We’ve Only Just Begun
Excuse me while I get political. I avoid this sort of thing, typically, but I want to say this. And well, it’s my blog.
It’s likely this post isn’t going where you think it’s going.
Last night was a victory, and not just because the candidate I preferred won. Last night, we saw history made.
People have spoken about the election of a black man into the highest office of our country as a real step forward in civil rights. But we also need to remember that this is a step forward in the American dream. For the entirety of our nation’s history, the seat of presidency has remained in a ‘tell’ state, with little ’show.’ Writers understand what I mean. “Keep working, and maybe someday you can be president!” This mantra is oft-repeated, and time and again a white protestant male above 40 is elected. But last night, that changed. Last night, the guy who did keep working, against odds, was named the next president.
This was the first election I remember where people were voting for who they liked, not against who they hated. We are living in times of hate and fear, strict polarization between the “us” and the “they.” Fear, warmongering, and economic collapse are the legacy of the Bush administration, and I have spent the past eight years unable to be political, for the sheer fact that I get so emotionally hurt by this great nation tearing itself apart.
And the youth vote turned out. Finally. Finally, the youth vote turned out. And look at what it required. We can argue whether or not it was Obama’s voracious courting of the internet, youtube, twitter, that clinched the election. What I saw from my friends, from the friends I have who are still in college, is for once they felt they could make a change. For once, we felt we were important, our voices mattered. For once, we felt as though our government was of-by-and-for us.
But it’s not over. Not by a long shot. Obama won the presidency, but he does not have an easy path before him. None of us do.
When the problems we’re currently facing are listed, it seems far too much for one man to solve. We’re tangled in a war in the middle east that we should never have started, and history has never smiled on a two-font war. The financial crisis is only now a spectre in the distance soon to be a real problem, when this next quarter shows economic decline, when companies realize there isn’t money to keep them afloat and affluent, when jobs are not lost by the hundreds but by the hundred-thousands. The planet is sagging under the weight of our overproduction and hyperconsumerism, and clean fuel is only the start of the solution. America, a former leader in science and technology, has slipped behind in basic literacy and mathematical competency.
And there is a large part of our country that believes this man to be a terrorist, that believes he is a Muslim and therefore on the path to destroy us all.
Obama must simultaneously make the sweeping changes required to resolve the above-listed crises, as well as maintain enough status quo to appease the dissenters. And there will always be people who hate him, simply because of his skin.
Why did I vote for Obama? Because I believe he has the intellect to guide us through these intricate problems, the temperament to handle the delicate and highly volatile international situation, and the self-awareness to surround himself by those more experienced than he.
Our nation was born from intelligent discourse, from the papers written by our founders and framers, and somewhere along the way we forgot that. I long to see that nation in my lifetime, an America made sovereign by its intellect.
