Obama’s State of the Union Speech Highlights Sharp Class Antagonisms

WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 — The current political situation in the United States continues to be an ongoing conflict between factions of the exploiting and oppressing classes: the capitalists and “middle class.”

The electoral victory of Barack Obama in 2008 was a continuation of the “corporatist consensus” forged in eight years of George W. Bush regime, but with the key difference that the Obama administration has the air of legitimacy and relative stability.

But the rise of the Nativist movement in the closing months of the Bush regime, and its growth in the year since Obama took office, has led to a new instability within the corporatist coalition. Clearly, the “new way” chosen by Wall Street and the leading elements of these classes did not satisfy those further down the exploitative food chain.

The “Tea Parties,” and the rise of the Nativist fascist movement around them, has led to a rethink of their current arrangement.

This is the context in which President Obama gave his first “State of the Union” speech yesterday. Traditionally little more than a Washington ritual, Obama’s speech reflected the sharpened class antagonisms that currently drive American political life.

Three parts in particular gave a good picture of what is happening among the exploiting and oppressing classes today: excessive calls for “bipartisanship” (i.e., letting the Republicans set the agenda), populist appeals against Wall Street and “bank bailouts” (including touting of “tax cuts” for the “middle class” and proposals for more “reforms”), and nationalist “America First” rhetoric.

Taken together, this troika of corporatist proposals represent the reopening of negotiations on the arrangements within the coalition of capitalists and their managers.

The Democrats, representing a hodge-podge of “middle class” officials and managers, labor aristocrats, hippie-to-yuppie financial speculators and “dot-com” capitalists, sense a threat from the Nativists, since the latter hit on many of the themes that have traditionally held together their party’s “base.”

The populist fascism of the Nativists have undercut that “base,” using fear of the “other” (terrorism, the poor, etc.) to siphon off supporters and move them to the right.

Thus, every one of Obama’s proposals made in his speech to Congress was designed to be a calculated bribe to those disaffected “middle class” elements who are instinctively attracted to the Nativist movement.

This package, which is billed as a “second stimulus,” would be the third trillion-dollar bribe to the corporatist coalition.

But the carrot does not get deployed unless the stick follows close behind. And in this proposal, Obama’s stick rests in his statement: “[W]hen I ran for President, I promised I wouldn’t just do what was popular — I would do what was necessary.”

“What was necessary” was expanding the Department of Homeland Security, continuing the USA-PATRIOT Act and exploring new wars in the Middle East and Asia.

As well, there are the new “domestic extremist” laws moving through Congress.

However, the stick, while brandished for the eyes of disaffected “middle class” elements, is not meant to be used against them.

In reality, its showing is meant as a sign of reassurance — as a means of enticing those “middle class” elements to climb back on board the corporatist bandwagon. The stick is meant for us, for poor and working people suffering in the current depression.

Real unemployment continues to hover at 22 percent (and much higher in cities), inflation has spiked in the last few months, upwards of 40 million people live below the government’s “official” poverty line, average American net worth has plummeted by 13 percent, the real Gross Domestic Product continues to shrink, and home foreclosures are again sweeping across the country.

In this climate, it is urgently necessary for Obama and the corporatists to close ranks and defend themselves against a possible social explosion. To do that, he’ll beg, borrow, bribe or steal. In the meantime, we as workers should organize and prepare.