Time was you could take an extended trip–say, leave the hemisphere–and leave it all behind. Pack your suitcases and leave the baggage of domestic politics behind. The global ubiquity of modern media, however, now precludes that. The Senate and the OutHouse of Representatives seem a continuous global loop.
I was reminded again over the last fortnight during a European visit. There’s nothing like confronting the contemporary face of “American exceptionalism”–reminders of a brinksmanship-causing government shutdown–while overseas. Paralysis politics, upshots of gerrymandered, Tea Party-friendly congressional districts and government by stop-gap measures now seems the new normal. It’s beyond frustrating and outrageous. It’s infuriatingly embarrassing.
From BBC, Sky Network, Bloomberg TV and CNN International to German, French and Russian news channels and newsstand (remember those?) headlines, there was no escaping the accompanying news albatross from back home. “Shutdown Showdown.” “Debt Limit Showdown.” “Obama a No-Show” (in Asia). “Stop Holding U.S. ‘Ransom'” (quote of President Obama). Sure, there were references to neo-Nazis in Greece, Silvio Berlusconi’s lingering influence in Italy, Bibi Netanyahu’s contrarian views on Iran, a scandalously big-spending German bishop and Vlad Putin’s Nobel Peace Prize nomination. But nothing got more play than inexplicable U.S. priorities.
One sensed an almost perverse delight in news readers referencing the world’s most powerful country in nigh on to dysfunctional, banana-republic (“suicide caucus”) terms. No way you don’t take it personally. Vietnam and Iraq, comparatively speaking, made more sense than a shutdown and a potential U.S. bond default.
Even our Budapest hotel participated.
It provided guests with a daily news-clipping service that featured President Barack Obama as a dominant, page-one staple every day regardless of what was going on in the Middle East or with typhoons or with corruption charges against Nicolas Sarkozy. It was a reminder of how much the United States matters and how the ripple effects impact so many. It was well noted that negotiations on a sweeping free trade pact between the U.S. and the European Union, for example, had to be postponed. The United States, after all, is Europe’s biggest trading partner. The president, to be sure, was a well-chronicled absentee in Bali, Indonesia at the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC).
APEC was particularly important, given the U.S.’s so-called “pivot” to Asia. It’s no secret that the U.S. is increasingly competing with China for influence on that rapidly growing continent. It’s also no secret that the dysfunctional dynamics of Washington are starting to spook those, most notably the Chinese, invested in America. The Financial Times reported that Beijing was in a state of “deep anger” over Washington’s debt stare downs–such that it’s resolving to lessen the world’s reliance on the dollar. The Chinese have more than $1.3 trillion invested in U.S. Treasuries. This is what you get with party-first, partisan politics in America.
Going outside the country also makes you more likely to be privy to interviews with the likes of Noam Chomsky. The emeritus MIT linguistics professor and chronic critic of U.S. politics and foreign policy was interviewed on the Sky Network about the shutdown. Of America, he said: “It’s a plutocracy, not a democracy. All this is embarrassing to Brand America.”
I’ve strongly disagreed with Chomsky in the past. I wish I still did.