Issue 226 of SOCIALIST REVIEW Published January 1999 Copyright © Socialist Review

In the last few weeks the US bombarded Iraq with its biggest military assault since the end of the Gulf War-- raining 400 cruise missiles and hundreds of bombs over Iraqi people on the eve of the Muslim holiday, Ramadan. Against this backdrop, Pentagon officials declared their intention to shift to a new 'policy of containment' against Iraq, meaning regular air strikes to keep Iraq from rebuilding. Meanwhile, back in Washington, the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Clinton, setting the stage for a full Senate impeachment trial-- over a peccadillo.

At first glance, mainstream US politics appears to have galloped to the right, with the Republican right firmly in control at home and US imperialism on the rampage abroad. In reality, however, the events of the last month are the culmination of the unravelling of the Republicans' dominance in Washington, while the Democrats continue to stand in their shadow-- with both parties increasingly out of touch with those over whom they rule. US society is not a bastion of conservatism, but one in which class and social polarisation are creating a crisis at the top. The impeachment of Clinton is the ludicrous form which this crisis has taken, but the crisis is serious. And the US military's murderous assault on Iraq is a transparent attempt by Clinton to divert attention from the impeachment proceedings.

Newt Gingrich's unceremonious retirement from politics illustrates this crisis within the US ruling class. Gingrich baptised the 'Republican revolution'-- and became its symbol-- merely four years ago. Gingrich's rise to power in Washington was widely viewed, even among most of the left, as a popular endorsement of the Christian right. Gingrich's ousting by his own party leadership at the end of November demonstrated not merely his own personal failure, but the failure of the Republican revolution itself. In fact, Gingrich's predicted right wing ascendancy failed to materialise.

After the Republican Party swept the November 1994 elections and won its first Congressional majority in 40 years, Gingrich stood on the steps of Congress and ceremoniously unveiled the Republican Party's 'Contract with America'-- a wish list for wealthy conservatives and the Christian right. But the Contract with America soon came to be known as the Contract on America-- and immediately made Gingrich one of the most despised public officials in America. The party dropped the slogan altogether by the end of 1995. Apparently, many ordinary people took offence at Gingrich's suggestion that the children of mothers thrown off welfare should be placed in orphanages. Others found his 'family values' rhetoric hypocritical, when it emerged that he'd served his first wife with divorce papers at her hospital bed while she recovered from cancer surgery. Still more became angered as he dished out tax breaks for the rich while opposing a raise in the minimum wage or even the most basic healthcare rights for workers.

But Clinton defeated the Republican revolution by stealing its programme. Clinton, not Gingrich, implemented the key tenets of the Contract with America-- ending welfare, longer prison sentences and greater use of the death penalty, cutting taxes for the rich. He did so, however, without the blazing rhetoric of the Republicans. Whereas Gingrich threatened to place poor children in orphanages, Clinton described the welfare cuts as helping welfare families to 'break the cycle of dependency'. Even now Clinton claims he aims to 'save' the government's social security pension fund for the elderly-- by privatising it.

In 1998 the Republicans enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to bring Clinton down on the basis of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But their obsession with Clinton's sex life proved to be Gingrich's final undoing. Since independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr first raised the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal last January, a growing majority of the population has opposed this intrusion into the personal life of a public official. Nevertheless, the Republican Party, beholden to the Christian right for its 1994 election victory, was unwilling to reverse its steady march towards impeachment hearings. If anything, its attacks on Clinton became more shrill as election day approached-- Gingrich oversaw a $10 million spate of commercial ads addressing the Lewinsky scandal in a 'surprise attack' on the Democrats. Only the Republicans were surprised when the plan backfired and the Republicans' expected election victory sputtered, with no gains in the Senate and the loss of five seats in the House. In two states voters rejected bans on late term abortions. A host of Republicans with ties to the Christian right were ousted-- including Alabama governor Fob James, who gained national notoriety after threatening to call out the National Guard to defend the displaying of the ten commandments in Alabama courtrooms.

Voter exit polls showed that 70 percent-- including 49 percent of Republicans-- said the Republicans' focus on Clinton's sex life was 'mainly responsible' for their poor showing in the election. Gingrich, who, in June, declared his intention to mention Monica Lewinsky at least once in every speech, was paid back with a 60 percent unfavourable rating by voters. Within days a mutiny within the Republican Party leadership forced Gingrich to resign as Speaker of the House. Gingrich claimed he had been 'blackmailed' into resigning by 'cannibals' within the party. But he had no one to blame but himself. Gingrich, who in headier days described himself as a 'definer of civilisation', had attempted to revive Reaganism in the 1990s. But instead of mass consciousness moving to the right as he expected, it has steadily moved to the left as class consciousness grows. Instead of embracing the Bible thumping of the Christian right, most people have become increasingly repulsed by it.

The 7 October murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard, for example, led to a widespread outcry against anti-gay bigotry, with vigils and demonstrations across the US. Many of the demonstrators directly blamed the anti-gay newspaper and television ads produced by the Christian Family Research Council, which urged gays to 'change' into heterosexuals, for whipping up anti-gay hysteria. The sentiment against anti-gay bigotry since the Shepard murder has been so strong that even the Miami-Dade County Commission-- the birthplace of the 'Save our Children' anti-gay crusade which struck down legal protection for gays 20 years ago-- voted on 2 December to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. As the New York Times noted of the vote, 'Both gay rights advocates and Miami-Dade officials agree that the vote reflects a national change in attitude as Americans have become increasingly tolerant of equal rights' for gays and lesbians.

At least some on the right recognise this shift. James Dobsen, leader of Focus on the Family, said after the November election, 'My greatest concern is not with the Oval Office or Capitol Hill. My greatest reason for being depressed today is the American people... The country has lurched to the left... There has been a radical change in the moral tone of this country.' Andrea Shelton, executive Director of the Traditional Values Coalition, bemoaned that 'we live in a post-Christian culture' in which people have 'a live and let live, do whatever feels good attitude'.' The Republican Party, however, has yet to understand this trend. Republican media consultant Larry McCarthy admitted that the Republicans' focus on family values and crime was out of touch with mass consciousness today. But, he said hopefully, 'crime rates may go up.'

The party, meanwhile, replaced Gingrich as House Speaker with Representative Robert Livingston of Louisiana-- who recently received a 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union. But Livingston was never even sworn in. The 'family values' Republican was forced to resign in the midst of the impeachment hearings, after admitting to multiple extra-marital affairs. He did so only after Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt announced that he would print the details about Livingston.

Clinton's fortunes have improved, largely because of the Republicans' relentless attacks on his sex life rather than anything that he has done. His popularity rating has not dipped below its record high of 60 percent since the impeachment debacle began in September. But Clinton's popularity is a mile wide and an inch deep. Newsweek reported that voter exit polls showed just 30 percent agreed that the US 'two-party system offers a good range of views and candidates'.

The twin parties of capitalism, the Democrats and Republicans, offer no opportunity for working class people to vote for a class alternative. Many workers express their alienation from mainstream politics by simply abstaining. Barely 36 percent of the electorate turned out to vote in November, hardly a ringing endorsement of politics as usual. Other voters express their discontent by voting for anyone other than the Democrats and Republicans. This phenomenon explains the surprise victory of Reform Party candidate and former wrestler Jesse 'The Body' Ventura, whose campaign slogan, 'Retaliate in '98!' won him the governorship of Minnesota.

And if the Republican Party is oblivious to the shifting political terrain, the Democrats are equally out of touch with the issues important to ordinary working class people. Most voters said the issues they view as important include healthcare reform, state funded education, jobs and social security for the elderly-- issues which both parties have virtually ignored. A recent survey of state education in 29 industrialised countries by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found the US has one of the lowest literacy rates. It ranks second to the lowest (trailed only by Mexico) in high school graduation rates. And the report described teachers in the US as among the lowest paid and most overworked.

Working class people brought Clinton to power in 1992, based largely upon his promise to reform the healthcare system. Since then 6 million more people have lost their health coverage, bringing the total to 44 million people-- 16 percent of the population-- who lack any health coverage whatsoever. Instead of universal healthcare, Clinton's presidency has brought the dominance of giant health conglomerates, so called 'health maintenance organisations' (HMOs), whose priority is making profits, not providing healthcare. HMOs' rejection of treatment is so commonplace that emergency room staff routinely ask, 'What's your insurance?' and withhold treatment until the HMO has okayed it. One in every ten hospitals has been caught at least once turning patients away from emergency rooms because they lack insurance or because their insurance will not cover treatment. Even Clinton's meagre 'Patient's Bill of Rights', which would have guaranteed such emergency treatment, failed to pass through Congress.

Now 16 of the 25 biggest HMOs have been merged into a handful of corporate giants, who dominate the healthcare industry. Several recently announced they are dropping the poor and the elderly entirely from their rolls because they are unprofitable 'markets'. After holding down prices for several years to lure companies to enrol their employees, 85 percent of insured workers are now enrolled in HMOs. But in 1999 they have made no secret that they plan to boost their profits by raising prices up to 20 percent, most of which companies plan to force workers to pay. This will also force more than a million more working class people to forego health coverage, simply because they cannot afford it, or can't find a company willing to cover them.

Newt Gingrich's departure has had virtually no impact on the lives of ordinary people-- as the chasm separating the rich and powerful from ordinary workers continues to grow. Hence in December Congress continued to press forward with impeachment while the Democrats begged for a censure of Clinton, when the majority of people want neither. Clinton bombed Iraq in response to Gingrich's demise, as if to demonstrate the strength of his presidency with the military might of US imperialism. And the excesses of corporate greed continued unabated, as Business Week declared confidently in early December that Wall Street is 'partying again'. Stock prices rebounded after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates three times in two months, recouping the entire 20 percent loss of August and September. Economists who, just weeks earlier, predicted the onset of a major world recession bounced back with the rebound on Wall Street. One shortsighted equity strategist at Salomon Smith Barney rejoiced, 'We've gone through a classic market cycle in a matter of weeks instead of the months or even years that it used to take.'

Those willing to look beyond the Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, have expressed a great deal more cynicism. The Economist, for example, pointed out in an article entitled, 'A Spree a Day Keeps Recession at Bay', that for the first time since the 1930s US consumer spending began exceeding income in September, and worsened in October. Moreover, stock prices now stand at a record high of 27 times last year's profits. A spate of corporate mergers amounts to little more than, as business writer Allan Sloan argued in Newsweek, 'trading the buyer's overpriced stock for the seller's overpriced stock. It's like trading a $50,000 mongrel dog for two $25,000 alley cats.'

And while the average stock prices rose 20 percent, that average is skewed by a few stocks, such as Microsoft and Wal-Mart, which are up 100 percent or more. The average stock is up only about 4 percent-- and more than 200 of the Standard and Poor 500 stocks are down at least 20 percent. Most importantly, the Asian crisis has lowered corporate profits by 2 percent from a year ago, hitting manufacturing the hardest. Companies will attempt to restore profits by cutting costs, mostly on the backs of workers.

But raising profits on the backs of workers was made easier by the likes of Newt Gingrich, who could always be counted on to shift mainstream politics further to the right, allowing Clinton and the Democrats to offer a softer version of the same policies. Meanwhile, with working class consciousness moving leftwards, the racist scapegoating employed by Gingrich-- and again, more gingerly, by Clinton-- has begun backfiring. In Georgia, Republican candidate Mitch Skandalakis ran for lieutenant governor last autumn with a bigoted ad showing his Democratic opponent shaking hands with Atlanta's black mayor, as an announcer said, 'First Taylor...fought to preserve discriminatory racial quotas. Then, he was solidly endorsed by the homosexual paper, Southern Voice.' Skandalakis was soundly defeated.

With welfare ended, politicians can no longer get much political mileage from the claim that 'welfare cheats' are stealing tax dollars. Public concern has shifted to the sharp rise in poverty. With the steady drop in violent crime each year in this decade, combined with the tripling of the prison population since 1980-- totalling 1.6 million people behind bars, the vast majority for non-violent, drug related offences-- the crime hysteria which Gingrich and Clinton generated earlier in the 1990s is no longer an issue. Police brutality and the racist injustice of the prison system have, however, become issues for the nearly ten percent of the black population who are either in jail, on probation or on parole, and for their families.

The politicians in Washington have made no attempt to address the real problems facing working class people. Newt Gingrich's departure should bury the myth once and for all that the right is on the rise in the US. Anger at the profiteers of the free market is growing. Opposition to racism and other forms of bigotry is growing. As such, the openness to socialist ideas is greater now than in decades.

The willingness to struggle is also growing. The struggles tend to be localised-- pickets and small demonstrations against the death penalty or police brutality, small strikes, and against the bombing of Iraq. But movements always start small, especially when the working class has been in retreat for two decades. And struggle does not grow steadily, but rises and falls and rises again as workers regain confidence to fight. Nearly a year passed between the UPS strike of 1997 and a series of important strikes last summer among auto and phone workers. And since the summer the strike level has dropped again. But the sense of despair felt by millions of workers in the face of an unrelenting employers' offensive is beginning to be replaced-- at least among those who are starting to fight back-- by the sense of hope that comes of struggle.