American Obsession: Race and Conflict in the Age of Obama - Softcover

Forman, Seth A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1614342636 ISBN 13: 9781614342632

Publisher: Booklocker.Com Inc, 2011

Synopsis

American Obsession argues that, with Obama's presidency, the vast political differences between blacks and whites in America have emerged as an explosive issue. Obama's aggressive agenda to change the vital structure of American life toward more governmental control and less individual initiative and enterprise does not sit well with most whites, but is seen positively by most blacks. Polls already reflect these trends and deep racial resentment is emerging.

About this title

From the Publisher

Written in an erudite but entertaining style, this polemic against the received wisdom of the punditry and the professors argues that with Obama's presidency America is teetering on the edge of race based political partisanship unseen in the modern era. The book includes in-depth demographic analyses of election results from 2008 and 2004, valuable and little known polling and survey data, much of it illustrated through easy to read graphs and tables, comprehensive accounts of recent American political history, presidential politics, the media's role in modern politics, and the meaning of the presidency itself. It reads as nothing less than an exciting and provocative jaunt through modern American politics and culture.

From the Back Cover

Platitudes about the civic utopia that would spring forth from the election of Barack Obama have vanished. Thomas Friedman's claim that "the American Civil War ended, as a black man . . . became president of the United States," has now been replaced by PBS host Tavis Smiley's prediction that the 2012 presidential election is "going to be the ugliest, the nastiest, the most divisive, and the most racist in the history of this Republic." E.J. Dionne's trope that "it is time to hope again. Time to hope that the era of racial backlash and wedge politics is over," has given way to CBS's Bob Schieffer's statement that recent criticism of Obama represents "an ugly strain of racism that's running through this whole thing." Paul Krugman, who wrote in 2008 that "Racial polarization used to be a dominating force in our politics, but we're now a different, and better, country," has more recently taken to equating the anti-Obama Tea Party to the Ku Klux Klan.

Edition details

• Publisher: Booklocker.Com Inc
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1614342636
• ISBN 13: 9781614342632
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 328