Just so you all know, this post isn’t going to be particularly funny. I hope it’ll be well worth reading, but it’s not comedy. Just some things I need to say.
John McCain ran a small campaign. I’m not going to crash on the senator here, an honest to God American Hero, a man I voted for in 2000, but it’s true. He tried to make us afraid and he tried to make us care about ourselves more than others. He tried to tell you all that if you elected his opponent terrorists would blow you up. He tried to tell you that you are Joe the plumber and that Commie Obama was going to take your money. And worse, that he would take the money you don’t have but might maybe someday acquire, even though you’d never be able to build that kind of wealth under his tax plan.
Maybe he didn’t actually say that last part. But he told you, “You, you, you.”
His running mate was selected to reignite the culture wars. To again divide this country. To tell you that you are not really American if you don’t agree with her and you don’t shoot things and pronounce the “g’s” at the end of certain words. She tried to tell you you were less than you are. She told you, “I, I, I.”
And tonight we rebuffed that way of thinking in a big bad way. And I have never been more proud of this nation. My nation. The worlds last, best hope.
You all know the outcome at this point, but let’s not forget the process. And let us not forget that the process matters more than the outcome. Let us not forget that President-Elect Obama sought to bring us all into the process in an effort not only to have us all vote for him, but to have us all work with him to build a better world for all people.
Let us not forget that we are all in this together.
As President-Elect Obama (and how sexy is that?) told us, “That’s the promise of America, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper.” This is a bigger way of thinking than anything we’ve seen in this country. It needs not be scary. It needs not be called names like “socialism.” Simply it is the way that the sole super-power should behave. We have an obligation to take care of one another. To care for the least among us. Isn’t that the measure of a society? Don’t you want to love your fellow man more than you love yourself? Isn’t that the measure of a hero?
I am school-girl giddy about tonights election, but I want to caution us all against expecting revolution overnight. I worry that many Americans were in this election for the wedding and aren’t ready for the marriage. And I want to caution us against expecting change to be handed to us. We made a great step tonight, but it’s important to remember that we all made it together. The President-Elect did not do this on his own. He could not have done this on his own. And he will not be able to fix all that is fucked alone.
I urge us all to remember that, as Max Webber said, “Politics is the slow boring of hard boards.” But to remember also that we can bore the crap out of them if we try.
The greatest moment of this night came at 11:00 when someone on MSNBC told me “we can now project that Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States of America.” But, for me, the second greatest moment was when I checked my email just before the President-Elect spoke to us from Grant Park. As a cat whose given a fair amount of money to his campaign I get A LOT of email from the President-Elect (I just can’t stop typing that shit) and his people. The letter that went out tonight was from him and near the end it said, ” We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in touch soon about what comes next.” I was stoked as all hell to read that. I love the idea that we are going to be asked to work to make things better. That just as much as we were brought into his campaign we will be brought into his administration. We will be a part of the process.
Fate can be mitigated. Those of us fortunate enough to be born into this nation are born also with a duty and a privilege to exalt it and all of it’s denizens. To be a part of it’s greatness. And that shit is exciting.
Just as a church is not a steeple, a republic is not a President. Even a kickass, awesome president. It is Barack Obama, and it is my father..and my mother..my brother..my friend..it is you, and me…it is all of us.
Slavery is this country’s original sin and we have been paying for it for a long, long time. But tonight a nation that was born a slave-holding institution elected it’s first African-American leader. That shit is progress the way you mean it. Progress like you read about. And it is not, as Senator McCain would tell us “especially significant for African-Americans” it is especially significant for Americans. This doesn’t erase our debts and it doesn’t fix anything. Racism doesn’t go away tomorrow. But damn if it doesn’t mean something. Damn if it’s not something we can point to and say, “Yeah, we’ve fucked some things up. But look what we can do.”
Remember remember the fourth of November
And the President-Elect that it brought.
The moment called for a man
Who taught us yes, yes we can.
And this should never be forgot.
That was for my little sister.
Anyway, I’ve got so much more to say, so much, but I’ll wrap this up.
I want many, many things. But right now, mostly, I want to thank all of you for your hard work and your dedication. I want to thank you for believing. You all showed up today. You showed up and you showed me something. Keep showing up like this and what we build could be anything.
YES WE DID!
God bless America.
Get a beverage of your choice and toast to a finer world, and to the next President of these United States,
E
Where we breathe, we hope…
