0 Mrs. Landingham, What's next?

I caught the politics bug when I was a young kid, sharing the couch with my parents watching the West Wing. The first four seasons with Aaron Sorkin writing are still the best thing ever to happen to television. For those who haven’t seen it, you should. For those who have, President Bartlett’s totally sweet show-closing line has been rattling around in my head all day.

What does come next?

If you look at the numbers and listen to more than a few pundits, you’ll hear them saying that this was a status-quo election. The Dems kept the Senate, and the House is still red. Obama’s still the president, and we’re still hurtling towards the fiscal cliff like Wile E. Coyote on rocket-powered roller skates. What comes next HAS to be compromise, and it has to be led by the President. It looks like Boehner sees the writing on the wall, but he’s up for a seriously tough fight. And it’s not just going to come from the Dems.

 

The Republicans lost. Bigtime. But why, when the economy had left the incumbent’s flank wide open and they’d just won the 2010 Congressional race in a landslide? And no, its not just about demographics, which are moving from bad to worse for the GOP.

Since the 2010 Tea Party victory in Congress, the currency of prestige in the Republican Party has been entirely based on how much they hate Barack Obama. Any hint of compromise with a Democrat is considered an excommunicable offense. Look at what’s happened to Dick Lugar and Olympia Snowe. The entire platform, starting with Mitch McConnell’s speech in 2008, has been to obstruct Obama’s agenda. Obstinacy and pettiness replaced new ideas and policy alternatives.

When it came to this race, the Republicans lost because of what ended up filling the vacuum. The Republicans lost because the premise of too many of their candidates was fear of the future. Too often was repeated the new Republican shibboleth: fear of gays, Latinos, immigrants, the youth and especially change.

I don’t really want to get into demographics, but on a side note the President won 70% of the Latino vote last night. Some people are saying that the fast growing population could make TEXAS a swing state by 2020. Not good if you’re a republican worried about the long-term.

The GOP simply threatened too many people with their tone and their vitriol. In a campaign, you can’t ignore Hispanics, women, and mainstream opinion on this many issues.  It’s one thing to take a hard stance when talking about more abstract issues like the economy, but it scares the living crap out of people when you start talking about abortion, rape, immigration, and vaginal probes.

Romney lost because he had to toe the line with these people to make it through the primary. And frankly, the Tea Party faction of the GOP has too much money and influence behind it to be ignored, and they’re not going anywhere. Their response to this election will likely be a call for even more ideological purity within the Republican ranks. They’ll dig their heels in, and we’ll have a showdown between Boehner and the moderates vs. Paul Ryan and the Tea Party. If Ryan is serious about running in 2016, do you think he’ll start by “looking weak” on something as high-profile as the fiscal cliff? The fact that Boehner is already moving to out-flank him 24 hours after the election speaks volumes. 

0 Election Night Photos

For a campaign in which the winner announced his victory via Twitter, these pictures say an awful lot.

Election Night 2012: Reactions in Photos - The Atlantic

Obama Election Night Photos: Chicago Celebrates Obama's Reelection
- The Huffington Post

Election Night Victory and Defeat - ABC News

Images: Election Night in America - Daily Herald

1 What We're Reading Today (11-7-12): Post-Election Euphoria, How the Election Changed Us, and Nate Silver's Victory Lap

I'm still letting the election results set-in.  I have the sort of electric self-awareness and glee of someone who just lost his virginity.

Yes, there was a War on Women -- and women won
Hindu-Americans have their first face in Congress in Tulsi Gabbard
Gay marriage continues its march toward acceptance in the United States
Marijuana legalization measures were met with success in Washington and Colorado and Massachusetts
Nate Silver slapped other pollsters across the face with his stellar predictions
Barack Obama will serve another four years in the White House

I know I'm forgetting something but there is a collective sense of "BOOYA!" as the reactionary, backwards, hateful, anti-good elements came out in force this year.

Seriously, I just --
#Forward

Photo credit of Grace Michaels

Yes, Obama Won a Mandate - The New Republic
Jonathan Cohn

How the Election Changed America - The Atlantic Wire
Jen Doll

At Romney Headquarters, the Defeat of the 1% - Washington Post
Dana Milbank

America's Chief Wizard, Nate Silver, has Best Election Night of Anyone and Here's Why: A Guide - Gawker
Max Read

2012 US Presidential Race: Who Owns the Candidates - Visual.ly
KyleKim

How Obama Won Ohio - The New Republic
Alec MacGillis

Twitter Racists React to 'That Nigger' getting Re-elected - Jezebel
Tracie Egan Morrissey

What the 2012 Election Taught Us - Washington Post
Chris Cillizza

Special Coverage: The 2012 Presidential Election - Five Thirty Eight
Nate Silver & Co.

0 Election Day #3: My Prediction for the Electoral Spread

I redid my NY Times electoral allocation tool that I posted about some number of weeks ago.  I haven't looked at any data for today aside from Nate Silver's blog post from earlier today.  As it stands, as of 3:46 pm on November 6, I have Obama winning with 303 electoral votes to Romney's 235.

Check it out here.

0 Election Day #2: The Referendum on Values, not the Economy

I wrote this kind of quickly and stream-of-consciousness but bear with me.  I still think it's coherent.


Yesterday I spoke at our school's Black Solidarity Day rally about this election and what it means for me, what it means for black America, what it means for people of color.  After having digested some numbers that show a marked increase in the prevalence of racist attitudes in the US since 2008 (here), I think this election offers much more.

The whole argument that we are somehow post-racial, post-racism, all thanks to Barack Obama's election has led us to talk less about race than we should -- in fact, we should be talking about race a lot considering the way the economy has affected minority communities (here).  There are a lot of hard conversations we are not having and I think the lack of candid discourse and the outpouring of racial animosity, xenophobia, and the crisis-of-identity that is plaguing the Republican Party as it realizes it cannot simply court angry white folks is putting us in a precarious moment.

If there was an election in which racial progress could be measured, I think it's this one more than 2008.  2008 was hype; it was excitement; it was wanting to be on the "right side of history" and being eager to participate in reaching this milestone. 2012 is a policy year, a vision year, a year in which we are being forced to think much more heavily about the attitudes and paradigms that should guide the United States moving forward.  Mitt Romney and Barack Obama offer widely contrasting visions and stand for very distinct demographics.

I feel like Fox News and the rest of the Murdoch progeny like to consider this an election that is a referendum on the President and how he has handled the economy.  I would agree with them to a certain extent but I frame the election entirely differently.  This is a referendum on American national identity, on the road we take to reach the American dream -- this is a values election more than anything else, I believe.  And that is why Obama remains the symbol, the face, the representation of a vision that means so very much to so very many -- even if he has not been the Progressive Messiah I had hoped for.  ObamaCare, the bail-out, student debt reduction, etc. -- I think this campaign cycle has emphasized the extent to which the President has been trying to fight for everyone so that they may fight for themselves.  This campaign has been a reminder that the legislation President Obama pushed for was predicated on values rather than economic theory.  And the quaintest twist to that is that American values are what made America great in the first place and Barack Obama has reminded us of that.  A strong middle class, affordable education, health care, the ability to take risks without fear of losing everything, we know we need these things to stay, "the hope of the Earth," as Mitt Romney likes to call us.

So 2012, if it is called anything, perhaps it should be called the referendum on American values.  Call it like we see it.  Mitt Romney is fighting for the entitled, for those who don't want a ladder to the top available for others, for practices that damage the credibility and health of the Union.  Barack Obama isn't fighting against those people; he is simply fighting for everyone.  He said so in New Hampshire when I saw him on Sunday.  He said so in 2008 when he brought the spirit of hope and change into the White House.  Go back to 2004 and look at his speech to the DNC:

It is that fundamental belief -- It is that fundamental belief: I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family.E pluribus unum: "Out of many, one." 

Are we our brothers' keepers?  Are we all in this together?  Are our futures and successes linked to one another for better or worse?  Is that a necessary condition for the American Dream, for the American identity?  I say yes -- and I think America does too.

So while he may not have been the love child of James Baldwin, Thurgood Marshall, Malcolm X, Tim Wise, Audre Lorde, Dr. King, Lyndon Johnson, Frederick Douglass, and Alice Walker, who I had dreamed of, perhaps this campaign season was good because it showed me this: for all the disappointment about what Barack Obama wasn't in his first four years, there is just cause for celebration of what and who he was.  I think it could and should be argued that, in this moment, despite what anyone else has to say: Barack Obama is the President we need(ed).

0 Election Day #1: Apologies & What We're Reading (11-6-12)

I'm calling this "Election Day #1" because I'm hoping I get to post a couple more times today.

My laptop took a nasty tumble a couple days ago and needs, essentially, a new head.  The screen is unusable.  So I have been off bad about posting recently which is a shame considering today is election day.

I'll pop a little What We're Reading below and offer some thoughts, too.

Nov. 5: Late Poll Gains for Obama Leave Romney with Longer Odds - Five Thirty Eight
Nate Silver

Why 2012 Turned Small - Politico
John F. Harris and Jonathan Martin

Campaign 2012: The Story in Photos - The Atlantic

Ask Dr. Popkin: The 3 Myths of the Romney Campaign - The Atlantic
James Fallows

How Mitt Romney Genuinely Fired Up his Supporters - The New Republic
Alex MacGillis

Eight More Years! The Case for Removing Term Limits - The New Republic
John B. Judis

The Most Important Election of Our Lives - The New Republic
Jonathan Cohn

9 Takeaways from the 2012 Election - Politico
Maggie Haberman

0 WrightAndLeft on Privilege and the American Presidency

Mr. Wright, bless his soul, answered my call from about a week ago to explore Barack Obama, the White House, and Black America.  He has offered up this post over on WrightAndLeft which explores the implications of electing Mitt Romney and why he thinks 2012 might be more of a milestone than 2008.

Read the full article here

With some distance, I think we will someday recognize that the 2012 election was the election that debunked the myth of American conservativism.  What started with a beautifully articulated lecture given by Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention led to the release of a plethora of nonpartisan studies that challenged the accuracy of conservative claims.  For decades, now, we have been entertained with the notion that high-income tax cuts spur on three major changes: smaller government, reduced deficit, and economic stimulus.  This has been the mantle of Republicans.  Tax cuts for the wealthy, we are told, are in the best interest of the nation as a whole because they offer the best access to these outcomes.

...

There was a telling moment during Romney's 47% comments that gave insight into these priorities.  Romney made a handful of jokes about how much easier it would be to win this election if his father, instead of just being born in Mexico, had actually been Mexican.  It got laughs like a joke, but there was that element of sincerity to his delivery, especially in his repetition.  He sounded a lot like that white high school kid who bemoans how much easier it is for minority students to get into college, fully incapable of recognizing the false reality required for such a statement.  Romney seems to have no concept of privilege.  His insistence that he is self-made--that giving his inheritance to charity negates the help his father gave to him--further supports his ignorance, but this isn't just the world from which he comes.  It is the version of America he is seeking to preserve--one that believes the greatest injustices come when the government seeks to empower those who haven't already earned those opportunities on their own.

 Hollywood couldn't have cast better actors to play out the choice in this election.  Romney fits perfectly the archetype of white wealth.  He looks like a television character from the fifties--an era that few non-whites see as ideal.  In contrast, Obama represents our impending biracial future.  As such, he is easily perceived as a threat to those that regret America's evolving norms.  This is all exacerbated by our changing demographics.  2011 marked a significant shift in our make up as, for the first time in our post-colonial history, the US welcomed a majority of non-white babies.  Pundits have declared this as the last election when a candidate can so unabashedly seek out the support of only one racial group.  The white majority is slipping away, and certain groups are desperately seeking to institutionalize their power and privilege before this shift is complete.  We can largely explain the Romney candidacy as a push back against these shifts, but we needn't let that fear push us backwards.