, they are replaced by (non-elected) administrations that happen to fit the wishes of the Holy Roman Empress; she wishes exactly what the markets wish for: a return to fiscal sanity in the regimes south of the Alps. And while those new (imposed) regimes are there to sort out their respective financial mess, they still ask for further help from the Empress.
And the Empress Angela, partly for reasons of financial principle, and partly (it appears) out of fear of appearing too dictatorial, shies away from any thought of doing more for her southern clients. The mere thought of her being able to have such power over the fate of other nations, and using it, brings her, like her compatriots, out in a metaphorical cold sweat.

There are some odd comparisons to the attitude that Emperor Angela has to her new, financially-dependent, Southern European clients, and that which the USA had to the rest of the world prior to the First World War.
By the start of the 20th century, the USA was an empire in all but name, in that it possessed colonial dependencies (recently won from Spain), and was a world power of increasing influence. In spite of that, many Americans were (and still are) in denial about their imperial status. They were loathe to interfere in affairs beyond their immediate vicinity, notwithstanding what the first President of the American Empire, Theodore Roosevelt, called "policing" in the Western Hemisphere - such as the creation of the Panama canal (by supporting Panama's independence from Mexico), amongst others. It took the First World War, and the European Powers' mass suicide of the First World War, to get the American Empire to take an interest in what happened beyond its shores.
Likewise, it may well take the even more drastic financial collapse of Italy, Greece or Spain, for the Empress Angela to realise that Germany may well eventually have to grasp the nettle of financial responsibility for the rest of the Eurozone, come what may. Like it or not, Germany may eventually have to realise the reality of it's own financial "White Man's Burden" - The Reluctant Empress may have to accept her imperial financial obligations, and rule the fiscal roost over Italy and Greece, regardless of her feelings on the matter.

There is one more take on this issue: that the financial perspective that Angela Merkel takes on the bailouts of Italy and Greece is remarkably similar to that of the Republicans' view of how to deal with the American economy. Merkel believes that the way of dealing with Italy and Greece's economic mismanagement is not to help them (through an injection of foreign funds), but to force them to deal with the issue by themselves (through cutting government expenditure); likewise, the Republicans' believe that the way of dealing with the American economy is not to help it (through a federal injection of funds), but to force the government to deal with the issue on its own (through cutting government expenditure).
This issue of financial responsibility brings into sharp light the reality of America and Europe in the 21st century; that, from a financial point of view, they are run in more or less a similar manner, with similar issues of sovereignty over fiscal responsibility.

In other words, the EU/Eurozone and the USA are both post-modern empires built on some kind of federal structure.
The former is ran in a similar way to the medieval Holy Roman Empire: a loose, semi-autonomous network of minor states and princelings, held together by an imperial figurehead, whose power is more important within the Empire than without.
The latter is ran more like the Roman Empire of ancient times; divided into clearly-marked provinces ("states") with their own governor, but ultimately held accountable to an imperial centre ("Washington DC"), ruled by a Emperor who, counter-intuitively, has more say, and usually more interest, in foreign affairs than those within the confines of the Empire.
In that sense, like the Holy Roman Emperor of medival times, Empress Angela has more clout within the Eurozone that she does compared to the influence she has on other imperial world leaders. Conversely, like the Roman Emperor of ancient times, Emperor Barack has more influence on world affairs than he does in his own squabbling Senate.
This makes these two major Western powers of the 21st century, facing each other on opposite sides of the Atlantic, political giants but also political deadweights, in some ways, compared to the likes of China or Russia.
The European Empire of Empress Angela is too concerned about its own parochial intricacies to allow its figurehead be taken seriously by the rest of the world; at the same time, the American Empire of Emperor Barack may well be taken seriously by the rest of the world, but the relentless machinations of his fractious political elite prevent him from fully taking advantage of it.
Thus Western civilisation is represented on the world stage by a Reluctant Empress and a Fallen Eagle.

Obama´s Luck: is he a Clinton, or a Carter?

With the midterm elections this November, and the fact that Obama and the Democrats are expecting to lose out to the Republicans, what might this mean for Obama´s presidency?

The fates of the last two Democratic presidents at the same point in their terms may hold some answers, both positive and negative.

Carter, coming to power on the back of a wave of anti-Republicanism in 1976, faced a host of domestic problems. In the midterms if 1978, inspite of these problems, and the fact that he was quickly seen as well-intentioned but ineffective leader, the Democrats lost only a small number of seats. That said, two years later, with a resurgent GOP and a charismatic leader, Ronald Reagan, Carter was trounced in the 1980.

Clinton came to power in 1992 but made a number of mistakes, so by the 1994 midterms the resurgent Republicans, led by aggressive speaker Newt Gingrich, wiped out much of the Democrats power base. That said, Clinton quickly found his feet and bounced back, Gingrich´s power went to his head, and by 1996 Clinton was a shoo-in to win a second term, and did. We all know the rest.

So where does this put Obama in 2010? The way that the Republican grassroots base has been hijacked by the Tea Party seems similar to the way that Reagan took the Republicans in a new, even more right-wing "free market" direction after 1976, when the Monetarists and bankers took command of Reagan´s economic policy.
The problem with drawing too many similarities to Carter´s fate is that the Republicans of 2010 do not seem to have a charismatic leader (as they had in Reagan in 1978), apart from the antics of Sarah Palin, who largely appeals to the party base rather than the wider public.
This is why the fate of Clinton might offer more hope for Obama. The antics of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party have more in common with the theatrics of Newt Gingrich in the ´90s. Assuming that the Democrats are badly defeated in November, the Tea Party may well commit the same error that Gingrich made - becoming arrogant in the extreme, to the point that turns off ordinary people.

This is the Democrats secret hope now, no doubt. This gives Obama hope for the chances of winning a second term if the Tea Party bandwagon´s wheels quickly start falling off once it is given the limelight of political responsibility after success in the midterms. Certainly, the behaviour of the partisan Tea Party gives some weight to this point of view.
The Democrats dread, therefore, is that the "guy on main street" may see the antics of the Tea Party, but still consider them the lesser of two "evils" - the "evil" of big government versus the "evil" of no government, and prefer no government interference to well-intentioned initiatives from Washington.

The complicating factor in all this is the economy. The "recovery" has yet to really take hold, and the country may well remain sluggish beyond 2012, because recoveries after crises are never quick to take hold. After the "lost decade" of the 2000s that the Bush administration presided over added weight to the lie that Republicans are responsible managers of the economy (under Reagan and Bush Jr, they allowed the national debt to balloon to offset low taxes). And yet, people are turning back to them so quickly after the tumultuous first two years of the Obama administration. Patience may be a virtue, but it is one that is sorely lacking in many Americans in need of jobs and financial assistance.

The horrible irony is that the Republicans may be rewarded for not only wrecking the economy, but also sabotaging the recovery.