Hope
Do you remember how Michael Moore was advocating possibly leaving the country when Bush won in 2004 (though few if any liberals did)? There are actually conservatives saying the same thing about Obama. Aside from the fact that all of the other English-speaking countries an American expatriate might go to have pretty much already done whatever crazy liberal stuff they think Obama will do to ruin the country, it’s just hypocritical. Republicans are all about loving this country, and all of a sudden when they don’t like the guy in charge that kind of fell by the wayside. If liberals managed to weather 8 years of the Bush administration, conservatives should be able to handle the Obama presidency just fine.
If you look at the crazier conservatives, they’re acting like America is Over, like November 4th represented the end of the good old U.S. of A. Soldiers have said “you’re not the real Americans I swore an oath to protect.” We’re doomed to become some socialist nightmare (never mind that the Socialist Party candidate said in no uncertain terms that Obama is not a socialist), so you’d better stock up on guns and ammo before Obama tries to take them away. Oh, and apparently since Obama isn’t vehemently trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, he’s 100% in favor of murdering babies, and thus unfit to be president, because this isn’t an issue where we can afford nuance or realism.
The one thing that’s come out of the conservative reaction that I will agree with is that the GOP has lost sight of its own core principles. It got in bed with the religious right, and became distorted by their anti-intellecual evangelical tendencies. Real conservativism, which is about limited government and federalism and such, hasn’t been around for a while now. The current Republicans certainly aren’t shy about spending; it’s just that they have different tastes in government bloat from their opponents. (Pour as much money as you can into defense; why should the military try to be fiscally efficient? You support the troops, right?) The real question is which way the GOP will go from here, because it has to refine itself in some way. I’d like to see it become classically conservative, because that’s a value system I can actually respect and might even vote for once in a while. However, it’s entirely possible that it could become that much more crazy and anti-knowledge. I suspect a lot of the Republicans who were replaced by Democrats in this election were the more reasonable ones, and the survivors will tend to be more the crazies with crazy constituencies.
The election reflect on race relations in odd ways too. Although a lot of people, even some people who don’t like Obama’s policies, are glad to see the first black president (setting aside the militantly racist fucktards, whom the FBI and Secret Service and such will continue to watch closely), there is now a routine accusation that “People only voted for him because he was black.” This line of thought requires flagrant, willfull ignorance of everything that went on during the election. The Obama campaign used a brilliant, unconventional strategy, and carried states that had not gone Democratic in decades. The campaign was agile, funded by millions of small donations from individuals, and stayed much more positive than the opposition. As an orator, he schooled everyone he went up against. And if you believe the exit polls, age was a much bigger deciding factor than race. Furthermore, the people for whom a candidate being black would be a plus? They’re mostly liberals who would’ve voted for the Democratic candidate, regardless of that person’s race or gender or whatever. Black people in particular have long voted close to 100% Democratic, so it’s not like there was any significant base of black Republicans that he could’ve stolen away because of his skin color.
Now, I’m not so naive as to think that Obama can go in and fix everything. For one thing, there is some truth to the notion that he’s inexperienced. Whatever one thinks of her overall, Hillary Clinton was better connected and more experienced in politics, and with Ameircan politics being the mire of bureaucracy and stupidity that it is, it takes more than optimism, intelligence, charisma, a party majority in both houses, and lots of ideas that are popular with the general populace, to get things done. Obama is a very, very smart guy (magna cum laude from Harvard Law School; McCain was near the bottom of his class at the naval academy) with a lot of smart people around him, and to be sure I have my fingers crossed, but I will assume nothing. The advantage of being a cynic is that most of life’s surprises are pleasant ones, since a cynic already saw the bad stuff coming.
The part that gets me is that when McCain gave a stirring concession speech, some people in the crowd booed. Needless to say I disagree with McCain on a lot of things, but he showed real class there, in a way that makes me respect him, and tried to end things on a high note. And his supporters booed. Some people are too caught up in labels and absolutes to even see straight, much less be rational.
It’s not the first time a different party has come into power, and it won’t be the last. I have no doubt that conservatives will make a comeback in some form–hopefully a more rational form, but I’m not holding my breath–and swing the pendulum back the other way for a while. Whatever you believe in, be patient, be reasonable, but speak your mind. Be a part of this, be informed, and let your voice be heard. If you don’t like how things are, work to change it. That’s how it’s always worked, and that’s how we’ve come this far. As long as you’re looking to do good for the country and her people, that’s much more important than whether or not I agree with you personally.
