Senator John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee for president, likes to say that he was a "foot soldier" in the Reagan Revolution. So was I, working out of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. But, unlike McCain, a good man and a true American hero, I don't intend to vote Republican this November. I am voting for Senator Barack Obama.
Meritocracy is at the core of US conservative beliefs. So let's face it: George W. Bush has been the worst US president in memory. His administration has been inept, corrupt and without accomplishment. After this performance, why give the Republicans another turn at the helm?
Let's give the other party a chance, even if its policies are not exactly what conservatives may like. In the US, we call it "throwing the bums out."
When meritocracy is downgraded, as it has been during the Bush years, bad things happen. Worst of all, racism has flourished, because productivity and social utility have become less effective in protecting targets of discrimination.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the current debate over illegal immigration. It is not so much the illegality of their entrance into the US that riles many conservative Republicans; it's the migrants themselves, especially Hispanics who can't speak English. Never mind that Hispanic migrants are among the hardest-working people in the US.
It is a bitter irony that John McCain, war hero, is considered a traitor by the conservative wing of his party because he has a compassionate attitude toward undocumented immigrants.
Sadly, the Republican Party has been hijacked during the Bush years by sloganeers using code phrases like "illegal immigration" and "protecting the middle class" to mask their racism, and "economic incentive effects" to justify tax policies that are blatantly tilted to the rich.
Responding to this politics of hate, Obama likes to call himself a "hopemonger," not a "hatemonger." It's a great line and it applies.
Hope always sells well in the US. Reagan understood that, and it is one of the reasons he was a great and beloved president, even if some of his policies were flawed. As Senator Hillary Clinton, Obama's rapidly fading rival for the Democratic nomination, is finding out to her dismay, policies can be an overrated commodity in presidential elections that really matter.
The hope that Obama is holding out for Americans is one of reconciliation -- racial, political, between the wealthy and the poor, and between the US and its allies. This is powerful stuff, and dwarfs the narrow technocratic instincts of Clinton, whose schoolgirl approach to the campaign has justly earned her defeat after defeat in the primaries.
Just as former US president Ronald Reagan had his "Reagan Democrats" who were attracted by his message of hope after the malaise of the Jimmy Carter years, Obama will have his "Obama Republicans," attracted by the hope of national reconciliation and healing.
Non-Americans must understand that there is yet another revolution brewing in the US, and that senators Clinton and McCain are both likely to be swept away by it. When conservative Republicans support liberal Democrats (Obama has been rated the most liberal member of the US Senate), "the times they are a-changin'," as Bob Dylan wrote 45 years ago.
Moreover, a crucial difference today is that the generational conflict that so characterized the 1960s -- "Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command," as Bob Dylan put it -- is absent. The young may be taking the lead -- what Obama calls "a revolution from the bottom up" -- but there is little opposition from today's parents.
Indeed, I personally know a successful US hedge fund manager who is quite conservative and consistently votes Republican, but who is thinking of supporting Obama. His daughter dates an African-American and, to his credit, he believes in racial reconciliation. True, an Obama victory would certainly increase his taxes, but some things -- for example, the promise of a multicultural America -- are simply more important.
There appear to be many Republicans and independents who feel the same way. Obama can lose these people, however, if he forgets that he is a reconciler, not a class warrior, and goes from tilting toward the poor to soaking the rich.
In any case, the country's allies should feel relieved by how the presidential election is shaping up. The US needs Obama, but McCain is a reasonable alternative. He is no Bush, and conservative Republican hatred of him is his badge of honor. He would stand up to the haters at home -- including those in his own party -- and to the terrorists abroad. That's a lot better than what we have today.
Melvyn Krauss is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
The first Donald Trump term was a boon for Taiwan. The administration regularized the arms sales process and enhanced bilateral ties. Taipei will not be so fortunate the second time around. Given recent events, Taiwan must proceed with the assumption that it cannot count on the United States to defend it — diplomatically or militarily — during the next four years. Early indications suggested otherwise. The nomination of Marco Rubio as US Secretary of State and the appointment of Mike Waltz as the national security advisor, both of whom have expressed full-throated support for Taiwan in the past, raised hopes that
Whether in terms of market commonality or resource similarity, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co is the biggest competitor of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC). The two companies have agreed to set up factories in the US and are also recipients of subsidies from the US CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed into law by former US president Joe Biden. However, changes in the market competitiveness of the two companies clearly reveal the context behind TSMC’s investments in the US. As US semiconductor giant Intel Corp has faced continuous delays developing its advanced processes, the world’s two major wafer foundries, TSMC and
Authorities last week revoked the residency permit of a Chinese social media influencer surnamed Liu (劉), better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), who has more than 440,000 followers online and is living in Taiwan with a marriage-based residency permit, for her “reunification by force” comments. She was asked to leave the country in 10 days. The National Immigration Agency (NIA) on Tuesday last week announced the decision, citing the influencer’s several controversial public comments, including saying that “China does not need any other reason to reunify Taiwan with force” and “why is it [China] hesitant
We are witnessing a sea change in the government’s approach to China, from one of reasonable, low-key reluctance at rocking the boat to a collapse of pretense over and patience in Beijing’s willful intransigence. Finally, we are seeing a more common sense approach in the face of active shows of hostility from a foreign power. According to Article 2 of the 2020 Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法), a “foreign hostile force” is defined as “countries, political entities or groups that are at war with or are engaged in a military standoff with the Republic of China [ROC]. The same stipulation applies to
RSS