Racism, Obama and the US presidential election

Viewpoint illustration
| credits: Bennett Omeke

In exactly six days — Tuesday, November 6, 2012 – Americans will go to the polls to cast their votes. In practice, they will elect the next US president; but in reality, all they would be doing is elect Presidential Electors who, in turn, will cast their ballots on December 17, 2012 at the Electoral College. Unlike in other presidential systems around the world, the US Constitution does not allow Americans to directly elect their president and vice-president. This constitutional peculiarity is enshrined in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, and also in the 12th Amendment.

Because of this seeming constitutional anomaly, it is possible for a candidate to win the nationwide popular vote, but still lose at the Electoral College. This scenario has happened four times in the US history – the most recent being Al Gore, in 2000. Historical records show that in 1824, Andrew Jackson received more popular votes, but John Q. Adams went on to win at the college. Samuel Tilden won the popular vote in 1876, but Rutherford B. Hayes went on to win the Presidency. And in 1888, even though Grover Cleveland won the most votes, Benjamin Harrison went on to beat him at the college.

As Americans ready themselves for the November election, a majority of my social and political friends believe that President Barack Obama will lose – if not the popular vote — but certainly the Electoral College ballot, to Governor Willard Mitt Romney, his Republican challenger. This would make Obama a one-term president. One-term US presidents are George H. Bush (1989-1993), Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), Gerald Ford (1974-1977), Herbert Hoover (1929-1933), William H. Taft (1909-1913), Benjamin Harrison, Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland, John Quincy Adams, and John Adams.

There are 538 total votes in the Electoral College and a candidate must win a majority: at least 270 electoral votes. The strangeness of this system means that a candidate who wins 11 of the 12 prized states, while losing 39 other states, can be elected president. The prized states are Georgia, California, Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and North Carolina. The idea that President Obama may lose this election is what is baffling many political observers and commentators in and outside of the United States.

To understand why Obama’s defeat will reverberate around the world, one must understand where the US was during the George W. Bush’s Presidency. He had committed America to two financially bleeding wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan. And especially in the last three years of his Presidency, the economy was in a shamble. For instance, unemployment was very high, and the housing market had collapsed. There was problem at Wall Street and Main Street. In many foreign capitals, America became a joke. The psyche of the everyday American was also severely affected. This, in a nutshell, was the condition President Obama inherited.

Slowly but steadily, President Obama has guided the country out of the doldrums. If he was a Republican President — considering how far he has moved the country away from the abyss — he would have won this election by a landslide. And in fact, his place in history would have been assured owing in large measure to his foreign policy and national security achievements. After all, this is a man who killed Osama bin Laden (along with hundreds of his followers), and in the process made America safer. In four years, this President has done far more for America than Bush did in eight agonising years. Yet, the Republicans and millions of Americans do not seem to appreciate his competence, brilliance, forward-looking nature and programmes.

If Obama loses this election, it would be because of one single issue: Race! Racism and racial inequality are still very much a part of the American experience. That is to say that 147 years after the end of slave trade, America has yet to overcome its sordid past. Many Americans, over the age of 60 – especially if they are Republicans and reside in the southern part of the country – cannot bring themselves to accept a Black man as the leader of the free world. For them, it is incomprehensible: a young Black man born of a Kenyan father? Oh no!

What hasn’t this President done in the areas of health care, immigration, welfare, work and retraining programmes, and institutional reforms? He has championed children and women’s issues; been an advocate for the Middle Class; a supporter of the poor, the needy and the disenfranchised; helped the homosexual community; helped with student loans and housing programmes. And even his Supreme Court appointees are not extreme. In fact, nothing about this President is extreme or irrational. Except in few places, he has raised America’s profile and reestablished its prestige around the world. As they say, Americans are back in the game!

Again, if President Obama loses this election, it will have nothing to do with his character or intelligence; or because he is limited in his worldview and vision for the country. No! It will boil down to one thing: his skin colour! Millions of older Americans are still stuck in the slave owner mindset. According to the Associated Press (October 27, 2012), “Racial attitudes have not improved in the four years since the United States elected its first black President.” Frankly, race relations and racial inequality are not likely to improve significantly anytime in the next six decades.

The AP went on to report that, “In all, 51 per cent of Americans now express explicit anti-black attitudes, compared with 48 percent in a similar 2008 survey. When measured by an implicit racial attitudes test, the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments jumped to 56 per cent, up from 49 per cent during the last presidential election…Those views could cost President Barack Obama votes as he tries for re-election.” The saving grace – the only saving grace – is if millions of young White Americans forsake their parents and grandparents and align with other liberal, progressive, and independent-minded Americans to do what is right for their country and for the international community.