My two top reasons for being happy that Obama won

[erudito]

First, as a non-American, I prefer American Administrations to have as flat a learning curve as possible. Breaking in a new one is tedious (and it is not as if Obama and Romney had any serious foreign policy disagreements anyway, Romney's attempt to invent some were pretty pathetic

Comments

[marycatelli]

It is impossible to kill off that stuff, because that stuff is not based on reality but on desire to sling mud, and sometimes on the desire to keep their jobs.

True, but

[erudito]

Well yes, but it is still a lot harder to make plausible to others. I saw a very funny skit about the race card being "not valid during a black Presidency". That is about right, and the point has even more force now.

Re: True, but

[marycatelli]

In theory perhaps, but in practice, the mud-slinging continues without even a decrease.

besides, there is clearly racism in the USA. Do you remember how Holder defended to Congress the dropping a case of voter intimidation (by a Black Panther toward white voters) after conviction had already been secured?

[anemone]

Second, solidly re-electing a black President will hopefully kill off some of that "Americans are SO racist" stuff.

I've often wondered if the way that Americans approach our faults (at least some of the time) misleads people. Racism is a problem, but people in the US can't make openly racist statements in public and get away with it. A lot of the racism is hidden behind something else, and is stuff I wouldn't have realized was racist if you'd asked me five years ago.

On the other hand (the America-is-so-racist hand), white Americans voted pretty clearly for Romney (62% of white men, 56% of white women); but the percentage of the electorate that is white is shrinking, so it wasn't enough to give Romney a victory when 93% of African-Americans and 71% of Latinos are choosing Obama.

Yes but

[erudito]

Whites voted for the white guy, but not as solidly as blacks and Latinos voted for the black guy. So, does that make whites less racist? Or is that the wrong metric?

Re: Yes but

[anemone]

I think that's the wrong metric.

Some say that Romney aimed his campaign at white voters by making statements that appeal to people who hold racist views. For example, any time he talks about "welfare" or the 47% who don't pay taxes, what I think some people hear--and what Romney knows they'll hear--is "those black people on welfare."

Given that sort of attitude--which makes black people villains without directly saying so--it's no surprise if black voters are turned off. What the results may show is that there's a certain percentage of white people who find that sort of argument to be meaningful.

For Latinos, the difference in immigration policy between the two candidates may also explain the voting choices.

Re: Yes but

[marycatelli]

So what you are saying is is that people are not allowed to talk about welfare? Ever? Because they can't prevent other people from thinking racist thoughts? At the penalty of being deemed racist by the mean-spirited and shameless?

Especially given that a large number of those who smear people who talk about welfare as racist would proceed to find another excuse to smear them if they didn't talk of welfare. "Dogwhistle," anyone? A term that means "something completely innocuous that I will call proof of racism because I am impervious to logic and sanity and have already decided you are racist and it's merely a matter of torturing evidence until I get something I can call racism."

[yamamanama]

A pity the right wing's collective meltdown resurrected back the "Americans are SO racist" stuff right afterwards. Seriously, Free Republic just went into full-on we-hate-all-nonwhites mode.

[jordan179]

Nonwhites like Alan Keyes and Condaleeza Rice, who I'm certain you love ...?

[yamamanama]

Keyes swung so far right as to detach from the pendulum and fly deep into crazyland. So far, in fact, that I suspect the only reason anyone supports him is because they think others won't accuse them of being racist.

[jordan179]

So nobody actually agrees with Keyes? Not even others who are far to the right?

And what about Rice? She was the victim of extreme anti-nonwhite, anti-female slurs -- from the Left.

[expanding_x_man]

I'm actually burned out on arguing (on FB) about the election, not that we will argue, but just saying so I may not reply to any replies

Foreign policy

[erudito]

That all strikes me as more nuance than different direction. I am not sure folk outside the US see President Drone Strike, I Shot the Sharif and Qaddafi Squasher as much of an appeaser. (I am sure Pakistan doesn't, for example.) A Romney Administration would have been overtly friendlier to Israel, but there would not have been much substantive difference. And I agree that the Obama Administration dropped the ball on the Green Revolution -- in part as a reaction to the previous Administration and partly that learning curve issue. (The Libyan intervention strikes me as a bit of a backhanded comment on their own earlier Iran policy

Re: Foreign policy

[expanding_x_man]

W was not polarizing in himself, people polarized during his term as a result of others casting shadow-puppets on him.

If a president says "I like puppies", and pundits start screaming "SEE, HE'S A CAT HATER!!!!11!!1", whereas others start saying "see how wonderful and sweet he is, see he loves all the little puppies", that president is not polarizing, it's an example of polarization happening in the pundit-sphere.

Obama is polarizing *in himself*, in his actions, in his rhetoric, and in his attitudes. Bush would *never* have referred to democrats as "our enemies", he would never have told democrats to sit in the back of the bus, he never did, nor would he have ever played to the divisions in the country. Obama does little else.

So yeah, Obama is polarizing, W wasn't.

Re: Foreign policy

[fizzyland]

Nothing says courage of convictions like an anonymous commenter.