The failures of the second Bush administration were totally self-inflicted.
They wanted to regain the world's respect by "projecting American power"
... and ended up with so many troops pinned down in two small countries that they were virtually immobilized militarily.
They wanted to have an "owner society"
... and wound up with financial collapse.
Now the Republicans want to create prosperity through tax-cuts and budget-balancing
... and we already know that would be self-defeating. Like Herbert Hoover's belt-tightening, it would convert a financial crisis into a long-term depression.
There are two groups who seem unconcerned about the obvious destruction these policies cause.
The first is the (newly?) rich financiers who are as sensitive as small children or tyrants to any perceived insult. They've gotten theirs by concentrating the wealth that was accumulated over the past century into fewer and fewer hands. They've gotten it so fast and with so little need to consider where it came from that they're hardly aware of the larger complex society behind it.
The second group is those who gained a majority through Nixon's "Southern Strategy" based on the white backlash to the civil rights movement. The core of this group seems to be motivated, in the end, simply by fear of black neighborhoods. When they do gain power they are totally oblivious to the fact that the've gotten ahold of a fist full of sand (the tighter you squeeze it, the quicker it slips through your fingers).
In the end, it all seems to come down to:
Hard power is expensive and soft power is productive.
The problem is we have to live through their finding that out the hard way.
Here's a thought from Michelle Obama:
Here's the thing about my husband: even in the toughest moments, when
it seems like all is lost, Barack Obama never loses sight of the end
goal. He never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the
noise, even if it comes from some of his best supporters. He just
keeps moving forward.
And in those moments when we're all sweating it, when we're worried
that the bill won't pass or the negotiation will fall through, Barack
always reminds me that we're playing a long game here. He reminds me
that change is slow -- it doesn't happen overnight.
If we keep showing up, if we keep fighting the good fight and doing
what we know is right, then eventually we will get there.
We always have.
Change isn't easy. Keep showing up!
(footnotes:
Of course, Republicans' self-defeating policies lead to a great deal of suffering and loss for everyone else, but that's not the topic here ;).
It's federal spending which breaks out of recessions/depressions. FDR's spending on relief and development programs brought the country back from the brink in the Great Depression. And the massive government spending of World War II led (with the spoils of war) to the greatest prosperity of any people in history.
The white-backlash folks have now reached the point where they know it's over. They no longer live in a world where white Christian heterosexual male is the norm and everyone else is a variation from that norm -- a 'minority'. Their neighborhood is no longer the basic background of all society so now they feel truly and thoroughly left behind.
And then there's The Free Market.
There is also a smaller group of (newly?) moderately educated folks who see in the free exchange of goods a positive metaphor for society as a whole.
In the middle-ages, after a plague or a prolonged drought or cold spell, the histories will say, recovery was marked "by the reappearance of market days and, finally, of the market towns".
A flourishing market for goods and services is cradled in the cupped hands of an already well-developed society. It depends on a healthy and productive population, on a secure and efficient transportation system, and on stable currency and contract enforcement; in short, on the entire organization of an established civilization.
Should these Libertarians, perish the thought, actually be able to put their ideas into practice, it would lead to a contraction so severe as to end in complete collapse.)