E pluribus unum

THE race for the presidency is definitely heating up. In the week before I finally return home, it seems that the contest for the presidency of the United States is reaching fever pitch. And the protagonists to the contest seem to already be lining up against each other, with swords drawn.

With the Republican nomination not yet officially over, it appears that Mitt Romney, for all intents and purposes, is now the presumptive GOP nominee for the presidency, against the incumbent Democratic president, Barack Obama. And the difference between the two men could not be any more pronounced.

In days when the economy is going great guns, the distinctions between what the Republicans and the Democrats believe in tend to become blurred. To be sure, both sides are free enterprise advocates and free marketeers, by and large. Yes, America is a free enterprise economy, and everyone—democrats, Republicans, and everyone in between—believes that this is the best system of economy the world has ever known.

However, when things go bad— and today they are bad—the answers to what ails America seem to differ, whichever side of the political fence you happen to be sitting.

At the risk of being simplistic, Democrats place more emphasis on the role of government to shape the economy, while Republicans want government to have as little to do with the economy as possible. So, in sum, it is big government versus the power of the private sector that defines what Democrats and Republicans believe in.

Like the political parties, the American people also have very little to separate them when times are good. During the Clinton years and the economic prosperity that accompanied it, it mattered little to people on both sides of the political fence which party was running the show. But now that the economy is in a deep slump, which party they look to for a solution suddenly becomes of primary importance.

As it happens, although not always exclusively, the demarcation line among Democrats and Republicans also happens to be the economic divide. For the most part, richer Americans tend to favor the GOP, whilst the lower classes tend to vote Democrat. Racial lines, too, define political alliances. Minority African-american and Latino voters go largely with Democrats, while the white majority often tends to constitute the Republican vote.

This is all fine and good when the economy is good. But when the economy is bad, then all sorts of divides come up.

Today, for example, the specter of class war is being raised as a backdrop to this election. Supposedly, Obama is for wealth redistribution (which is being defined by conservatives as a form of socialism) whilst Mitt Romney stands for individual initiative (seen by Democrats as favoring the rich at the expense of the poor).

For a country like America, this is a real concern.

E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. This is what made the United States such a great country. Because it was able to harness the differences in its society, rather than let them divide it. But sadly today, this motto seems to be far from the reality.

What seems to be happening is that the differences in American society are becoming more pronounced. Out of many, one may well become out of one, many if this trend continues. And that could spell the beginning of the end of American global supremacy.