The first two U.S. presidential debates have been painful to watch. Both candidates are running on platforms constructed from verbal hallucinations about the nation’s past, present, and future. And the American people are being asked to choose between those hallucinations in order to select the best available scapegoat for the next four years of national economic decline. The race is burning up billions of dollars in advertising money, yet few citizens seem genuinely excited about either candidate, with households evidently viewing the proceedings as a prime-time ritual combat in which it is the winner, rather than the loser, who will ultimately receive the fatal thumbs-down.

Most of the delusions and fantasies that pervade the debates can be grouped into three baskets:

Energy. In the second debate, a questioner from the audience asked president Obama if there is something the latter can do to lower gasoline prices. The ensuing fiction-laced candidate dialogue featured assertions like the following:

·      America has a century’s worth of cheap natural gas. (It doesn’t, and production levels will probably begin declining within the next couple of years.)

·      Oil drilling in North Dakota will soon free the U.S. of the need to import oil. (It won’t, and production there will similarly peak and start to wane in the next 2-5 years.)

·      The president of the United States should be held accountable for high gasoline prices. (In fact, aside from temporary gestures like opening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, there’s almost nothing a president can do to reduce gas prices, which mostly track the global price of crude oil.)

The reality is that America faces profound energy challenges. The “Beverly Hillbillies” era of cheap oil is over, and with it the decades-long spate of economic expansion that both candidates appear to believe is the birthright of all citizens. Oil production costs have skyrocketed in recent years, and out of desperation drilling companies are using costly techniques like hydrofracturing to wring crude from low-grade reservoirs. The energy world portrayed in the debates—in which coal is “clean” and oil and gas companies will lead the U.S. to a new era of energy abundance if only they are unleashed or regulated properly—is a stage set carefully crafted by fossil fuel industry PR professionals and political consultants. Once viewers have dutifully mistaken this painted scenery for reality, it’s the actors’ job to raise the audience’s adrenaline levels with taunts and sneers. Meanwhile, outside the theater, the real world is hurtling toward an energy supply crisis for which no one is being prepared, and whose impact will not be blunted by sensible policy.

Summon the scapegoat.

The economy. Why hasn’t the American economy recovered? Why are so many people still unemployed? What policies will re-start the nation’s engines of growth? Anyone who watched either debate will know that these questions provoked lengthy and heated exchanges between Obama and Romney, precisely because they are the matters of greatest concert to voters. Probably only a few viewers bothered to examine the assumptions on which both candidates appear to agree: that ongoing economic stagnation is a temporary glitch that can be fixed, and that growth is normal and can continue perpetually.

Here president Obama is fighting with one hand tied behind him. As long as he feeds the delusion that the economic crisis is a solvable problem, he must find some way to deflect the demanding query: “Well, then, why haven’t you fixed it?”

In reality, the crash of 2008 resulted from the bursting of history’s biggest credit bubble, together with the simultaneous rupture of the decades-old regime of cheap oil. These are not “problems” that can be “fixed.” The global economy will inevitably contract during the remainder of this century, and success will be measured by the ability of nations, communities, and households to adapt to the new reality of declining mobility, expensive energy, and scarce credit.

If Obama were to even begin explaining this situation to voters, he would immediately be tarred as a pessimist, even a doomster. The best he can do is to argue that it was a Republican who got us into this mess, so it would be a mistake to choose a Republican using similar policies to get us out. Both candidates conspire to mislead their audience as to the cause and nature of the crisis, and both stoke unrealistic expectations of recovery and growth once they are elected. Since recovery is not in the cards, that just means that whoever wins will reap the blame.

Who wants to be the scapegoat?

Climate change. In this case, delusion is a species of blindness. In the real world, impacts from global climate change are showing up faster than forecast in even the most “alarmist” scenarios published just a few years ago. Most of the U.S. is still suffering from a devastating drought that has already ruined billions of dollars’ worth of crops. Altogether, weather anomalies are increasing in frequency and severity—exactly as the climate models predict, only faster. The north polar ice cap is disappearing before our eyes. This is potentially a crisis of truly apocalyptic dimensions. Yet, during the debates, president Obama has offered only one brief mention of climate change while governor Romney has avoided the subject altogether.

At some point in the not-distant future—quite likely, during the next four years—the mushrooming impacts of climate change will rudely demolish the complacent edifice of denial that characterizes current political discourse. At that point, Americans will be asking questions like, “Why haven’t you done anything about this?” or, “Why is God punishing us?”

Send in the scapegoat.

Under the circumstances, picking a favorite in this race is a sucker’s game—even if one of the political parties is in some ways more delusional and opportunistic than the other, and even if one of the candidates seems more intelligent and public-spirited than his opponent. Choosing the better president won’t prevent further economic decline. Nor will blaming the scapegoat-in-chief offer any tangible relief when prosperity doesn’t return. The only way we can make things go better is to acknowledge reality and adapt to it. Since we’re not likely to get much help along those lines from our political leaders, it’s really up to us.

8 Comments on "Heinberg: Scapegoat-in-Chief The Race for the Oval Office"

Plantagenet on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 10:06 pm 



Heinberg’s idiotic suggestion that Obama lie about the current situation facing due the US and the world due to Peak Oil is shameful. Surely the best policy is honesty and transparency—-the same things Obama promised in 2008 but then failed to deliver.

Rick on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 11:57 pm 



Heinberg rocks!

And these days, the President is just a puppet. This country is now controlled by the elite aka global crooks. They will keep the big lie going until the planet has no more resources, or until Mother Nature kills them, and us in the process.

And as long as the lies continue, the masses will take it, until they figure it out, then it will be too late to take down the elite bastards.

Carl E. Hartung on Sat, 20th Oct 2012 1:20 am 



This sentence has a typo: “The president of the United States should be held accountable for high gasoline prices. (In fact, aside from temporary gestures like opening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, there’s almost nothing a president can do to reduce gas prices, which mostly track the global price of crude oil.)”

I’m absolutely certain that Richard meant to write “… should *not* be held accountable for high gasoline prices. …” His subsequent sentence reinforces this conclusion.

It’s a shame to leave such a strategically important typo — one that causes you to say the opposite of what you meant to say — in place to propagate around the world without fixing it.

BillT on Sat, 20th Oct 2012 1:21 am 



Right on! The first one to tell the truth is tarred and feathered and laughed at. Well, at least loses the contest and is laughed at. Think Carter.

The petroholics don’t want to be told that the Yellow Brick Road leads to poverty, or at least a much lower lifestyle. They want it to lead to a George Jetson future full of gadgets and flying cars and luxury for even the lowest of the 7+ billion of us.

The President is a figurehead. The real power is not elected, it is already in place and has been. It is Ben Bernanke and his compatriots around the world in the other Central Banks that pull the strings and control your money. The race is on. do they get it all or does Mother Nature ring down the curtain and end it all first? We shall see. Stay tuned.

DC on Sat, 20th Oct 2012 2:02 am 



I dont seem him suggesting the figurehead Obomber lie, he merely stating what astute observers have known for years. High-end pols cant bring up the topic, or they get replaced with a talking doll that avoids that set of issues all-together. Now, Plant, im sure you’ve read enough Heinberg to know if anyone would love to see ‘leaders’ talking about the issues the PCI champions, it would be Mr Heinberg. Hes merely lamenting the fact the US prez is powerless, not just to take meaningful action, but to even discuss itthe problem openly.

His point was abundantly clear after all..

Mike in Calif. on Sat, 20th Oct 2012 3:29 am 



Ah, yes, Heinberg, bring on Global Warming. Anthropogenic Global Warming (to distinguish it from deceiptful “climate change”) is not the big issue. Systemic overreach is. I’m sick of hearing the Anthropogenic Global Warming crap inevitably cast in anthropocentric terms. Heinberg laments the candidates’ inability to roll out truth and then promptly himself dives into the irrelevant.

There is no such thing as “weather anomalies”, just weather. If the theory is correct, there will be warming and climatic shift. If the theory is wrong, there will still be droughts, floods, volcanos, solar flares, soil and water depletion, resource contraint, currency failure, etc, etc, etc.

If there is to be Global Warming, it is already a certainty. Get used to it. There is no correcting it, stopping it or fighting it. Prepare for it because the remaining fossil fuels will be burned. They WILL BE BURNED.

Politicians will do ANYTHING to get in and stay in power. This means promising better days which in turn means energy, lots of it, to keep an economy afloat. Is any one really surprised that Obama went from climate change wonk to energy hawk after being elected? He HAD to even if believes in global warming. It doesn’t matter if it is republic or party dictatorship (China). Every politician NEEDS energy to keep power and keep a lid on unruly citizens.

At some point in this century it is the fragility of human systems that will give whether in slow descent or dramatic collapse. No one of the many stresses on our systems will be responsible. Population and mode of living are at the root of the problem and neither of these can be changed or sustained. Some time soon, survival will be priority one for people.

Newfie on Sun, 21st Oct 2012 12:54 am 



“People can’t stand too much reality” – Carl Jung.

Politicians have to lie to get elected. The entire edifice of industrial civilization is a blatant lie. Never ending growth is a fairy tale. Ever increasing consumption of depleting non-renewable resources is a dead end for the human species. The era of growth is over. Forever. The era of limits has begun. That reality will be so painful to confront for the vast majority that a march over the cliff of resource depletion and over population is virtually guaranteed.

doug nicodemus on Sun, 21st Oct 2012 7:09 pm 



mike is such a jackanape…of course man made global warming exists and it is tied to the temperature of the sun that is best measured by sun spot activity…the whole time that idiots like mike have been saying there is no warming the sun slid past its maximus and for 7 years was cooling leading to the longest quietude we have ever EVER measured…now it is heating up and it will be very hot in 2014 right in the middle of the presidents next 4 years…by then america’s food production could be seriously disrupted…if mike was a gardener he would know this…sadly most people in the usa are not as aware as we would like…i have put with mike’s crap for 7 years and i ain’t gona do it no more…