The second time around

As predicted and prayed for, Obama has won a second term. Final electoral College votes: 332-Obama; 206-Romney. It was a less convincing triumph with the popular vote at 50.5% (61,907,639) for Obama versus 47.9% (58,648,640) for Mitt Romney.

Many pundits were red-faced after the wrong predictions. Carl Rove, the Republican political analyst was in denial up to the last minute. And motor-mouth Donald Trump, had a complete meltdown after behaving outrageously during the entire campaign season.

Livid with rage, he tweeted uncontrollably: “He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!” “This cannot happen in America.” “Let’s fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us!” “We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided.”

The more decent Media mainstays could not help but censure the churlish Trump. Brian Williams commented that Trump had “driven well past the last exit to relevance and veered into something closer to irresponsible...” On the warpath, Trump ranted back at Williams: “ bwilliams knows that I think his newscast has become totally boring so he took a shot at me last night.” “bwilliams newscast is his show Rock Center which is totally dying in the ratings - a disaster!” “Wouldn’t you love to have my ratings?”

Apart from the fact that Donald’s numbers were all off, he was beginning to sound like a racist — a redheaded white Taliban. Public opinion was turning against him. He finally restrained himself, backtracked and deleted his more offensive tirades. He was dead wrong about the world too. The global community was ecstatic that Obama won just as the international surveys had projected. One might say that for the first time, Trump got himself fired.

Mitt Romney, though visibly deflated, managed to be gracious when he conceded. But one can’t help wondering whether the statement that he would “pray for Obama” was a veiled threat, or a prediction of dire things to come. It conjured images of the Ku Klux Klan, the Skinheads and white Supremacists burning crosses and hanging non-whites upside-down.

Political analysts, always sharper on hindsight, reflected that Republicans were utterly disconnected from the “real” America. They were so blissfully oblivious they didn’t notice that their anticipated bailiwicks were morphing right under their noses. The face of their nation is no longer predominantly white, blue-eyed and blonde; but black, brown, yellow and red.

Unless the Grand Old Party understands and accepts this reality, they are doomed to become obsolete, irrelevant, out-of-touch and most of all, out-of-power. Director Steven Spielberg said in an interview, “I’ve always been very intrigued by the arc the Republican Party had taken from being a progressive, pro-government party during the Civil War to the thing it is today.”

When Citizen Y forecasted/wished for an Obama win last week, someone commented that he hoped I was wrong, because another four years under Obama would weaken America. I wanted to retort, “Dude, I hate to be the one to break the bad news to you, but America was already weak when Dubya turned it over to Obama four years ago. Where were you?” But I knew that there was no need to reply because vindication will happen in the next 24 hours. And it did.

There’s only one statement in Trump’s rampage that had a grain of truth: America is indeed totally divided. In the election post mortem, it was observed that the most expensive campaign in US history ($1.16B), ironically only preserved the status quo. Romney had the highest number of white votes ever, particularly among males; while the “colored” constituencies, led by Hispanics and women, unequivocally supported Obama. Republicans dominate the House of Representatives, while Democrats control the Senate. It’s a hopeless gridlock, a stalemate of hard positions. This is what saps the heroic Yankee spirit. This is what negates that legendary American chutzpah. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “ A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Parallels between the 14th and 66th US Presidents are nuanced in Spielberg’s latest movie, Lincoln. Both had Congress adversaries that hated their guts and would rather fall on the sword than capitulate to their sworn nemesis; both were considered “weaklings” by their critics; both were accused of being better at oratory and campaigning than leading and governing; both were sandbagged by their opponents at every turn of the way.

In 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation through war powers vested in him as Commander-in-Chief. With the Civil War at an end, he needed a Constitutional amendment to abolish slavery in all the states, whether Union or Confederate. The Senate had earlier approved the amendment that verified the declaration of Thomas Jefferson that “all men are created equal.” But the House was divided between abolitionist Republicans and Confederate-leaning Democrats called Copperheads, who cited scripture to dispute the law. Fernando Wood, a New York Democrat bellowed, “Congress must not declare equal those whom God has created unequal.”

In 2009, Obama prioritized his health-care bill, spending nearly a year while deferring action on jobs legislation. Lincoln was also accused of delaying the war’s end until the House passed the 13th amendment. But Lincoln was a savvy politician, unafraid to cut deals with irresolute Congressmen, resorting to cajolery, patronage and veiled threats to secure legislation. His philosophy was that politics is the machinery to address tough challenges. War and politics, campaign and statecraft, are Siamese twins, inseparable and interdependent. This was the precious lesson that Lincoln taught his closest Secretaries.

Perhaps President Obama could emulate Lincoln’s political dexterity more faithfully. Republicans and Democrats should heed the words of the Great Emancipator, possibly America’s greatest President. “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

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