Kulturkampf or win? pt 1

If the people of the country focus on the election, we allow the politicians - especially the neocon/right - to choose the battleground. In a real sense, we allow them to choose the weapons to be used by each side, too. Do you think pitchforks can stand against modern tanks?


Vietnam

Bismarck and the Pope

Gen Westmoreland commanded one of the most powerful military forces on Earth in Vietnam. Arguably, the US forces won every battle. But they failed to capture the hearts and minds of the people of the country.
The US was especially effective against the North Vietnamese Regulars.
Remember the embassy evacuation? American journalists were running around frantic to go to the sounds of battle. They wanted to cover the battle for Saigon. There just wasn't much noise anywhere. There was almost no heavy weapons fire. Why? 
Because the South Vietnamese Army weren't fighting. They surrendered the city. The South Vietnamese Army and the city police were as glad to be rid of the Americans as the Viet Cong and NVA.


America won all the battles and lost the country. If we focus on the election, we lose the chance to influence the hearts and minds of the country, and can win or lose the election - this battle - but lose much more. 


Obama Administration

I can imagine the Obama administration experienced something very similar.They focused on winning the election. The promise of 'Hope and Change' resonated across the country and around the world. They promised to open the doors, build new bridges and highways. They won the cultural war on the populist level.
But when they got in, they found someone had taken the handles off the doors. The only doors left with handles led to gaping chasms with sand and political minefields. Cheney had hand picked industry representatives in every department of the Executive Branch and at all levels. And the Cheney shadow government, still well funded and organized, was still in place just down the street to support the Cheney appointees.

• The country was facing a financial crisis that could have been worse than the Great Depression, and the only 'solution' was set to plunge the currency into an inflationary spiral that could have made early 1930s Germany look like a cake walk.
• They had to bring the enormous off budget debt for the Iraq and Afghan wars on budget. That made their first budgets show enormous debt spikes, along with the TARP debacle.

True, 85% or so of the Cheney appointees resigned after the first year. They did their job before they left though. They opposed on the governance level any attempts at transparency and change. And when they left, they left gaping holes in the departments. The new administration didn't have hundreds of on-side names to recommend to fill the positions. There was no precedent to even allow them to be prepared for that.

Because the new President insisted on it, the TARP funds had to be repaid somehow. The loans were too huge to look right, but at least they could be collected with interest. Nothing was going to make the government taking equity positions look good.
There was no time or energy left to put all the handles back, much less build the bridges and highways. They must feel lucky the whole country didn't just fall apart. They won the election, but lost the governance - the hearts and minds of government.
And the Obama administration has spent the last 3+ years trying to dig themselves out of the hole. Arguably, they haven't yet.

I can't help but wonder if the Obama people are going to try to win the cultural war again, or have they been too badly burnt? It's really not up to government to change national culture though. That's something people and citizens have to do.