A nation divided against itself cannot stand. The morning after the election, reality set in and there was no Lincoln to unite us and preserve the Union. When I immigrated in 1949, America was the great melting pot of nations; no matter your nationality, religion or race you became an American. Not any more. We now are African-American, Latino-American, Democrat-American, Republican-American.
President Obama is the great divider. In four years of campaigning for re-election, Obama's outreach to the African-American community was that their poverty is due to the rich white guys not paying their "fair share." To the Latinos he preached that the Republicans hated them and wanted to deport them no matter their legal status. To labor unions that the Republicans wanted to bust them out and that Mitt Romney was against teachers. To women that the GOP was waging a war on women.
Obama planted lies, misinformation and fear into every segment of our society. And it worked! It's a pipe dream to expect with Obama at the helm that partisanship will be put aside. It is part of his political nature as community organizer, never quite rising to the dignity of a president.
Any president running on a record like Obama's — high unemployment, stalled economy, record budget deficits, $4 trillion in four years, $16 trillion national debt, a foreign policy that is a failure by any account — should not even be considered for re-election. Obama's record as president was so bad that he never even tried to defend it (not even his hallmark Obamacare). His excuse: Bush did it. When a campaign is won solely on your ability to demonize your opponent, Mitt Romney, there is something terribly wrong, terribly wrong with this election.
Laszlo Stephan
Des Plaines
