Barack Obama ran for president in 2008 promising to heal some of our most bitter divides – but that's not how it worked out. In fact, racial polarization seems to have intensified since Obama was inaugurated, according to Michael Tesler, a professor of political science at Brown University. Tesler joins Up host Chris Hayes to talk about his research.
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Over the past decade, Americans watched in bafflement and rage as one institution after another – from Wall Street to Congress, the Catholic Church to corporate America, even Major League Baseball – imploded under the weight of corruption and incompetence. In the wake of the Fail Decade, Americans have historically low levels of trust in their institutions; the social contract between ordinary citizens and elites lies in tatters.
How did we get here? With "Twilight of the Elites," Christopher Hayes offers a radically novel answer. Since the 1960s, as the meritocracy elevated a more diverse group of men and women into power, they learned to embrace the accelerating inequality that had placed them near the very top. Their ascension heightened social distance and spawned a new American elite--one more prone to failure and corruption than any that came before it.
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Now I know. that racial polarization seems to have intensified since Obama was inaugurated.
Now I know that President Obama takes the first strongest heat so it will be easier for next coloured to come - also for us further down in the hierarchy
One thing we can do - now when we know - is to NOT make the polarization worse in our own surroumdings.
I always felt that there was a particular "opposition" to all things Obama from those on the other side, but Tesler's research cites empirical evidence that racial hatred of Black people forces folks to oppose policies, positions, appointments etc. that they would otherwise support. Because Obama is Black and he supports something it's doomed. I have been force to accept that America cannot be led by a Black man. That maybe he shouldn't win. Let's face it. He is exceptional in every regard. He is the leader that we need now. But America will destroy itself rather than fully support him. The study even showed that participants are less likely to like Bo the dog because Obama is the owner!!
Steven, I have never heard anyone state the obvious so eloguently. So sad but so true. It makes me afraid for our country, my country. It makes me afraid for my grandchildren. I have now faced the fact that, JFK, BFK, and MLK along with anyone and everyone who gave their lives in the name racial freedom have died for nothing. The America that I was taught to love and respect does not exist. The Americans that are hell bent on stopping President Obama will live to pay for all of the negativity and anger projected towards our President and the African Americans of America. Your see he is our President too. This is not a threat this is just a fact. This is how life is. Bad Karma always begates pay back one way or another. What goes around comes around. It may sound like a silly little saying but it is a fact. It may not come when an individual or groups of individuals want it to come but it does comes. I realize that I'm about to quote a movie but do you remember when Whoopie confronted her husband "Mr" in the movie "The Color Purple" and she said "Whatever you done to me is already done to you" that's what the racist of America have to look forward too. It's already done to them and they don't even know it. And on a positive note, I'm not counting President Obama out by a long shot. He still gets my vote, Again.