Like it or not; believe it or not -- the one thing we all
have in common as a species is that we change because of two reasons: Change
comes about because we like to change and because we hate to change. We like to
change because we get bored being exposed to the same thing, thus we clamor to
see, feel and experience something different. But too much change, especially
the unexpected type, can also engender a sense of instability and insecurity,
thus we fear change. In the end, we find that we live in a state which
alternates between the desire to seek change and the desire to change back to
the status quo ante.
We deduce from the above that boredom and fear are two of
the forces that can motivate a person to seek change. But can this apply to a
large group of people such as a tribe or a nation, for example? And the answer
is yes. Tribal wars, civil wars and cross-borders wars have resulted from fear;
which is easy to understand. But they can also result from boredom; which is
not as easy to understand. It was argued, however, that the First World War
happened because of sheer boredom.
It was explained that there came a moment at the end of the
Nineteenth Century when people thought that every science which can be discovered
was discovered, and every technological innovation which can be developed was
developed. Yet, the world did not suddenly snap into a state of utopian nirvana
as expected. Bored waiting for this to happen, however, people began to imagine
that “the other man's grass was greener,” and they decided to poke the neighbor
in the rib just to engage in a little adventure, thus generate some excitement
and break the boring monotony. But that first poke provoked a counter-poke
which provoked another, causing an escalation that culminated in the first
Great War.
If on the national level you do not trigger a civil war
because of boredom – which may be accompanied by a little envy that may or may
not be merited -- you end up having a battle of the ballot box. For this to
happen, you need to have in place at least two political factions battling each
other with speeches, tactics and strategies as they try to capture the hearts
and minds of the electorate. And this is the situation which exists in the United States of America
today as we move into the final stretches of the campaign between the incumbent
president who is of the Democratic Party, and the challenger who is of the
Republican Party.
The Democratic President, Barack Obama was elected in 2008
having promised that he will bring hope and change to the nation. He had a
vision in which a system of health care covering everybody was enacted after
almost a century of attempts that left America behind the other civilized
nations of the world in this field. But the debate that ensued brought with it
the sort of acrimony you encounter only in a civil war. It felt like each
faction believed the other was threatening the existence of the nation -- and
was putting all it had into the fight. In the end, the President got the bill
passed in the Congress, and he signed it into law.
So much venom was spilled by then that the mid-term
elections of 2010 were to play a decisive role in the unfolding drama. It
happened that the opposition had played hard on the emotions of the independent
group of voters, convincing them that the change which will result from what
they called Obamacare was going to turn America into a European style
socialist state. This will bankrupt everyone, warned the opposition, and will
force the American people to live in a permanent state of poverty. The argument
won the day, and the independent voters experienced what came to be called a
“buyer's remorse.” They joined the opposition and voted to give it a huge
majority in the House of Representatives, thus giving the President what he
called a “shellacking.”
It was obvious that the same people who voted for hope and
change in 2008 had voted to return to the status quo ante in 2010. But what
happened between then and 2012 may well have forced these same people to
experience another bout of buyer's remorse. It is that they got what came to be
called the Tea Party in the House of Representatives -- a group of people who
froze the House into inaction. This turn of the events did not take long to
dismay the population, 90 percent of which now thinks unfavorably of the
Congress.
But will this be enough to make the group of independent
voters believe that the President's original message of hope and change had
only been delayed for two years and not crushed forever? Can they be convinced
that reelecting the President will put America back on the trajectory they
hoped for in 2008?
It all depends on what his team will do to send this message
to the electorate.