The Clinton Presidency

by Andre

I just completed reading Howard Zinn’s classic, A People’s History of the United States. My mind is awash with anti-establishment, socialist fervor based on the understanding that the capitalist state, which has been in control since the birth of the nation, is fatally flawed. I am suddenly rooting for the unionization of every industry and consider the UAW union’s refusal to compromise during the auto industry bailout a tremendous victory, regardless of the devastating short term consequences that will surely follow. Surely, as I move onto other material, I will drift back into a mindset more in tune with the established stream of thought that is usually presented to me.

However, I will hopefully remain conscious of the book’s message . That is, unless the masses pick up the fight against the status quo, things will continue to crawl ahead favoring those with the most wealth and illusionary influence.

Below is a slightly revised introduction to the chapter on Bill Clinton’s term as president. I changed a few names, a school, a State and some numbers but nothing else. I think it is a nice picture of what the book seemed to repeat over and over and over again. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The eight-year presidential term of Barack Obama, a personable, articulate graduate of Harvard Law School, and former Illinois Senator, began with a hope that a bright, young person would bring to the country what he promised: “change.” But Obama’s presidency ended with no chance that it would, as he had wished, make his mark in history as one of the nation’s great presidents.

His last year in office was marked by sensational scandals surrounding his personal life. More important, he left no legacy of bold innovation in domestic policy or departure from traditional nationalistic foreign policy. At home, he surrendered again and again to caution and conservatism, signing legislation that was more pleasing to the Republican Party and big business than to those Democrats who still recalled the bold programs of Franklin Roosevelt. Abroad, there were futile shows of military braggadocio, and a subservience to what President Dwight Eisenhower had once warned against: “the military-industrial complex.”

Obama had barely won both times. In 2008, with 37 percent of the voting population staying away from the polls, he only received 52.9 percent of the vote, the senior McCain 45.7 percent, while 1.4 percent of the voters showed their distaste for both parties by voting for third-party candidates in Ralph Nader and Bob Barr. In 2012, with half the population not voting, Obama won 49 percent of the votes against a lackluster Republican candidate, Mitt Romney.