Liberals for Bush

By Alexei Bayer

Last time I voted was back in 1992. Since then I’ve joined the 40-50% of American voters who stay away from the polling stations on presidential elections. It has not been a form of apathy or political protest on my part, merely a way of admitting that American democracy doesn’t need my help. But things are going to be different in 2004.

The electorate is bitterly split into those who strongly support President George W. Bush and those who are equally eager to boot him out of the White House.

This may not translate into higher voter turnout come November 2nd. I know one thing, however: I’m going to vote. Yet, to the dismay of our New York Liberal circle of acquaintances, I’m planning to vote for Mr. Bush. And, moreover, I’ve registered a website, www.liberals-for-bush.org and plan to contribute to my man’s political campaign.

Not because I like Bush as a person or admire his policies. Quite the opposite. I believe that his domestic and international policies have been a disaster, and that his has probably been the worst administration in American history.

On the economy, the government has pursued a virulent form of military-industrial Keynsianism, providing two over-the-top income tax cuts while also boosting spending on the military and national security. In response to such fiscal profligacy, the central bank should have long ago curbed monetary policy. But Alan Greenspan’s Federal Reserve has kept its interest rates at 40-year lows.

True, inflation in run-of-the-mill consumer goods and services has been kept under wraps by intense global competition, but prices in all sectors where supply has been constrained—from medical care and education to real estate, financial markets and, most recently, oil and other commodities—have been going through the roof. In addition, a surfeit of dollars is now sloshing around the global financial system as a result of a yawning US trade gap. A dollar crisis has been prevented so far by relentless buying of greenbacks and US Treasury bonds by foreign central banks. The 11 largest Asian central banks alone have bought over $500 billion worth of dollars in 2003.

Foreign policy has been equally reckless. The neo-cons have abandoned the cautious policy of containment, which served Washington so well during the Cold War, for Soviet-style adventurism and radical actions, such as regime changes and exportation of ideology. In the process, the Bush Administration has antagonized its allies and helped al Qaeda’s propaganda and recruitment drive. By dividing the world into evil terrorists and good guys, it has neglected other, potentially more serious threats to US national security, such as Russia and China. Most importantly, by its policies at home and abroad, the United States has lowered the international standard of decency, which this country, by virtue of being the Leader of the Free World, has historically set.

So, why am I still voting for Bush?

Some of my more politically savvy friends accuse me of following the odious Leninist principle—“the worse the better”.

However, I’m merely being pragmatic. Over the next four years, all those chickens will start coming home to roost. So many aspects of US domestic and international policy have been mismanaged, neglected or ignored that at least one major crisis, and several minor ones, is unavoidable. In the economy, it is likely to be a burst of some liquidity-generated bubbles, a collapse of real estate prices or a major devaluation of the dollar.

In the international arena, things hardly look better. Leaving Iraq is clearly not an option for any occupant of the White House, and it will remain a breeding ground for terrorism. Allies, even though they fear Iraq’s disintegration into a failed state, will be both reluctant and unable to help even if John Kerry comes to them hat in hand. The US military, for all the expenditure of taxpayer money, has run into trouble after conquering one small despotate, becoming dangerously overstretched. In short, if he has the misfortune of becoming elected in November, President Kerry will likely find himself with many difficult problems on his hands. He risks entering history as another pathetic figure in the White House, much like Jimmy Carter who similarly had to deal with an endless array of disasters: inflation, energy crisis, economic stagnation, Ethiopia, Central America, Angola, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.

I suspect that the neocons know it. Theirs is a radical revolutionary movement, and, like their predecessors in history, it thrives in opposition. But when they get a chance to implement their theories in practice, the revolutionaries often find out that freedom has to be safeguarded by razor wire and that the liberated masses have to be convinced of their good fortune at the point of the bayonet. This is why lately Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and their ideological cohorts have seemed not particularly eager to return to power after November. Much nicer, indeed, to return to their academic ivory towers, complaining that the Democrats, as usual, have destroyed a very good thing.

Since the difficult years ahead are the fault of the Bush Administration, it would only be fair if the President and his advisors were in the White House when the ceiling started to collapse around their ears. If blame for misguided policies is laid to the feet of those who bear the responsibility for it, it is very likely that by 2008 the nation as a whole and the Republican party in particular will have gotten very much over its fling with right-wing radicalism.