Observations on the divisions in America

The following is from an editorial by Gideon Rachman, a British columnist for the Financial Times. It seems to me to be particularly insightful:

"It is odd – as a foreigner – to witness these bitter divisions in America. When I was at school, the conventional analysis was that it was Europe that bred political extremism and the US that benefited from the stability of a broad, centrist consensus. The joke in Britain was that the Republican party was a bit like the UK’s Conservative party – and so was the Democratic party. Both were committed to capitalism at home and anti-communism abroad.

But now it is Europe that is the continent of cosy consensus. In Britain, France and Germany, politics is dominated by centrist parties committed to similar principles – a welfare state and a social-market economy. Because Europe is now much more secular than the US, there is also no equivalent of the bitter arguments about abortion in America.

But the blue-red division in America goes well beyond religion. It also reflects different attitudes to military force and therefore to America’s role in the world.

The blue-red divide is also between urban and rural America, between coastal and inland America and between the educated and the uneducated. The big American cities will turn blue again on Tuesday and so will the coastal states. Most of Middle and small-town America is likely to stay red. To an extent that should truly disturb the Republicans, educated Americans will flock to the Democrats. Mr Obama has a 28-point lead among Americans with a post-graduate degree.

Ever since 1968, when Richard Nixon won the White House partly by campaigning against snobby, east-coast elitists, there has been a fear in blue America that they are a minority in their own country. At this year’s Democratic convention, the party was careful to pay homage to the totems of red America – in particular, the military.

If Mr Obama wins on Tuesday – particularly if he wins big – blue America will be tempted to believe that it has won the culture wars. There is already much happy talk about the construction of a new, liberal majority based on the country’s changing demographics.

But that would be the wrong conclusion. The one point in the 2008 campaign when the momentum switched to the Republicans was when Mr McCain nominated Ms Palin and chucked some red meat to red America. The cultural card was working for the Republicans until Lehman Brothers collapsed.

When the political conversation switched to the economy, the Obama campaign regained its strength. The economy has been Mr Obama’s friend during this campaign. It would become his enemy the moment he stepped into the Oval Office."