This is going to seem incredibly outdated, sorry about that. I meant to write this post way back when he won, but I got preoccupied with happiness, grad school apps, and then finally my brain melted at work with a lack of things to keep me busy. With that, enjoy.

I knew we’d do it. We did it. Barack Obama is the president-elect of the United States of America.

From the very beginning, I thought Obama was going to pull it off. I thought he was the favorite going into the election, though I was also very happy with Hillary’s candidacy as well. My roommate during my junior year at college, Jason, was an unabashed fan of Obama since 2006 when he began his flirtations with worldwide fame. Jason might hate me to describe him as such, but he is an evangelical christian, and saw in Obama the kind of inspiration the country needed to get us out of the depressing Bush era. Now, I know that Obama didn’t win because he got the support of liberal evangelical christians; nor did Obama campaign on his religious background for unfortunate Wright reasons. But the fact of the matter is that if Jason could get so excited about Obama in 2006, as did the rest of the world, then it would be tough to stop the Obama candidacy. His early supporters were just way more enthusiastic than anybody else’s, and I think that his base, in turn, was more politically engaged than any candidate we’ve seen in a very long time.

When he won the Iowa caucases, I wasn’t all too surprised. I thought maybe Edwards was gonna pull it out and give me hope that we could put a left-wing ideologue in office, which I would still prefer, since I’m such a leftist. But Obama won there, and won lots of states in the primaries that he would win in the general election. I was never worried that he couldn’t win Hillary supporters, which he did by a fantastically large margin on election day.

I think it is fair to say that this election represents the first step in creating a “permanent” Democratic majority. It is looking right now like the Republican party is dissolving before our very eyes, that is unless Obama screws up royally. The demographics and public opinion have been in the Democrats’ favor for decades, and they have finally spilled over into electoral victories in 2006 and 2008. Combine this with the idea that since the Left is basically in control of the new forms of political mobilization and communication (ie internet media and other forms of electronic communication), and woot, you have the foundations for a long-term governing majority. I’m thinking it will last until my generation is pretty damn old. So welcome to the new progressive century. It will happen slowly, but it will be happen. Progressives need to rule well, however.

Step back for a moment from your white self and imagine what it must be like, as an African-American, to actually feel like you have real representation in the American government. Finally. Obama is gonna be on your side, without a doubt. Now, this doesn’t mean that he will be against white people, obviously, but just imagine. Finally. A government that will actually reflect the interests of people other than rich white men. I can’t imagine how empowering it must have felt on election night to see Obama tally up a 9 million vote margin.

I don’t know how I’m gonna still be able to write about politics without complaining about Bush. His fuckups were quite the catalyst for unique thoughts in many of my scholarly endeavors. I guess we can keep reviewing the Bush era and then compare it to Obama and see how different they are. They might not be that different, who knows. But at least my team is in power now. And it will be a challenge, perhaps, to get past my partisanship and do some real analysis. I think that the ability to write good papers is a fair sacrifice for the ability to have good governance.

Finally, it’s nice to know that not all white people are racist.

I’ll be back with more posts as time goes by. I’m kind of embarassed by my shittiness in posts recently. I’m also working on a new site, so that will get me more engaged again. –Mike