| November 05, 2008 | Wednesday | Ziqa'ad 6, 1429 |
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Decisive moment for America
IS it possible? Is it really, truly possible that a black man — well, half-black at any rate — will be the next president of the United States? It is a shame that his race has to be taken into consideration. But it would be disingenuous to ignore it.
It mattered to those who rejected him outright, or struggled with their bias but could not ultimately bring themselves to vote for him, on account of his skin colour. It also mattered to those who, on the same basis, wouldn’t have dreamt of voting for anyone else. It couldn’t entirely be overlooked even by those who picked sides purely on the basis of policies, or perhaps personalities.
There will, hopefully, come a time when race will no longer be a significant issue in the US. However, nearly 150 years after the American Civil War, this is not yet the case. Considerable progress has undoubtedly been made since Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act into legislation in 1964-65, in the wake of mass movements demanding racial equality.
Today, states that once constituted the core of the pro-slavery Confederacy boast a plethora of African-American mayors and more senior elected officials. Some of them are, however, also home to small but not insignificant pockets of white supremacists, some of whom have been counting on the prospect of a black presidency to swell their ranks and facilitate a race war.
The lunatic fringe, whose adherents are often armed and invariably dangerous, undoubtedly provides cause for concern, but so do the considerably more widespread wellsprings of casual racism, whether overt or subconscious. It is just about conceivable, though, that the 2008 presidential campaign might have prompted some of those who fall in this category to reassess and purge their prejudices.
In which case, the result of yesterday’s election may conform pretty closely to the opinion polls that preceded it. Those polls, almost without exception, pointed towards a decisive advantage for Barack Obama. In fact, combined with early voting trends, they sufficed for some analysts to latch on to the prospect of a landslide. In many cases, though, the optimism was tempered with trepidation.
The influence of the race factor was but one of the known unknowns. Vote-suppression tactics by the Republican machine — by now an almost traditional means of targeting likely Democratic voters — were also feared. And although a high turnout, which would have favoured the Democrats, was considered likely, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion.
In the past 40 years, there have been only two Democratic administrations. The party has developed the practice of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory into a fine art. It seemed unlikely this time around, given eight years of the atrocious Bush administration followed by a climate of extreme economic uncertainty, with John McCain’s appallingly misjudged choice of running mate prompting several Republican luminaries (as well as the leading newspaper in Sarah Palin’s home state) to endorse Obama. But not many people were willing to risk overconfident predictions, not least for fear of jinxing the result.
By the time this appears in print, the outcome is likely to be known, or at least imminent. Even that is not a certainty, though — after all, it’s only eight years ago that the result was delayed until mid-December, when the US Supreme Court finally crowned the contestant who had received fewer votes. A repetition would probably provoke some sort of an uprising.
In the run-up to yesterday’s election, any number of analysts were describing it as the most important presidential competitions in at least a generation. That’s arguable, of course: to some extent, the mantra tends to be repeated every four years, and one doesn’t need to delve too far into the past for other vital contests. What’s less open to question is that the campaign that preceded yesterday’s balloting has been the longest and by far the most expensive in American history. This is not an accomplishment that should provide much cause for pride.
In Mike’s Election Guide, the irrepressible film-maker and polemicist Michael Moore outlines ‘Six Modest Proposals to Fix Our Broken Elections’: elections should be held on Sundays rather than Tuesdays in order to facilitate a bigger turnout (given that only about half the electorate generally bothers to queue outside a polling booth); all US citizens should automatically qualify as registered voters; paper ballots should be used everywhere (instead of voting machines that increase the risk of discrepancies); primaries should be organised according to region, so that only four (east, west, north and south, with the order changing every four years) would suffice; the election season should be limited to six months: four for primaries and two for the general campaign (which would bring the US closer to the norm in most democracies); and the role of money in the campaign should be minimised through public financing, spending limits and free airtime for contestants.
In the current circumstances, one cannot help but wonder whether six months would have sufficed for a freshman senator from Illinois to make the sort of impact that led him to the gates of the White House. On the other hand, the overdose of electioneering has undoubtedly been jarring, and hardly redolent of a vibrant democracy.
I would, however, be inclined to add to the Moore proposals reform, or even abolition, of the electoral college system, whereby — with a couple of honourable exceptions — all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who ekes out even the tiniest margin of victory. Given that the president supposedly represents the whole country, it stands to reason that the national popular vote ought to determine who gets that post. At the same time, a single transferable vote would enable those whose first choice is a small-party candidate to influence the outcome by registering their broader preferences.
The choice before the American electorate this time around was between a symbolic great leap forward and the prospect of trudging deeper into the Bush-Cheney mire on all fronts, domestic and international. The hope that Obama held out should not be overrated: contrary to Republican insinuations, he is not, unfortunately, a socialist. And replacing an ostensible simpleton in the belly of the beast with a charming and intelligent man quite possibly equipped with liberal instincts does not necessarily change the nature of the beast.
But if black and liberal America has occasion to rejoice today, it will not do so in isolation. And if African-Americans who never thought they’d live to see someone who looks like Obama reach the proverbial mountaintop are inclined to give vent to their emotions, it would be unkind not to join them in shedding a tear or raising a cheer.
The writer is a journalist based in Sydney.
mahir.worldview@gmail.com
