Out of many ...

E pluribus unum: "Out of many, one."

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us -- the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of "anything goes." Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there’s the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an "awesome God" in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

--Barack Obama, 2004 Democratic Convention Keynote Speech

As I puzzle my way through the world of American politics, I try to understand how the right wing thinks, as well as the left wing and the center. And, in doing so, I run into a constant thread of visceral dislike of and disdain for President Obama -- not just for his political and economic positions, but for him as a person. And I've wondered, why?

I've wondered, because most of his political agenda -- achieved or proposed -- is fairly typical fare for a Democratic politician, certainly not much different from that of a centrist such as Bill Clinton. And yet, Obama is denounced, both by politicians and by average Joes commenting on web pages, as the most dangerous president this nation has ever confronted -- a socialist, a foreigner, a denier of American "exceptionalism," a man "who is not one of us." I could only assume that this vitriol represented a racist reaction to the first black man to serve as president, as well as distrust of his unusually cosmopolitan upbringing. And, in part, this may well be the case.

But I've been attending a bi-weekly series of lectures about the 2012 campaign at the University of Washington, offered by David Domke, the Chairman of the UW Communications Department (an excellent and highly entertaining speaker). Last night, during the fourth lecture of the series, Domke contended that President Obama -- consistently since his 2004 keynote address -- has pushed an agenda of "inclusiveness." Obama has insisted that America is a family, and that our family's membership is broad enough to include all races, religions (including atheists and agnostics), marital statuses and family types, sexual orientations, and varying national origins and customs.

Domke noted that right wing politicians who hint that Obama "is not one of us" are correct in believing that Obama is different from every prior president in his embrace of all faiths, in his insistence on the common ideals of the three "Abrahamic" faiths, in his color blind approach to race, in his ease with and around gays. But, Domke added, Obama actually does not differ greatly in his "inclusiveness" from the American people of today -- probably not differing from a majority of the voters, and certainly not from a great majority of the younger cohorts of voters.

It is this sense by the right wingers -- that Obama represents the future -- that has fueled their desperate opposition. Their opposition may be expressed by the more adroit as opposition to specific policies -- and of course conservatives do oppose those policies -- but it is their sense that the America they know, love, and understand is slipping away through their fingers that infuses their opposition with so much emotion. It is their sense that America as a Christian nation -- for many, a white Christian nation, a nation that sits down to dinner and says grace as a nuclear family, as portrayed by Norman Rockwell in his paintings -- is being submerged by wave after wave of new customs, new colors, new languages, new family groupings, and new religious practices. It's their conviction that America's greatness rests on the bedrock of the happy families shown in the old Dick and Jane readers, in the Rockwell paintings, that leads to their deeply felt fear that America is "doomed."

Understanding these fears makes it easier -- for me, at least -- to understand contemporary American politics. As of this date, it's uncertain which party will win the 2012 elections. But the trend for the future is undeniable, and it is not a trend that favors the right wing. Professor Domke displayed a complex graph that showed support for gay marriage to be higher among voters aged 18-30 in Mississippi (in Mississippi!) than it is among voters over 65 in Massachusetts -- the two states that overall represent opposite poles with respect to support for that issue.

The nation is moving rapidly away from the comfortable images portrayed in the old Norman Rockwell paintings, moving toward a far more cosmopolitan society. Obama is not the cause of this movement, although he understands and supports it. He is merely a reflection of where our society is today, and certainly where -- necessarily, as a result of simple demographics -- it is heading.

Every political issue is worthy of dispute on its merits. Conservatives are not always wrong, and liberals are not always right. But to oppose the president because "he is not one of us" is to stand opposed to where we're irreversibly heading, to stand opposed to America's future.

And that's not a winning strategy.