The historical election is finally over, and thank goodness! I swore to myself that if I had to sit through another political ad I was going to commit violent atrocities upon myself or others. Some simper, some plead, some accuse, some persuade, some uplift, some tear down. Doesn't really matter to me. All are variations on the same theme. It all comes down to a simple fact -- whether they attempt to use vinegar or honey, they are all trying to attract the same flies.
The whole thing kinda makes my stomach turn.
I don't vote. Can you tell? I'm an apathist. If you push me into a corner I lean toward Libertarian but on the whole I really don't care. Four years is a drop in the bucket. The congress and the senate play heavy roles and the president isn't the law unto himself that a lot of people seem to think he is, though he does get to play the unenviable role of scapegoat when things don't go well. He's like an assistant principal.....he has to be the bad guy out there representin' regardless of what actually happens behind the scenes. Doom- and gloomsayers aside, I don't think our country will go to hell in a handbasket in four years and I don't think (except in rare cases) that a president molds the times as much as the times mold the president.
They'll be a lot of commentary from people about the election and their thoughts on the winner. Obama this, Obama that. Color barrier. Man of change. Whatever. The man won the same way every man before him has won -- mostly on popularity since it's like a high school class president election but with bigger budgets -- and he deserves the same sort of chance that anyone else does. He doesn't have experience? True. He doesn't. But then again, how can I sit in judgement of him? I don't have experience in half of what I do either and that doesn't automatically dictate that I don't have the talent or desire or the plain old ability to do the job regardless of my so-called experience. Convicting him before he's had a chance to step to the plate is very short-sighted and borders on the hypocritical. I can't expect one set of rules to apply to me and another to him so I'm more than willing to see what kind of performance he'll provide before I start spitting vitriol. I would hope others feel the same.
I just hope and pray that some wacko nutjob white supremacist doesn't assassinate him. Besides throwing us back 100 years, that will be bad. Really bad. Lock the front door and wait for things to settle down bad. Please, oh pasty white nutjobs, for the love of all that's holy.....stay locked up in your trailers or bunkers or basements or cellars or wherever the hell you choose to gather. I can't stand the idea that I share a skin color with you and get lumped into the same pile of mashed taters.
And California voted down gay marriage. I won't even go into what I feel about that.
Anyway, the real test will not be the fact that Obama made it into the White House. That part -- though it might not have seemed like it -- was easy. Although there are many people in this country who wish nothing more than the status quo, there are a great many others for whom Obama represents a path we've never taken. I liken it to our tradition of manifest destiny; we feel we have the god-given right to take what we want and we want the prospect of change or the appearance of novelty and progressiveness. It fuels our collective spirits. No, the real test will be whether Obama makes it in again in four years. If there's another thing we Americans tend to do, we fall easily into a sense of ennui. Once we've sampled something we're eager to be on to the next thing. Buy a new car and after a few years we start to notice the strange pings and the missewn upholstery. Soon we're bitching about how the paint is chipping or it doesn't drive like it used to and we're eyeing that new model on the showroom floor.
In four years, Obama will be less the "wowee-gee ain't this new and historic" candidate and more the incumbent president who has either performed well or performed badly. At that time his merits -- or lack thereof -- might have a better chance of obfuscating his color. That will be the true test. This is what I'm very curious about. Will we give Obama a get out of jail free card in four years because he's black? Will we excuse his missteps and praise every little victory because he's black? Will he begin to feel like his abilities are being forgotten in the wake of the swelling tide that is his color and begin to feel like the unspoken end to everyone's sentences are the words "....for a black man?" Or will we crucify his every move and find fault where there is none just to prove that the amorphous 'theys' of the country elected a man because he wasn't a WASP?
Time will tell. I wish the poor man luck. He's gonna need it.
((Song: "Hail To The Chief." Music by James Sanderson, words by Sir Walter Scott. Lyrics here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_to_the_Chief ))
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