Following this election over the past year has made me more aware of many problems we have in this country.
But the most worrisome part of this whole campaign was how identity politics came back to bite us in the bum.
During the primary we saw sub-group pitted against sub-group time and time again.
In State after state we hit faultlines within our party. In NH women felt maligned when Mrs. Clinton was perceived as being pushed aside and their anger (in some instances very justified) has been felt since then; in the Carolinas we saw how black folk responded to perceived attacks on their race and left the Clintons in droves to support Mr. Obama; in Texas we saw how the Hispanic community was worked over until the problems they have with blacks in power in their state caused them to surge to Clinton; in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia we saw what happened when the phrase 'hardworking white Americans' joined the lexicon. Then there were the problems with the Catholics, the Jews, the white surburban women, the muslims and on and on and on.
Time after time people from different sub-groups who had predjudices and slights against other groups, groups which were created to benefit pols in their particular districts, were worked over so it would be easier to use these same wedge issues to win. We as a populace know what is going on but (because in our everyday lives we are so busy because we have to work longer and harder everyday in order to send our kids to college, to pay for food, to pay bills etc, etc) we let these politicians do it to us time and time again.
How many of us watch a television program and shout out at it when we see politicians pulling this scam. We see them do it to Michelle Obama, to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and we have even seen them do it to Senator McCain. Usually it this behavior is used by the republican side but this year we saw it employed by the democratic side. We know this tactic when we see it but we seem powerless to do anything about it and some of us allow it to influence us at the polls.
In this type of politics everybody has a wound that needs to be paid attention to and when it gets exploited we get angry and turn on the group that is perceived as exacerbating that wound without fully realizing we are getting played.
Take for example the Jewish guy in Florida who told Obama that if his name was Barry he would have had an easier time voting for him. Did this Jewish guy stop to remember the many times Jews had to change their names in the past in order to live in peace?
What about the Mormons who are making the 'sock puppet monkey' in the likes of Obama. Did they ever stop to think about how they would feel if a black group tried to make money off of a mormon male puppet with 3 or more wives?
What about all those 'hardworking white Americans' that told pollsters they would never vote for Obama because he was black or that continue to say that black folk are racist because they vote for him in high numbers, are they even thinking about the numerous times blacks supported whites in elections and were key to many democratic wins?
I could go on but I think you get my meaning.
Are we not tired of this nonsense as a nation? Has this election finally bought us to a boiling-point regarding this issue? Are we going to finally stand up and say 'Hell NO and NO more?"
We really need take a serious look at the many problems affecting this country on all levels and decide that we are not going to allow these cynics to continue to take us forgranted.
Look at what is happening with all the floods out West and how many people are suffering from this poor economy losing jobs, unable to pay healthcare bills, cannot pay for perscriptions, losing their homes, losing critical infrastructure,unable to pay for college tuition. How much more can we take as a country and how much longer can this go on before we truly break?
Should we not stand up in this election and take a risk for change from these types of behaviors that are moving us further and further away from our true goals as Americans? Should we not just take the risk to see what happens if we stop reacting to negative stimuli from the outside and do some internal and objective analysis of where we are at as a country and as a people? Should we not, in this election, shed the tried and true and find the courage to step off and truly be independent doers and thinkers in order to take back our country and our home?
What we all have in common is this country. Regardless of if we were born here or migrated here we have to make a decision as a collective to reverse this behavior engendered by identity politics and ideology and of pitting one against the other. We must realize that we have one thing in common and that is America. We have to fight now to make it better for our children and theirs.