Other side of America

Heav’n has no rage… Nor Hell a fury like a woman scorn’d,” wrote William Cosgreve. Mitt Romney, loving husband of Ann, probably could understand Sandy’s random ire. But poor Mittens has no notion of the scorn he might have heaped on Michelle and her 65-odd million American sisters who denied him the presidency of the United States.

Barack Obama won the re-election thanks in no small part to women being from Venus and men from Mars in their voting behaviour. Women favoured Mr Obama by 55 per cent, while 60 per cent of the men voted for Mr Romney, according to the exit polls.
Mr Obama’s election as the first African-American President of the United States in 2008 had conjured up images of America as a rainbow nation, much like Nelson Mandela’s South Africa. In reality, it led to fissures in the society like never before. American election is decided on the basis of electoral votes. The winner of a state even by the narrowest margin takes all its electoral votes in almost all states. The divide thus magnifies the electoral vote margin.
The most obvious of the divisions is ethnic origins. Willie Brown, a former mayor of San Francisco and a widely respected African-American elder statesman, said that race was certainly an issue in the election. More than 90 per cent of African-Americans continued to vote for Mr Obama. Hispanics would have just cause to be upset at Mr Obama’s inability to keep the promise to resolve the immigration mess. But they too preferred Mr Obama with more than 70 per cent casting their ballot in his favour. The under-30s wanted Mr Obama, while the older Americans opted for Mr Romney.
Geography, too, was material. All television viewers must have noted that the blue or the Democratic states were mostly in the northeast or along the West Coast. The Republican red states were concentrated in the heartland and the southeast. Analysts would no doubt find many more divisions according to church affiliations, income categories and so on. This paper has afforded its readers a rich opportunity of sampling such essays and many more would soon be appearing.
The most critical divide is political. Republicans of all hues have behaved in a strictly partisan way ever since 2008. Mr Obama could do no right for them. Many on the fringe even doubted the legitimacy of his presidency believing that he was not an American by birth. Yet others believed that he was a Muslim like his father. But the most damning of these labels was that he was a socialist, almost a swear word in the US.
The Republicans were in a minority in both houses of the Congress between 2008 and 2010. Some southern Democrats lent them support in the House of Representatives to hinder progress of Mr Obama proposals. But when the Republicans gained control of this lower house in 2010, a legislative gridlock leading to policy paralysis resulted. The opposition to Mr Obama was so fierce that the Republican leadership even risked a possible American default when it delayed approval of increased limits of public debt in 2011. The Tea Party movement was an extreme manifestation of this mentality. Its agenda of minimum government in effect was nihilistic. Often it was a thinly veiled (and sometimes not even veiled) abhorrence of Mr Obama not just the President but the person as well.
Even though Mr Obama had vowed to seek bi-partisan agreements immediately after his election, he had little inclination and less ability to do so. He thus found that even routine governance posed daunting challenges for one who would be a transformational leader. His immediate Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton had found himself in a similar predicament at the same time in his presidency. His consummate political skills enabled him to outmanoeuvre his opponents and win re-election handily in 1996.
Mr Obama made heavy weather of his own re-election bid despite his significant achievements of reviving the American auto industry, reforming the healthcare system and, in general, not allowing the already bad economic situation to worsen. Mr Romney’s Mormon origins would have been the kiss of death in another campaign, but in this vitiated atmosphere, he came tantalisingly close to unseating the incumbent President.
These divisions harm the US precisely in the area where it needs to act decisively and quickly: the economy. The immediate challenge is the so-called financial cliff that awaits it in early 2013. If congressional leaders and Mr Obama go through the Mexican standoff yet again, default and worse could follow. America can ill afford this. Its recent green shoots of recovery are still too fragile. And an American downturn would add immensely to global misery caused by the continuing European saga of imminent collapse.
There is reason to hope that with no more electoral battles to fight, Mr Obama would bring his formidable abilities to bear upon the task of putting in place workable plans for an immediate future. He has sought help from Mr Romney in his victory speech, and Mr Romney has promised to work for economic recovery. It remains to be seen whether these statements mean anything beyond polite noises routinely made on such occasions.
The long, often-bitter campaign would leave the Republicans smarting from their (self-inflicted) wounds. It would require acts of statesmanship on the part of Mr Obama to reach out to them to get cooperation for his mandate. Lyndon Johnson, a politician’s politician and master of deal-making, showed unimaginable vision in the 1960s when he got radical civil rights legislation passed from a recalcitrant Congress. That opened up a long period of racial harmony and progress on all fronts.
That is Mr Obama’s singular challenge and opportunity. He said in his victory speech that America rises and falls as one nation. He has to carry conviction to all Americans, men and women, white and non-white, young and old, rich and poor alike. Mr Obama’s lasting achievement, which would propel him to the pantheon of great American Presidents, would be to fashion his nation again into the United States of America.

The writer taught at IIM Ahmedabad and helped set up the Institute of Rural Management, Anand. He writes on economic and policy issues.