Is America ready?

Let me count the ways

My favorite passage from Great Powers (74-75):

Remember this: Our country was born of revolution, including a nasty guerrilla war waged by a ragtag collection of militias against the most powerful military in the world at that time. We fought dirty, even launching a surprise attack during a religious holiday. We mercilessly persecuted fellow citizens who sided with the occupational authority. The enemy branded our military leader a terrorist. In fact, its parliament was the first in history to use such terminology to describe our violent attacks against its commerce. And true to our violent extremism, we “elected” this rebel military leader our first president in 1789. I use the word “elected” loosely, because he essentially ran unopposed — by design.

Less than 2 percent of our country’s population was actually able to cast votes, as roughly half of the states chose electors in their legislatures — rich landowning patricians selecting one of their own. This rebel leader ran unopposed again for reelection three years later in 1792.

When the general finally stepped down in 1797, an outcome by no means certain, he was replaced by another revolutionary leader — an unlovable enforcer to whom the revolutionary elite had delegated a number of unsavory jobs over the years. Like the general, this radical lawyer wasn’t associated with an organized party as such. His revolutionary credentials were beyond reproach.

Our third president, one of the world’s most notorious radical ideologues, ushered in a period of single-party rule in 1800. During that election, only six of sixteen states actually allowed the “people” — White men who met certain qualifications — to vote in the presidential race. Certain radical groups were denied the right to vote, as were women.

This one-party rule, subsequently dubbed the Era of Good Feelings, extended almost a quarter-century, getting so stale at one point that an incumbent president ran unopposed.

Finally, a whopping forty-eight years after we issued our famous Declaration of Independence, declaring all men equal, we conducted a presidential election in which three-quarters of the states let their citizens vote direct for electors.

For years later, in 1828, America finally saw an “outsider,” meaning someone not from the first revolutionary generation or its immediate progeny, win the White House. Naturally, he was another war hero, who, over his eight years in office, brutalized his political opponents so much that they mockingly dubbed him “King Andrew.”

The “king” then displayed the Putinesque temerity to handpick his successor, earning him the equivalent of a “third term.”

This was the first half-century of American political history.

It took us 89 years to free the slaves and 189 years to guarantee African-Americans the right to vote.

Women waited 144 years before earning suffrage.

If a mature, mulitparty democracy was so darn easy, everybody would have one.

Some broad framing, then, about America’s “readiness” to have a non-White female become president.

Notable countries that outlawed slavery before the United States did comprehensively in 1865:

• Haiti, 1804

• Chile, 1823

• Greece, 1823

• Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, Belize, El Salvador, and Guatemala, 1824

• Uruguay, 1830

• United Kingdom (trade in 1807, in most colonies in 1833, completely by 1838)

• Denmark, in colonies, 1848

• France, permanently, 1848.

• Colombia, 1851.

Notable countries that gave women the vote before the United States did in 1920:

• New Zealand, 1893

• Australia, 1902

• Finland, 1906

• Norway, 1913

• Denmark, 1915

• Russia and Canada, 1917

• Germany, UK (partially), Austria, Germany, and Netherlands, 1918

• Luxembourg and Sweden, 1919.

Notable modern countries with female leaders today:

• Bangladesh

• Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Denmark

• Estonia

• Finland

• France

• Italy

• Nepal

• Peru

• Samoa

• Serbia

• Slovakia

• Taiwan.

Countries with multiple female leaders over time:

• Switzerland — 5

• UK — 3

• Bangladesh — 2

• Norway --2

• New Zealand —2

• Germany — 2.

Non-Indian countries that have or have had leaders from an Indian minority:

• UK

• Guyana

• Portugal

• Suriname

• Mauritius

• Ireland.

[And then my favorite]

List of non-African countries that had a leader with African heritage before Barack Obama became president in the United States:

• [zero].

So, yeah, I think America is ready for a female president with dual Indian and African heritage.

I think we can actually pull it off.

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