The return of rationality

"Revenge is a dish best served cold."
-Mario Puzo

Many people, including our president elect and his opponent, are taking the high road: an extremely conciliatory stance on last night's events. I am not one of those people. The payback for the 8 years of hell the conservatives have put the people this country through is about to begin, and man is it going to be a great ride. Thanks to a large democratic majority in the house, a significant majority in the senate, and the most liberal president since FDR, this country is about to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century were we may acquire such modern conveniences as nationalized health care (we're the only post-industrial country not to have it). It's about damn time.

While watching the results come in last night on MSNBC, Pat Buchanan said one of the most remarkable things I've heard in a very long time: "The conservative era in American politics that began with Nixon and continued through Reagan, may be over. You may be looking at 20-30 years of democratic control." Now, lest you be tempted to write this off as liberal media hogwash, take a moment to remember that Pat Buchanan in fact worked for both Nixon and Reagan AND was deemed TOO CONSERVATIVE to be the republican presidential nominee in 1996 and 2000. When one of the main architects and mouthpieces of modern American conservatism is stating that the hegemony it has exercised for the last 30+ years is about to end, it's a pretty good indication that it's going to end.

Today is about much more than the election of the first African-American president, and this is what the right fails to understand. He didn't win just because he got upwards of 90% of the African-American vote. The democrats have ALWAYS outperformed republicans among African-Americans. He won because he outperformed McCain among moderate voters, college educated voters, and pretty much everyone who's not totally blinded by their bigotry and greed. Today is about a decisive turn in America, when the majority of Americans voted for tolerance rather than hate, truth over lies, rational discourse over threats and intimidation, peace rather than posturing and, above all, a return to real American values like progress, equality, and and liberty, not that bullshit the Christian Right has been calling values for the past 30 years. That's the real story of today. Obama's skin color, while historic, was far less important in the outcome of this election that what he represents: the most thoroughgoing commitment to societal, political, and cultural change since JFK and LBJ.

Republicans will offer all kinds of rationalizations for yesterday's defeat: uninformed black voters, "celebrity" voting, the ubiquitous "liberal media," etc. And, to be sure, there are a lot of things McCain could have done differently to make it closer. I have to feel a little bad for McCain- as republicans go, he's generally a good person. It's difficult to understand what happened to him in this campaign: he suddenly began acting not like the principled, honorable man he was known to be, but as a petty, angry, dishonest politician. In short: like the rest of his party. People have been impressed with his concession speech last night, and justly so. After months of fake McCain trying to appeal to moron rednecks, he suddenly returned to the respected public figure he always had been- the man that co-sponsored McCain-Feingold and spoke like a poised, honorable public servant. Had he stayed true to himself throughout the campaign, instead of trying to become more like what he perceived his base wanted, he might have had a real shot at this. At least before he chose Sarah Palin. Just for the record, the idea that she could emerge as the new face of the Republican party is just ludicrous. Do you say to the captain of the Titanic, "fine job sir, here's an even more expensive ship to crash?" Unlikely, even by republican logic.

To echo Patrick J. Buchanan, the era of Nixon, Regan, and Bush is over, and not a moment too soon. The far right no longer has a part to play in American politics- it's time to start behaving like rational human beings again. You had your chance, and you fucked it up big time. Now sit down, shut the hell up, and let somebody with a brain clean up this stinking, festering mess.