But the feeds all told the same story they had before: Barack Obama was re-elected with both an electoral and popular-vote victory - and what's more, we can say good-bye to Scott Brown (for the time being), and hello to a binder full of new women in national politics: our own Elizabeth Warren, Claire McCaskill in Missouri, and Wisconsin's Tammy Baldwin - our first openly gay senator!
And Maine and Maryland passed gay marriage!
I admit I was hoping the Romney vote would be limited to 47% - a fitting number, no? But that was not to be. Nor can we ignore the fact that huge swaths of the country seem desperately deluded and confused, if not by prejudice then by religious blinders or plain old ignorance. And the road ahead is as tough as ever, with fiscal cliffs looming before a divided Congress, a stacked Supreme Court, the machinations of Wall Street, and an ever rising tide of Republican obstruction.
But for the moment, victory is sweet, isn't it? Even I had begun to believe the lies about America from the Roger Ailes echo chamber - just a little bit. But in the end America came through. More tolerance, more connection, more inclusion, more community - more sanity - it was hard to miss what (most of) the country was saying. A black president, a gay senator, gay marriage in more states, healthcare for everyone - I think even Romney, as he bade good-bye to his all-white audience here in the Hub, began to get the idea. Certainly many strategists around him did. But can the Republicans truly "pivot," as David Brooks likes to put it, toward a more humane politics that can serve us all? Only time will tell.
No comments:
Post a Comment