Subordinate and Non-Subordinate States

An Interview with Noam Chomsky, by Khatchig Mouadian
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K.M. - You talked about the Chavez government’s popularity at home. The polls show that the same is not true about the Bush Administration and its policies, both at home and abroad. Despite the discontent on a wide range of issues, little has changed in terms of US policy. How do you explain that?

N.C. - In a book that just came out, I talk about this at some length. The US has a growing and by now enormous democratic deficit at home; there’s an enormous divide between public opinion and public policy on a whole range of issues, from the health system to Iraq. The Bush administration has a very narrow grip on power- remember in the last election Bush got about 31 percent of the electorate, Kerry got 29 percent. A few changes in the votes in Ohio and it could have gone the other way- they’re using that narrow grip desperately to try to institutionalize very radical and far reaching changes in the US. They can get away with it because there’s no opposition party. If there were an opposition party, it would have totally overwhelmed the Bush administration. Every week, the Bush administration does something to shoot itself in the foot, whether it’s Hurricane Katrina, corruption scandals, or other issues, but the formal opposition party can’t make any gains. One of the most interesting things about US politics in the past years is that while support for the Bush administration, which was always very thin, has declined very sharply because of one catastrophe after the other, support for the Democrats hasn’t increased. It is increasing only as a reaction to the lack of support to the Republicans. This is because the Democrats are not presenting an alternative.