The Obama Majority. By Harold Meyerson. Washington Post, January 22, 2013.
Meyerson:
The
Obama Majority — its existence and mobilization — is what enabled the president
to deliver so ideological an address. No such inaugural speech has been
delivered since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, demanding the curtailment of
government programs and secure in the knowledge that much of the white working
class had shifted its allegiance away from the Democrats and supported his
attack on the public sector and minority rights. On Monday, Obama, secure in
the knowledge that the nation’s minorities had joined with other liberal
constituencies to form a new governing coalition, voiced their demands to
ensure equality and to preserve and expand the government’s efforts to meet the
nation’s challenges. As he left the stage, he stopped and turned to marvel at
the crowd, at the new American majority they represented. They were the ones
he, and we, were waiting for.
