Barack Obama won a second term as US president with the support of women, the young, blue collars, African Americans and Latinos. The Republicans, in contrast, retained the support of their habitual white base that is mainly middle aged and older and largely Protestant, in essence representing America's demographic past. The United States remains a politically polarized nation. The Republican party's control of the House of Representatives still enables it to block many of the president's initiatives and as a consequence, Prof Iwan will argue that it is difficult to see the United States making great progress in the next four years towards solving its fiscal and debt problems, tackling climate change, and renewing a schools system on which the nation depends for its future human capital.