Looking at election with an international eye

James Fallows, who has lived in the Far East on and off over the past three decades, writes in The Atlantic about the election as seen through an international lens.  Appearing on a number of foreign broadcasts, Fallows heard this again and again::

There is a deeper question that some foreign interviewers kind of danced around, but which boiled down to this: We outsiders understand that a two-year period of standoff and stalemate makes sense within the logic of American politics, and that the 2012 presidential campaign starts today. But (they went on), can you really afford this? Are you so confident that the big issues for America's economic, technological, educational, and strategic future are so minor and so postponeable that a two-year hiatus doesn't matter?

 It must be perplexing for outsiders to try to understand our schizophrenic political system, the way voters zig and zag from election to election, with no coherent theme except economic distress or a meaningless wedge issue trumped up to drive turnout.  Once in office, the parties do everything they can to keep the other from gaining ground, especially Republicans, for whom this is a particular art form and point of pride. But the interviewers got to the heart of it: how can we waste two years in the middle of the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes?

Stressing to them America's political resilience, Fallows couldn't shake the fear of political and economic stasis as expressed by John Judis in The New Republic:

Like the depressions of the 1890s and 1930s, this slowdown was also precipitated by the exhaustion of opportunities for economic growth. America's challenge over the next decade will be to develop new industries that can produce goods and services that can be sold on the world market. The United States has a head start in biotechnology and computer technology, but as the Obama administration recognized, much of the new demand will focus on the development of renewable energy and green technology. As the Chinese, Japanese, and Europeans understand, these kinds of industries require government coordination and subsidies. But the new generation of Republicans rejects this kind of industrial policy. They even oppose Obama's obviously successful auto bailout.

Instead, when the U.S. finally recovers, it is likely to re-create the older economic structure that got the country in trouble in the first place: dependence on foreign oil to run cars; a bloated and unstable financial sector that primarily feeds upon itself and upon a credit-hungry public; boarded up factories; and huge and growing trade deficits with Asia....

This, in turn. will lead to further power flips and political instability, according to Judis. Comparing our situation to Japan's, he concludes:

America needs bold and consistent leadership to get us out of the impasse we are in, but if this election says anything, it's that we're not going to get it over the next two or maybe even ten years

 If that doesn't depress you, nothing will.