Jamal Mecklai: C'mon Mr Cain

If Herman Cain were to win the Republican nomination there would be two black guys facing off for the US presidency

Given the hawk-like focus of global media, I am amazed that two extremely significant pieces of recent news have not become subject of detailed analysis. The first is the fact that if Herman Cain were to win the Republican nomination – and he is currently the front runner – there would be two black guys facing off for the US presidency. Till now, two black guys facing off in America would most likely have meant a heavyweight title bout.

The other is that Steve Jobs, widely acknowledged as one of the most amazing visionaries of the last 40 or 50 years, said that taking LSD was one of two or three experiences that made him who he was.

Leaving the second for another time, the Herman Cain story suggests that, 50-some years after the civil rights movement, America may have – finally – become largely colour-blind.

If this is true, it is without doubt the biggest story about America in 2011, and, importantly, a hugely encouraging sign for the millions of people all over the world who are patiently plugging away at change. Working for social change is a slow – usually painfully slow – process that often wrings out peoples’ good humour, leaving them frustrated and ratty. So, it is important to recognise and celebrate any dramatic change in how society comports itself.

And America’s victory against racism would certainly be a dramatic change. As recently as the 1980s, when I lived in the US, segregation – both in terms of work and play – was totally the rule. At the time, there was no way a black man (or, for that matter, a woman) could even think of becoming president.

To highlight the impact of this on US democracy, I tried to run a parallel US presidential election on November 6, 1984, billed as The Only Truly Democratic Election in America — President by Lottery. My pitch to the media seemed to catch — as late as the night before the election, I even spoke with the producers of CBS, NBC and ABC news. But that was it. The TV cameras didn’t cover my election; Ronald Reagan was re-elected and the rest is history.

Much more recently than that, too, the status quo continued. I was sharing my observation about Herman Cain with a couple of analysts from the International Monetary Fund who were visiting our offices last week; they nodded in agreement and one of them told me that just a few years ago – in 2003 – in a political economy class at Harvard, the consensus was that neither a black man nor a woman could be president.

Fast forward to 2008, and, in just five years, a black man did become president. While there is no doubt that there was still a fair amount of racial prejudice at the time, America showed that, when it came to counting votes, a black man could – and did – become president.

This very reality appears to have changed everything. Today, Americans generally don’t see Mr Obama as a black man — they see him as President Obama (like President Bush or President Clinton) and they like him or dislike him based on which side of the political spectrum they are on.

And to take it to the next – final? – level, we have another black man – in many senses, a classic politico (albeit never having held office) – making the running on the opposite side of the political divide. Amazing!

Of course, it doesn’t really matter whether Mr Cain gets the nomination or not. President Obama is a shoo-in for re-election, despite the fact that the economy is in the tank. This suggests that US growth will continue to surprise on the upside and that the unemployment rate will continue to fall. Keep buying dollars.

And get ready for more. With Martin Luther King’s dream fulfilled, at least in part, a more equitable distribution of America’s awesome wealth is on the cards.

The domino-like collapse of the serial economic/financial bubbles over the last 15 years or so confirms that after a point you can’t grow the economy without paying greater attention to income and asset distribution. That’s what the Occupy Wall Street movement is about.

This point of the natural cycle requires an accelerated shift to a fairer distribution in America. The millionaire’s tax that Obama has pushed out is a small first step. Equating capital gains rates with income taxes, eliminating all tax shelters, and closing down tax havens – remember, it was Shakespeare who said, “First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” – will be key agenda items in President Obama’s second term.

The cycle demands it, and it will happen.

Now, if only If Mr Cain were to get the Republican nomination, the election would be really entertaining to watch.

jamal@mecklai.com