Any nation’s population needs to have confidence that the people they elect to represent their best interests in government are indeed representing them in good faith, and that they are diligent in keeping the government operational. Americans have not been afforded that confidence for over four-and-a-half years because Republicans made it their raison d’être to obstruct and keep government impotent and unable to serve the population’s best interests. Indeed, it is an incredibly worrisome time in America and the unsettled state of government is rightly a legitimate concern that governance is fundamentally dead due to Republican anti-government machinations. However, as apprehensive as the American people are that Republicans brought the federal government to its knees out of spite, the rest of the world is watching and waiting for America to fail as a result of the Republican coup d’état to topple the government.
There is a palpable sense of disquiet among world leaders watching Republicans shutdown and befuddle the United States government’s ability to operate because they could not tolerate 30 million Americans having access to affordable healthcare insurance. In fact, most people around the world seriously cannot comprehend the inhumanity of Republicans and their funding machines spending hundreds-of-millions of dollars and shutting down the government to prevent Americans from having health insurance, and the sad joke is that they claim it is what makes America “exceptional” if exceptional means being barbaric. The real concern among world leaders, though, is that Republicans unilaterally shut down the government and threaten (again) to default on the nation’s sovereign debt and plunge the world’s financial system into a depression.
In global capitals around the world, leaders are saying “At the moment, Washington is fighting over the budget and nobody knows if the country will still be solvent in three weeks. What is clear, though, is that America is already politically bankrupt.” Like S&P noted in 2011 when they downgraded America’s credit rating, world leaders recognize that Republicans are responsible for the “paralysis of the American government, where a rump in Congress is holding the whole place to ransom that doesn’t really jibe with the notion of the United States as a global leader” according to Michael McKinley, an expert on global relations at the Australian National University.
The embarrassment America is feeling at being a global laughingstock was best summed up by Secretary of State John Kerry who told world leaders at the APEC meeting “When we get this moment of political silliness behind us, we will get back on a track the world will respect and want to be part of.” However, it is unlikely that any nation in the world will ever respect a country, or a population, that allowed a political party to stage a coup d’état, shut down the government, and threaten a debt default because they refuse to accept the results of a presidential election, the democratic process that passed a healthcare law, and a Supreme Court ruling that the Constitutional process that enacted the health law was followed to the letter.
Now that President Obama had to cancel plans to travel to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Bali and the East Asia Summit in Brunei, world leaders’ concerns about America’s relevance in global politics will only get worse. The President had to cancel the trip because he had to deal with Republican terrorists who shut down the government and threaten to block a borrowing limit that will lead to an American credit default and initiate a financial crisis worse than the Republican-led crash in 2008. On Saturday, President Obama tried to reassure Americans, and world leaders, that the government could reopen very quickly because there are sufficient Republican and Democratic votes to pass a clean, and very austere, bill to fund the government, but Speaker of the House John Boehner will not allow a vote unless Republicans extract ransom demands to abolish the constitutional process for passing legislation into law.
President Obama also sought to assuage fears that America will cause a worldwide economic catastrophe by reassuring the world that America has never failed to pay its bills and reiterated that he is not going to negotiate with Republican terrorists over whether they do their jobs and pay the debts they incurred for Bush’s two wars, tax cuts for the rich, and legislation giving subsidies to corporations, the oil industry, and the religious community. The President did attempt to reassure the world that until 2011, no political party in American history ever threatened to force the nation to default on its debt or hold it hostage to gain leverage to impose their agenda on the nation. It is a sad commentary that the President of the United States had to tell the world that America cannot allow Republicans in one house of Congress to threaten economic collapse unless they are allowed to impose their agenda on the nation.
It is highly likely that world leaders are convinced that, like S&P, Republicans will not change their ways and will continue making “American governance and policymaking less stable, less effective, and less predictable.” Like world leaders are saying, America is a “nation where a rump in Congress is holding the whole place to ransom that doesn’t really jibe with the notion of the United States as a global leader,” and while the world laughs at America’s Republican dysfunction, they are frightened the “rump in Congress” will cause a financial collapse the entire world economy will suffer.
It is a sad commentary indeed that a group of anti-government terrorists have, in two years brought shame on a global leader like America because they cannot accept the results of an election or a legally passed law that does nothing more than give 30 million Americans access to affordable healthcare insurance. In fact, America’s reputation around the world is suffering another Republican disgrace in advancing the NRA’s agenda of gun proliferation that led foreign nations to issue travel warnings to America because of the certainty they are 15 times more likely to be shot dead in the USA than any other country. Former Australian deputy Prime Minister issued the warning “because anyone can buy a firearm without a background check that is one of the most dumbest decisions so far in the litany of agony over the gun laws and gun policies of the NRA and the USA.”
It is tragic that after eight years of Bush warmongering and a global financial collapse, the world began respecting American again with a President who brought financial stability to America just to be mocked, disrespected, and frightened by the same Republicans threatening to repeat the 2008 financial collapse. It is telling that America’s Secretary of State and President had to reassure the world that the “political silliness” of a government shutdown and credit default threat is the result of extortionists in the Republican Party attempting to impose their agenda on the nation. The world knows why the government is shut down and why a credit default is a very real threat with Republican criminals attempting to force, by extortion, their agenda on the nation. The world fully comprehends that if a cabal of racists and libertarian terrorists can bring down the greatest, richest nation in the world by easily shutting down the federal government and taking the economy hostage, that nation cannot be trusted to be a global leader.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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