Arizona Hurts Brand USA

The United States had been building its reputation around the world during the past year that we were back to being a world leader and not a country that would go it alone without regard for the views of other countries. After years of thumbing our noses at what other countries wanted or thought, we returned to recognize the interconnectedness of the world and also the fact that countries like China, India and Brazil were becoming major players on the world stage and had to be given respect.

With the election of Barack Obama, much of the world stood in awe of the US again. We were a country that elected a black man as president. A country with a history of slavery and bigotry had elected someone who would not have been allowed to eat at a lunch counter or sit in a movie theater 50 years ago. Even in advanced democracies like the UK or Canada or France or Germany, it is virtually unthinkable that a visible minority would win the popular vote for leader. The US was back to being seen as "the shining city on the hill", as Ronald Reagan used to claim. Even our worst critics had to give the US its due. Perhaps the US was a welcoming, pluralistic society that all could admire.

That all came to a screeching halt with the move by Arizona to pass a draconian immigration law that will certainly lead to racial profiling--it is impossible for it not to lead to that since it was aimed exclusively at one group of immigrants--Mexicans. While the law could eventually be struck down by the courts for being unconstitutional on the grounds that it permits improper search and seizure, it has done its damage already.

The Arizona bill sealed the deal. The rest of the world is now convinced that our bout with sanity was an anomaly. We are once again being seen as a bit of a crazy, gun-wielding group of semi-literates. Everyone knew that parts of the US had this tendency, but we always seemed to rebound with people like Lincoln and Roosevelt and Kennedy and even Reagan to convince the world that we were really pretty decent. While I never liked Reagan's politics, I admired the fact that he sought friends on the other-side of the "aisle" and always liked compromise rather than ideology.

The Arizona vote reinforces the most negative views of the US. It breaks the positive brand image we had been creating and pushes us back to a point where much of the world now looks at us as being less democratic than other countries--we are not the leader; we are a "used to be". Our hatred and fear of outsiders could actually ruin this country. Already, Mayor Bloomberg of NY is warning that our immigration laws are not allowing foreign college grads to remain in the US. In the past, we educated foreigners and they remained to build some of the great companies of the world and to discover new scientific breakthroughs that benefit the US first. Now, we are denying visas to these grads, so they are returning to India and China to create great companies there.

America was always great for what it created, but it was even greater because of its intangibles. That's the way with all great brands; the promise of future performance seems unlimited. We want more of it.

We are now seeing stop signs put in front of large segments of the population. This was our history with blacks, but we had tried to put that behind us. This is not the way the modern US was supposed to develop. We were supposed to be the country that welcomed all those who wanted a better life. This was not and should not be our brand image. But, Arizona--and I'm sure a number of other states to follow--is showing the world that we are just as bad as our worst critics feared. I pray that we can find some good soon to trump the bad.