Most Americans have been getting sick and tired of the war in Iraq. It drags on month after month, pulling the country ever deeper into a whirlpool of insurgent terrorism, rising American military casualties, chaos and destruction. But war weariness was not the overriding factor that decided the outcome of the Congressional and state elections in November of 2006. No matter how bad conditions are in Iraq, Americans' concerns were naturally focused on conditions right here at home-on the moral issues affecting their country and on the domestic issues affecting their personal daily lives.
In particular, a sizable and vocal group of Americans is primarily concerned about retaining their wealth and health. The enormous "baby boomer's" generation is retiring, joining those left of the "greatest" generation to produce the largest and most powerful voting bloc in the United States: our senior citizens. This sector of the American population, their hierarchy of values and concerns, was a chief determinant of the election results.
At the top of the elderly concern list was social security. President Bush's efforts to reform the social security system have made older folks worried that government will not assure them a comfortable retirement. Several decades ago, the average American saved sufficient money for his retirement, which tended to last only ten years. Now that the average retirement lasts almost thirty years, senior citizens' own savings are far from adequate. The baby boomers have tended to save much less than their parents and grandparents did, which is a result of their comfortable upbringing as well as of the amazing variety of technologically advanced goods that feeds their materialist weakness. Moreover, the federal budget deficit has skyrocketed to record-breaking levels during the Bush administration and will have to be eventually repaid, seizing hundreds of billions of tax dollars from both social security and health care.
This brings us to the second priority of seniors: health care. Due to a massive propaganda campaign waged by the US government and biotechnologist, both of whom are eager to launch a new multi-billion-dollar industry, older folks have been duped into thinking that embryonic stem-cells offer the magic cure to their diseases. Thus a Missouri measure allowing scientists in that state to clone human embryos and then kill them for their stem-cells narrowly passed. Because of a greater reliance on private funding, well-known rising costs and inefficiency plague the US health care system. Health insurance companies have been fighting tooth and nail to prevent the government from lowering insurance costs by paying a larger fraction of them. Additionally, since 9/11 the Bush administration has severely crippled the Veterans' Administration with funding cuts, forcing 340,000 military veterans to pay out of their own pockets while waiting to receive disability ratings in 2005. And despite rising insurance costs, the Bush administration's health savings accounts have not garnered the support of older Americans, who see them as a thinly veiled governmental attempt to relinquish all responsibility for their health care.
The economy is a third vital issue to the elderly. With a deepening recession since 2001, senior citizens felt that five years was enough of a chance for the Republicans to display their economic talent. Keeping our energy needs tied to oil creates rising energy costs despite low inflation and benefits petroleum magnates at the elderly's expense. While the growth of big business to immense proportions has indeed created millions of new jobs, it has destroyed millions more by forcing hundreds of thousands of small businesses to close. Official coddling of the high-tech, electronics, and defense industries has caused them to engulf other fields, leading to an imbalanced economy. Furthermore, low interest rates have reduced the standard of living for those whose income depends entirely on interest. Moreover, retired Americans are concerned that their tax dollars are subsidizing a huge wave of semi-permanent illegal immigrants which is sustaining the mega-corporate dominance and taking jobs from American citizens. They are outraged that Republicans have sacrificed the security of our national borders to the demands of American big business.
However, the elderly alone did not shape this past election. Two overlapping constituencies with diametrically opposite interests chose the same Democratic Party. For younger and underprivileged residents of the United States (a growing, ethnically and religiously diverse group which includes most Blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, and some Catholics), persistent poverty was the defining concern.
Lacking the younger generation's majority commitment to moral values, Americans in general simply tend to vote based on their social condition: the rich want to keep their wealth while the poor want a better life. Across age groups and wealth levels the real or perceived security of jobs and income has always been a key determinant factor, or swing issue, of party affiliation and voting. That is why good-sized cities vote Democratic and rural areas vote Republican. A good instance of this general rule was offered by western Ohio, for instance, where Allen County in economic shambles voted 55 percent Democratic and a limping Hardin County gave the Democrats 51 percent, while my own slightly better Logan County voted 52 percent Republican and the fairly sound Mercer County chose Republicans by a whopping 60 percent. The state of the economy as described above is clearly a pressing issue for all Americans, but without the allegiance of younger and poorer voters to the Democratic Party, it could not have triumphed in 2006.
In addition, the gradual disappearance of the middle class is inevitably becoming a polarizing factor in American society. While the phenomenon of globalization has brought many benefits such as higher employment rates, the exponential development and affordability of technology, the rapid transmission of news and information, and greater knowledge and appreciation of other cultures, it has also led to greater economic instability and widened the gap between rich and poor. The national median income has been declining since the late 1980s for all but the top quintile of Americans from $44,603 in 1990 to $43,389 in 2003 (using 2003 dollars), with the richest 10 percent now earning fifteen times more than the bottom 10 percent. Another relevant example is Mexico, where a local financial crisis in 1994 was exacerbated by a rapid withdrawal of foreign investment, pushing millions of Mexicans to immigrate to the United States every year since then. Thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), we now have a huge population of Mexican illegal immigrants who have joined poorer American citizens to create an ever-expanding underclass. As the wealthy grow fewer and wealthier and the poor grow more numerous, the discontent of latter group can only rise.
How did Republicans manage to retain a large minority in the fluid US House of Representatives and almost hang on to the Senate? The answer is abortion. Though propaganda and advertising have been effective, more and more Americans are coming to understand what a barbaric and unjust practice abortion is. The abortion rate has been declining since a peak of 1.4 million in 1990 and was down to less than one million in 2003, according to the Center for Disease Control. Evangelical Protestants, followed by white American young people, represent the largest and strongest pro-life constituencies; the most outspoken group of pro-life advocates is women who have had abortions. Research carried out by the Pew Research Center, PollingPoint and other organizations indicates that roughly two-thirds of the younger generation tends to place moral issues at the top of their hierarchy of values. For them the right to life from conception to natural death precedes all other issues, including the economy, terrorism and even the war in Iraq. Furthermore, with this election the number of pro-life Democrats in Congress grew from twenty-nine to thirty-six.
With the aid of money, numerous candidates secured their victory in the recent elections despite flagging or insufficient popularity. The most notable example was Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut, who supported abortion on demand and the war in Iraq yet defeated his more popular challenger Ned Lamont. Other cases included prolific novelist Jim Webb in Virginia, attorney-general Sheldon Whitehouse in Rhode Island, and multimillionaire construction entrepreneur Republican candidate Bob Corker in Tennessee. Large campaign contributions simply finance a high volume and quality of advertisements to reach prospective voters, increasing the chance of success against a less wealthy opponent.
Finally, we must not ignore the role of voter turnout-and lack thereof-in assessing the latest elections. Surely a substantial percentage of Democrats and independents eager to turn the country in "a new direction" went to the polls, while millions of traditionally-minded Republicans alienated by President Bush's economic and foreign policies sat at home.
Democrats hoped to sweep the United States in the 2006 election, but they failed to do so because Americans will not easily give up their precious moral values. Nonetheless, they did wrest control of Congress from Republicans due to a recessing economy, real and perceived health care needs, and the breakdown of social security. Although the war in Iraq may be unpopular by a landslide, it was the paramount issue only for the small fraction of Americans who consider themselves staunch anti-imperialists, Communists, internationalists, or pacifists. The values of the growing "baby boomer" senior community as well as of younger and poorer American residents have emerged and become dominant for the time being.
Born and raised a devout American Catholic, Justin Soutar has published sixteen articles on various political subjects in a wide range of Internet and print publications. He lives in the Ohio countryside.
