United States

As these events unfolded in the autumn of 2011, another populist movement, this time on the left of the political spectrum, gained steam. Inspired by the mass protests of the Arab Spring and the demonstrations that had occurred in Spain and Greece in response to government austerity measures, a disparate group of protesters calling themselves Occupy Wall Street took up residence in a park near New York City’s financial district to call attention to a list of what they saw as injustices. Among the protesters’ concerns were that the wealthy were not paying what the protesters considered a fair share of income taxes, that more efforts needed to be directed at reducing unemployment, and that major corporations—particularly banks and other financial institutions—needed to be held more accountable for risky practices. The protesters identified themselves as “the 99 percent,” the have-nots who would no longer put up with the corruption and greed that they perceived among “the 1 percent,” the wealthiest Americans. In the succeeding weeks the movement spread to other cities across the country.

Occupy Wall StreetDemonstrators swarming Zuccotti Park in New York City's financial district, October 10, 2011, as part of the Occupy Wall Street protests.Andrew Burton/AP

As winter approached, the last U.S. troops left Baghdad in December, bringing to a close the Iraq War.

Soldiers saluting during the ceremony to mark the end of the U.S. military presence in Iraq, Baghdad, December 15, 2011.Shannon Stapleton—Reuters/Landov

Spring 2012 found the American economic recovery continuing to progress slowly. Many corporations were solidly in the black again, and many of the banks and financial institutions that had been rocked by the collapse of the housing market and by recession had returned to solvency, a number of them having paid back the rescue loans provided by the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program. Wages, however, remained largely stagnant, and the housing market, while showing some signs of recovery, was still tottering, with foreclosures widespread and in some places seemingly ubiquitous. Unemployment, which, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, had reached 10 percent in October 2009, fell significantly but still remained high at 8.2 percent in May 2012. Nevertheless, the U.S. economy was on more solid footing than Europe’s, which continued to suffer from the euro-zone debt crisis.

Deportation policy changes, the immigration law ruling, and sustaining Obamacare’s “individual mandate”

Immigration policy remained central to the national conversation. In June the Obama administration announced that deportation proceedings would no longer be initiated against illegal immigrants age 30 and younger who had been brought to the United States before age 16, had lived in the country for at least five years, did not have a criminal record or pose a security threat, and were students, veterans, or high-school graduates. Those who qualified received a two-year reprieve from deportation and the opportunity to pursue a work permit.

Also in June, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the provision of Arizona’s controversial 2010 immigration law that required police to check the legal status of anyone they stop for another law enforcement concern if they reasonably suspect that person to be in the United States illegally; however, the court struck down three of the law’s provisions, including one that permitted police to arrest individuals solely on the suspicion of being in the country illegally and another that criminalized undocumented immigrants’ pursuit of employment.

In what some saw as its most important decision since Bush v. Gore in 2000, the Supreme Court at the end of June upheld (5–4) the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, most notably ruling not to strike down the act’s “individual mandate” provision by which Americans were required to obtain health insurance by 2014 or face financial penalties (see Affordable Care Act cases). The decision preserved what was for Obama the signature legislative achievement of the first three years of his presidency.

The 2012 presidential campaign, a fluctuating economy, and the approaching “fiscal cliff”