Immediately after the election pundits on all news networks started screaming about how our nation was so divided and pointed to the red state, blue state map that has become ubiquitous in US politics. This map seeks to show how conservative or liberal each state is and claims that this is an indicator of the great divide.
It seeks to say that red states are conservative and blue states are liberal but when you look at the actual breakdown of each state what you see is that states are both liberal and conservative at the same time. The average state was won by a few hundred thousand votes and some just by a few thousand, so on a state-by-state breakdown we see a division but not the way the map actually seems to portray it.
The map wants to make the south and northwest, besides the west coast, look completely conservative but in reality Republicans only won red states by a few million votes combined with Texas being the biggest win percentage.
I’d believe what they say if red or blue states were won by 80 or 90% type numbers, but when the average state is won 53 to 47% it shows that each state is about 50/50 when it comes down to politics. This is why even in red or blue states you’ll see democrats or republicans win congressional seats and governorships no matter what color the state swings for presidential elections.
This pattern has been true forever within US politics. If we go back to Ronald Reagan in 1980, even though he won 489 electoral votes and 44 states out of 50, he still only beat Carter by 8.5 million votes. He got 43.9 to 35.4 million respectably, with 7.1 million going to independent candidates.
If this has been the case in American politics, then why are pundits playing up the deep division in the US? This same divide has been present since at least the 80’s. So what’s different now, that wasn’t different back then?
One thing, a Black man is in the seat of the POTUS, and that’s it, see an article that I wrote in January 2012 for more!
Forward =’s
Ok, the election is over, Barack has won a hard fought second term and he will be our President for 4 more years. Hooray for me, Hooray for America, Hooray for Black people the world over. Once again a Black man has proven that we as a race are capable of reaching for the stars and actually landing on one. The glass ceiling has been shattered and there will be another Black President, the first woman or a Latino that will sit in that seat within the next 20 years because of President Obama’s grateful spirit and stoic demeanor.
He was the perfect man for the job, just as Jackie Robinson was when he became the first Black man to play in a segregated MLB back in 1947. The difference between the two lies with the fact that Barack Obama was absolutely the best Black man for the job and Jackie Robinson had players better than him but their attitudes sucked. So thank you for being able to weather the storm and still stand firm and resolute, I salute you Mr. President, for a job well done! You will go down in history, not just for being the first Black President, but for being one of the best Presidents this country has ever seen. Your record will speak for itself when I and historians decide to write about your Presidency in the near future.
Now that we’ve gotten through the pleasantries, Black people, what are you going to do?
Over the past two years I’ve been inundated by Black Liberals that claimed that they were holding the President accountable by spewing mostly negative information in all directions. Some were Black Activism political heavy weights like Tavis Smiley and Cornell West; others were up and coming political strategist, and some were just plain ole Black people who thought the President should have been talking about “Black” issues all the time as if he was the President of African America, and not the POTUS of all Americans.