Donald Trump trumped, among other results of the election
The Great Experiment
By TIMOTHY EGAN, NYT
Anyone who still has a smidge of humanity left after our $6 billion electoral argument should consider the symbolism at the top of a ballot now headed for history's vault. The incumbent's father is from a race of people first brought to these shores in chains and sold like whiskey barrels at portside auctions. The challenger's father was born in Mexico, to a family of sexual and religious outlaws who fled the United States.
At the first-ever Republican convention, in 1856, the party platform called for ending the two great sins of American life - "these twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery."
Slavery and polygamy are indeed relics, for the American story is one of working past the barbarism, past the irrational hatred - an arc of enlightenment, with dips along the way.
All of which makes Tuesday's election worth looking at from a longer, wider view. The audacity of electing a black man or a Mormon bishop to lead the free world is something, still. But the overarching Great Experiment - the attempt to create a big, educated, multi-racial, multi-faith democracy that is not divided by oligarchical gaps between rich and poor - is still hanging in the balance.
Animus based on skin color has hardly disappeared: a majority of Americans, 56 percent, harbor some anti-black sentiment, up from 49 percent four years ago, according to a recent Associated Press survey.
(More here.)
By TIMOTHY EGAN, NYT
Anyone who still has a smidge of humanity left after our $6 billion electoral argument should consider the symbolism at the top of a ballot now headed for history's vault. The incumbent's father is from a race of people first brought to these shores in chains and sold like whiskey barrels at portside auctions. The challenger's father was born in Mexico, to a family of sexual and religious outlaws who fled the United States.
At the first-ever Republican convention, in 1856, the party platform called for ending the two great sins of American life - "these twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery."
Slavery and polygamy are indeed relics, for the American story is one of working past the barbarism, past the irrational hatred - an arc of enlightenment, with dips along the way.
All of which makes Tuesday's election worth looking at from a longer, wider view. The audacity of electing a black man or a Mormon bishop to lead the free world is something, still. But the overarching Great Experiment - the attempt to create a big, educated, multi-racial, multi-faith democracy that is not divided by oligarchical gaps between rich and poor - is still hanging in the balance.
Animus based on skin color has hardly disappeared: a majority of Americans, 56 percent, harbor some anti-black sentiment, up from 49 percent four years ago, according to a recent Associated Press survey.
(More here.)
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