With the recent US election the American people decided to give Obama more time, or so it would appear.
.The raw data, though, tells another story. Buried beneath the bare fact of his victory is evidence of a brutally divided nation, as divided as it has been at any point in its recent history.
Among white voters, who still account for 72 per cent of the total, Romney won the popular vote by a margin of 59 per cent to 39 per cent, a Reaganesque landslide.
Men voted in large numbers for Romney;
women in even larger numbers for Obama (more women actually bothered to vote, which helps explain why Obama won relatively comfortably).
Obama had huge majorities among ethnic minorities, young people, single people, gay people.
Old people, married people, people with children voted for Romney.
Obama won among the demographics that are growing; Romney among the demographics that are shrinking. The progressive majority that Obama managed to forge out of this constellation of minorities will become stronger over time. The Republicans will have to adapt to compete. But any sunny story has to cope with another brute fact about the 2012 elections, which is that the Democrats also won the popular vote for the House of Representatives, on a swing of more than 6 per cent from 2010, yet almost no seats changed hands, leaving the Republicans with a solid majority and America with a divided government.
.The raw data, though, tells another story. Buried beneath the bare fact of his victory is evidence of a brutally divided nation, as divided as it has been at any point in its recent history.
Among white voters, who still account for 72 per cent of the total, Romney won the popular vote by a margin of 59 per cent to 39 per cent, a Reaganesque landslide.
Men voted in large numbers for Romney;
women in even larger numbers for Obama (more women actually bothered to vote, which helps explain why Obama won relatively comfortably).
Obama had huge majorities among ethnic minorities, young people, single people, gay people.
Old people, married people, people with children voted for Romney.
Obama won among the demographics that are growing; Romney among the demographics that are shrinking. The progressive majority that Obama managed to forge out of this constellation of minorities will become stronger over time. The Republicans will have to adapt to compete. But any sunny story has to cope with another brute fact about the 2012 elections, which is that the Democrats also won the popular vote for the House of Representatives, on a swing of more than 6 per cent from 2010, yet almost no seats changed hands, leaving the Republicans with a solid majority and America with a divided government.
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