Even if Obama wins the next election, he will still have a tough time uniting America because Americans, it seems are still suck in the past and want to hold on to some form of identity in order to create a sense of stability. A recent book The Verigo Years by Phillip Blom best describes contemporary America, even though it is about the first decade of the twentieth century in Europe. Early twentieth century Europeans, like Americans today, were undergoing a cultural,economic, and political shift that was undermining their own personal identities. As a result the there was a greater emphasis on what means to be a man, fear of population decline, that was only increased by immigration by Eastern Europeans into Western Europe. There are many Americans that posses these early twentieth century European traits, and Obama is going to have a tough time weaning them off of their addiction to identity politics.