CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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A Few Words on Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

this entry brought to you by kaiser chiefs, "the angry mob"


Half the country-- well, more than half, actually-- was in a partying mood last night. The footage on the news swept across oceans of glowing, ecstatic faces, hugging and kissing, weeping, jumping for joy. Local news would show the local Obama headquarters, trying to get interviews of campaign leaders, but it would be barely audible because in the background there was basically pandemonium, the feeling so joyous merely hearing it at home could sweep you up, though the camera itself was focused entirely on the anchor and the person being interviewed. And who could blame people for being in so happy?

I wish I'd been a partying mood. It would have been great to be at a bar full of people, or out in the park, or just out with a large group of peers, to be able to just freak the fuck out when the news hit. I'm not much of a partier, frankly, I'm kind of a home body, but it would have been awesome to party down last night. But I wasn't in a partying mood. I wasn't feeling rapture or overwhelming joy like the people on television. I just felt relieved. Like a pressure had been taken off, and it was finally okay to rest easy. For the past two elections I haven't slept a wink on election night, my stomach tied in a knot. You could say that maybe I take politics too seriously, but it's not like I'm the only one. I called out of work the morning after the last election, and when I finally showed up to work all my friends had glum, sullen faces, and when we went to lunch we ate in near silence, just exchanging looks, nodding, knowing how each other felt. It felt like a wake. There wasn't anything you could do, but you didn't want to just pretend nothing happened.

Last night I felt like a dad who'd been through two stillbirths, happy just to see a pink, fleshy squiggly thing that has a healthy heartbeat, regardless of whether everyone else in the room wants to cheer and congratulate. That dad just wants to sit down, watch the nurse wash the baby and measure it, and just feel relaxed for once. That's how I felt. My mom and my wife were bouncing with joy, laughing, joking, squealing, and I just sat on the couch, nodding my head in affirmation. I wish I had been in a partying mood, but I just wanted to sit down and relax. Let the knots in my stomach unravel, catch a few winks.

I went to work and asked a friend of mine what she thought of the night's results, and she said that it was great, this historic moment. America has a black President, and she'll be able to tell her Grandchildren that she was there to see it, what it was like. And obviously, from a historic point of view, the fact that America has a black President is extremely important. This is history book level stuff, and some of the details are inevitably going to get lost in the shuffle. They're going to be talking about Barack Obama in the same breath as Martin Luther King Jr thirty years from now in schools.

But right now, in the moment, in here and now, his race, to me, is a far, far second place in terms of importance. I'm not positive if my own race has to do with my opinion on this-- Barack Obama and I are actually both half black and half white, so in terms of race, I get a two-fer when it comes to historic precedence-- but I can't tell how that's supposed to make me feel. Maybe, because I'm the same race as Barack Obama, it doesn't make any difference to me what his race is. But maybe I should feel more proud and more significant because I am the same race. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel in terms of his race, but I do know that the historic precedent matters very, very little to me. His race isn't ultimately what was important about this election.

There was something Obama said in his speech that rung much, much truer to me, and that to me was much more important, more resonant, and more true in the here and now. Obama said that this election has finally showed scores of people that democracy does work. It's restored faith in people for America that have felt disenfranchised and ignored for the past eight years. It's shown young people that they can make a difference, it's shown minorities that their feelings do count. It's shown liberals and moderates that they don't have to be victims of the far right, pushing and shoving us around, unable to do anything about it. And to me, while this fact is going to be noted in the history books in a second place to the importance of his race, the book is going to talk about Bush's historic unpopularity, and how Barack Obama rose like a beacon of hope in that aftermath. But in the here and now, I can't explain how much more important it is than every other factor.

If you did an informal survey of any group of people who voted Democratic for the past 8 years, they would tell you with no doubt in their minds that George Bush did steal both elections. While on a national scale, taking this is conspiratorial, to any group of level headed, average people that voted Democratic, this was accepted as fact. It wasn't fringe, the way some wackos believe Bush was responsible for 9/11. Between any two Democratic voting people for the past eight years, if one person didn't think George Bush stole the past two elections, that person was considered odd or out of touch.

To a lot of conservatives the past eight years might not have seemed as particularly oppressive as we have made them out to be, or perhaps they feel that the next four will be as oppressive to them as the last eight were to us, and that a feeling of disenfranchisement goes entirely with whether you're on the losing side or not. This is not true. My half of the country hadn't merely lost the past eight years, we felt as if we were held underneath the water by a concrete arm, unable to come up. I might seem overly dramatic, but up until now, it seemed to a lot of people on our side who were politically energized that it was impossible to overcome the hurdle of the opposition. It seemed like the other side had its permanent majority, that it had taken it by force, and there was nothing we could do about it, no matter how hard we tried-- even when we won we still lost. That can put a feeling of irremovable dread in people, a sense of, well, being disenfranchised.

November 4th, 2008 changed all that. And even if Barack Obama loses re-election is 2012, we'll still know that the system works, that it still can work, and that there's still something to get worked up about, to get energized about, that we can make a difference. People won't ever forget that he's black, and what that means, and don't think for a moment that I don't believe that's important. But reinstalling the faith in America for half the country-- that's absolutely the most important thing Barack Obama has done as of right now. It's the most important thing America itself has done for its citizens. It's the most important thing its citizens have done for America. That actually fills me with patriotism.

And to those who voted for McCain: Just chill.


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with love from CRS @ 9:15 AM 

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