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Election Reflects Pivotal Trends

This big election day and potential for definitive Obama victory amplifies and highlights dramatic 21st  century political, economic, and demographic trends underway:

By Jonathan D. Miller | Updated on November 03, 2008

This big election day and potential for definitive Obama victory amplifies and highlights dramatic 21st  century political, economic, and demographic trends underway:

  • The United States population will be majority non-white within the next generation. African Americans will lose clout as Hispanic and Asian populations advance. White Americans will no longer dominate. 
  • The New Deal and Great Society had a 40-year run before running out of gas. Now Reaganomics goes over the cliff after nearly three decades. Just as the Roaring Twenties ended the last major Republican ascendancy, now the credit meltdown crashes the latest version of free market–trickle down policies, hopefully without the devastating impacts of 80 years ago.
  • The global economy, the rise of China and India as economic powers, and the roiled Islamic oil-field region force a change in America’s competitive standing. We’re a high cost producer whose economy has been depending on consumer spending and high energy use. We are finding out that producing less and consuming more is a zero sum game that needs to be reversed or our standard of living will decline.
  • Urban areas, including urbanizing suburbs, continue to gain clout connecting to global pathways. Secondary and tertiary cities removed from the larger global pathway markets are disadvantaged. Rural areas decline further.

From an election day perspective, the Republicans cling to a largely white, more rural Joe Six Pack “Real America” constituency touting old bromides like tax cuts for everyone, free markets, and super-power bluster. That’s why it appears they will lose big. Who knows whether Obama can deliver–time will tell. But he represents the New World Order: An increasingly diverse country that must come to grips with reinventing itself with 21st solutions to regain its global footing.

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