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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTwilight of the old white guys, Mark Morford
This doesnt mean its going to be easy. This doesnt mean its going to be smooth or fun or make any sort of cohesive sense. Not by a long shot. And not for a long, long time.
But across the board and down the line, the take on Obamas astonishing, historic re-election is the same: America is more wildly, unexpectedly diverse than ever, and those diverse voices Latino, gay, black, immigrant, female, et al somehow coalesced into a potent, vociferous, albeit hotly unstable coalition to vote more powerfully and more passionately than any time in our short history, mostly because they never really existed as a functioning coalition in our short history, until now.
This is what the Republican punditry and even many old-timer Dems are coming to terms with: America is no longer a nifty, sepia-toned melting pot kept anodyne and marginal by the rich, starchy bleach of the white ruling class.
Is it not the most astonishing thing? The country is not getting any whiter, older white bigoted people are helpfully dying off, and we now have a messy and nearly incomprehensible Catherine wheel of assorted nonwhite minorities (and women) all spinning, dancing and surging into the limelight not to mention the cross-breeds, the already mixed, the racially unidentifiable who are, say, a quarter black, a quarter Chinese, a quarter Indian, a third polyamorous and a tenth Cuban kinky hipster lesbian schoolteacher, with a no-religious-affiliation kicker. Sweet.
The rest: http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2012/11/13/old-white-guys/
BeyondGeography
(39,369 posts)geckosfeet
(9,644 posts)This is your new American majority, each and every one of whom terrifies the old guard, the rich white guys, Ted Nugent, Bill OReilly, and the way it used to be. And this is why the Republican party threw every repulsive weapon it had at Obama to try and avert the inevitable; deep down, they sensed their own imminent obsolescence, even if they didnt quite believe it was possible.
And oh, they tried everything. Racism. Birtherism. Sexism. Abortion, birth control, legitimate rape and irresponsible sluts. Religious intolerance, homophobia, xenophobia, Socialism, Communism, Nazis, Kenya, monkeys, Big Bird, gun rights, tax laws, welfare, elitism, oil shortages, health care reform that would secretly herd up and kill the elderly. Just for starters.
Nothing worked. Check that: It all worked. Just not as well as it used to. As one distraught fundamentalist Christian activist said, It wasnt that our message didnt get out. We got the message out. But our message was rejected.
/ .... /
Is this a good thing? This is, of course, a very good thing. On the other hand, its also all flavors of potential bedlam, with every group and region now demanding its own representation, its own voice, its own right to stir things up and be heard. Or maybe they just want what the white menfolk have had all along: a more honest chance, and a game thats not rigged against them from the start. I know! The nerve!
Twilight of the old white guys
CanonRay
(14,101 posts)when the legislature is re-set. That's the question for Dems.