There was a remarkably insightful analysis in South Africa’s November 5 “Busines Day”  newspaper. Dr. Lucas Ntyintyane wrote the following in a letter to the editor:

“President Obama didn’t lose the midterm elections. The American voters are the biggest losers this time around. How can you vote back into power a party that destroyed your nation’s image and werecked your economy? Pure insanity!

“Change is an overrated commodity in American politics. The Republicans and their brand of cowboy politics have been given a mouth-to-mouth by the voters. Under George W. Bush’s leadership, America became the most hated nation in the world. The Republicans and Mr. Bush were the oxygen that sustained Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s misguided crusades.

“After Bill Clinton’s golden years, Mr. Bush made the thriving economic bus a ‘skorokora’ (a wreak) . Eight years of leadership recklessness through the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq turned the US into a disillusioned nation. Mr. Obama inherited an ailing economy hemorrhaging  jobs. He was forced to become a mechanic in order to repair and restore his nation’s battered image.

“Two years later, America’s car industry is coming back to life. The economy is creating jobs again. In two years. Mr. Obama has done more than Mr. Bush in eight years. As Mr. Obama is about to restart the economic engine of the repaired bus, the voters are recalling the Republicans to be co-drivers. For the right-wing elements, Mr. Obama is good enough to be a mechanic, but not fit to lead.”

A  letter from Mayiholme Tswete was also on point.  He was reacting to an article suggesting that the the Tea Party’s disapproval of President Obama was because of unkept promises.

“In this you are greatly mistaken… In fact, the more he keeps his promises the more they disapprove of him, because the inertia towards the first black president, and a touch of racism, are well blended into freedom of speech.

“The Tea Party is against the closing of Guantanamo Bay, as  Mr. Obama attempted to do early in his presidency, as he promised in the campaign. The Tea Party is against the National Health Act, which he pushed through with great resistance from Republicans, as he promised in his campaign.

“One only needs to look at the signs and posters of the Tea Party crowd to gauge just how much off the wall they are— their comments are racist and reminiscent of an ugly era past. One is: ‘Congress=slave owner, taxpayer= N word’. ..

“The ideas of this group are quite astounding: two-thrids of the tea-baggers are against Mr. Obama engaging with Muslim countries; only a third believe black people are hard workers (maybe they are still tired from building your country— ancestral fatigue).

“A large majority of them think the Obama administration’s economic policy is socialist; two-thrids oppose any policy giving homosexuals the same dignity as heterosexuals.”

Some people (when they look in a mirror held up by someone else)  clearly see their own blemishes and flaws. Others deny the flaws, shatter the mirror, and declare that the person who held it up is an irrelevant foreigner.