I remain cautiously optimistic — with the emphasis on ‘cautious’ — that President Obama will have a better second term than his first turned out. Despite being an idealistic orator, Obama showed himself not to be the ablest and most noble politician of all time. But he is a quick study, and I think he will do much better in getting things done next time, despite being lost in a town full of backstabbers; despite the huge bulls-eye target on his back.

The election results gave Obama a decisive win, but didn’t do a thing to reverse a disturbing trend in American politics. That is the growing tribalism between those who identify themselves as Republicans and Democrats. Tom Jacobs, a political scientist, just published a good article about that. He points out that most Americans have fairly centrist policy views. Their differences over what should be done to fix things doesn’t vary that much, despite political affiliation. And yet, they increasingly hate the other party and all involved with it; they take it more and more personally. This obviously promotes gridlock and makes compromise unattainable. Not a good sign.

I believe that my “go ugly early” analysis was vindicated, even if Obama’s win was somewhat more graceful than I had predicted. Sean Trende wrote an insightful analysis spelling out how Obama’s “early ugliness” (negative campaign tactics)  »  continue reading …

I was progressing through the September (2012) issue of The Atlantic, thoroughly enjoying James Fallows’ detailed comparison of the debating skills and experiences of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, willing to consider Hanna Rosin’s theory that the modern emphasis on casual sex on the college scene (the so-called “hook-up culture”) is actually “an engine of female progress . . . harnesses and driven by women themselves” . . . when I came to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Fear of a Black President“. And at first I was going to give it a quick look then move on to the usually interesting short notes at the end of the magazine.

I had previously read some of Mr. Coates’ by-lines, and knew more-or-less that he was quite sensitive to alleged racial issues in 21st Century America. It is clear right from the start of his new article that Mr. Coates, a young African-American, is quite angry with the state of black-white relationships in America today (“a properly angry essay”, as James Bennet writes in the Editor’s Note). I am somewhat familiar with the phenomenon of on-going yet under-spoken racial anger on the part of educated black professionals, having seen occasional signs of it in my own workplace. I didn’t think at first that Mr. Coates would tell me anything that I didn’t already know.

But on second thought . . . maybe I owed it to those people at work  »  continue reading …