A concise summary of modern American politics

An impressively concise summary of the past fifty years of American politics, including how the party of Lincoln inherited the Democrats legacy of racism, ends with a summary of the cultural stakes ...

Sasha Abramsky (Guardian.co.uk): The election could end the south's race-based politics

...In the last few days, Pennsylvania - one of only two Democratic states from the 2004 election thought to be within McCain's reach - has been flooded by television ads once again seeking to correlate Obama to the inflammatory preacher Jeremiah Wright. Palin supporters have been filmed holding toy monkeys with Obama signs on them at her rallies. And a miasma of racist rhetoric hangs over much of the campaigning by local Republican party operatives in many southern states...

We'll shortly know whether these tactics worked. If they did, it will be a cultural catastrophe...

... If democracy is simply a competition of ideas varnished by a sense of personal charm evinced by its lead figures, Obama's the next president. But democracy is more than that. Unfortunately, tribalism has a powerful hold on the process. A significant number of people - despite an unprecedented year-long national conversation about race and culture and American identity - still have a gut-check problem with voting for a black man.

If McCain wins, tribalism wins. The southern gamble, that race will always remain central to the nation's political decision-making process, that race will always trump economic common sense, pays off. And the American dream takes a rabbit punch to the kidneys that will take decades to recover from.

If Obama wins, however, taking some southern states and bringing enough new voters to the polls that several Senate seats in the region also go blue, then at long last the possibility of a truly post-racial political system comes one enormous step closer to fruition.

The stakes couldn't possibly be any higher.

But they are higher ...