Is Obama No Longer "Needed" ?

Obama’s candidacy was essentially an escape valve for the ruling class, aware of popular discontent after eight disastrous years of the Bush presidency. This culminated with the collapse of Lehman Brothers during the presidential campaign. It was shortly after this that Obama moved decisively ahead of Mc Cain in the polls, and was praised in the media for his calmness under pressure. Colin Powell endorsed him as a 'transformational figure'.

The nervousness in ruling class circles at the time was noted in Hank Paulson’s recent testimony before Congress:

The Bush administration and Congress discussed the possibility of a breakdown in law and order and the logistics of feeding US citizens if commerce and banking collapsed as a result of last autumn's financial panic, it was disclosed yesterday.

Now that there is a belief that collapse is no longer imminent, it is quite likely that Obama’s political and media honeymoon is over. As the ruling class feels more secure, attacks on the progressive aspects of his policies, weak and inadequate though they are, will become more intense.

The first such broadside occurred when Steve Balmer and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce protested Obama’s proposed tax increase on corporate foreign profits. Said Balmer,“We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S.”

The mounting resistance to health care reform is also noteworthy, in that it reflects a growing confidence in confronting the Obama. Though factually, it is ludicrous that there are complaints about the public cost of expanded health care, after trillions of dollars in guarantees and bailouts for Wall Street.

But this is the logic of a class-based society that has become so very polarized and unequal. If the “haves” continue on this path of unadulterated greed, in time, they will threaten the very political stability of the system that has enriched them.