Election Reaction, Part One

Yes, I know, it's been a while since I've posted. In part, that is because I've been trying to soak it all in, to figure out just what has happened over the last two weeks. Here goes:

On election night, I held it together until I got back to my hotel room in Eau Claire; then, Barack Obama came onstage and delivered his first address as President-elect. I began weeping like a child.

Why did I cry? After all, I've previously seen plenty of other candidates -- ones I've fully supported -- successfully elected, yet never shed a single tear.

Certainly, there was the historic nature of the moment; after some of the horrible shit I've witnessed in my lifetime, I never dreamed that I would see an America in which a black man could be elected President. But, more than anything, it was the content of the speech: Barack Obama said, in a few minutes, so many of the things that I've been desperately hoping to hear from our President for the past 94 months. He plainly stated that our national difficulties are a collective matter, and that they would be overcome only through collective effort and sacrifice. He sought to unite Americans in common cause, not to divide us by race, by religiosity, by ideology. Barack Obama actually asked something of us, and, in so doing, treated us as though we are full and equal citizens of a free nation -- not merely consumers in service of an all-important economic machinery.

President-elect Obama has not yet assumed office. There are many problems that he, and we, face over the next four years. But by treating his fellow citizens like the adults they are (or should be) -- by appealing to the better angels of our natures -- he has already made a good start.