Edited by Anita Dixon
2012 Presidential Election: It Is the Minorities' Turn
The American Establishment has the kind of country it wants and does not want to change it, but instead make it more and more coherent with its interests. The duty is shared among the elite, the middle class, the workers and the majority of a society based on values where the poor are "losers" who should be reprimanded rather than pitied.
Because electoral confrontations are traditionally settled between elements that underpin identical values and points of view, there were not many elections where the poor and minorities had the opportunity to punish the oligarchy and to choose someone who, well or badly, represented them.
The only exceptions to this rule are Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama. Though originally, as Lincoln explained himself, he was not an abolitionist, he was a Republican who represented the interests of a sector placed at the bottom of the United States’ pyramid: blacks, then subjected to slavery in the South.
JFK meanwhile —despite being part of the most ancient white bourgeoisie, but not for compassion or solidarity— knew that racial segregation was incompatible with the nature of the American political system and, apart from being a disgrace, it had become an obstacle to the country's progress; that is why he fought against it until it was remitted legally. Perhaps as in the case of Lincoln, to side with blacks in the United States during those days meant you were on the wrong side. It cost him his life.
Obama does not need to declare himself in favor of blacks, because he is black which makes him ethnically close to Mexicans, West Indians and Latinos in general. He does not need to swear he understands migrants because his father was one and because he is the only president born of an interracial marriage (white mother from Kansas and African father). Obama is more African American than most black people in the U.S. who have not known a grandfather born in Kenya. The president does not need to promise he will change the country because he has already done it.
While denying its origins, the Republican Party in the United States is the one that expresses best the thoughts of elites which are economically solvent, politically reactionary, socially conservative and religiously fanatical, who do not hide their dislike for forward-thinking liberals, minorities and the poor, something which naturally drift them away from the less fortunate sectors of the population.
Unlike other occasions when voting for either candidate had no meaning for them, the next presidential election offers many Americans (white liberals, college students, blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, women, gay, the poor and sick) a chance to get even with and punish the oligarchy the way it hurts the most: excluding it from power.
For these minorities that alone are not enough to elect a president, the important thing now is not to reproach Obama for breaking his promises, but to add votes for him to exclude those who stopped him. If the first black president is kept in the White House, these sectors have some opportunities, but with Mitt Romney they will lose them all. Choosing is not difficult. We will see what happens.
Because electoral confrontations are traditionally settled between elements that underpin identical values and points of view, there were not many elections where the poor and minorities had the opportunity to punish the oligarchy and to choose someone who, well or badly, represented them.
The only exceptions to this rule are Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama. Though originally, as Lincoln explained himself, he was not an abolitionist, he was a Republican who represented the interests of a sector placed at the bottom of the United States’ pyramid: blacks, then subjected to slavery in the South.
JFK meanwhile —despite being part of the most ancient white bourgeoisie, but not for compassion or solidarity— knew that racial segregation was incompatible with the nature of the American political system and, apart from being a disgrace, it had become an obstacle to the country's progress; that is why he fought against it until it was remitted legally. Perhaps as in the case of Lincoln, to side with blacks in the United States during those days meant you were on the wrong side. It cost him his life.
Obama does not need to declare himself in favor of blacks, because he is black which makes him ethnically close to Mexicans, West Indians and Latinos in general. He does not need to swear he understands migrants because his father was one and because he is the only president born of an interracial marriage (white mother from Kansas and African father). Obama is more African American than most black people in the U.S. who have not known a grandfather born in Kenya. The president does not need to promise he will change the country because he has already done it.
While denying its origins, the Republican Party in the United States is the one that expresses best the thoughts of elites which are economically solvent, politically reactionary, socially conservative and religiously fanatical, who do not hide their dislike for forward-thinking liberals, minorities and the poor, something which naturally drift them away from the less fortunate sectors of the population.
Unlike other occasions when voting for either candidate had no meaning for them, the next presidential election offers many Americans (white liberals, college students, blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, women, gay, the poor and sick) a chance to get even with and punish the oligarchy the way it hurts the most: excluding it from power.
For these minorities that alone are not enough to elect a president, the important thing now is not to reproach Obama for breaking his promises, but to add votes for him to exclude those who stopped him. If the first black president is kept in the White House, these sectors have some opportunities, but with Mitt Romney they will lose them all. Choosing is not difficult. We will see what happens.
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