When Ohio fell on election night 2008, the President’s Lounge, a bar on the overwhelmingly black south side of Chicago, erupted in jubilation. Corks popped, strangers hugged, police patrolling the streets yelled the freshly elected president’s name from their loudhailers: “Obama!”

Pretty much everything you need to know about Britain’s relationship to the European Union can be found at a hotel breakfast table. In most places, you’ll be offered a continental breakfast—pastries, coffee, jam, cold cuts—or an English breakfast: eggs, bacon, baked beans, toast, tomatoes. The former is from Europe, the latter from England. No meaningful cultural relationship exists between the two.

As Republican crowds became increasingly rowdy during the 2008 presidential campaign, voter Gayle Quinnell made a memorable, if truncated, contribution. “I can’t trust Obama,” she told Republican presidential hopeful, John McCain. “I’ve read about him and ... he’s an Arab.”