Sunday, November 9, 2008

First word after the election

I would never have been completely happy that Barack Obama won the Presidential election. Given my concerns about his policies and his inexperience, I would always have preferred a different result. All the same, I would have liked to be able to wholeheartedly rejoice in the fact that his victory has provided incontrovertible proof of how far the United States has come in healing racial wounds and has thus meant so very much to so many people.

Yet I cannot. I can appreciate the abstract importance of his election and honor the meaning it has for so many African-Americans. But I simply cannot be even the slightest bit glad Barack Obama has won the Presidential election. The misogyny unleashed by Obama, his campaign, and his supporters has been disastrous for women. While it has left parents of all races, ethnicities, and religions more able to honestly tell their sons that any little boy can grow up to be President of the United States it has also left them far less able to tell their daughters the same is true for little girls. Obama has asked all Americans to believe that "[our] dreams do not have to come at the expense of [his] dreams" but his own philosophy is quite different. He believed achieving his dreams required vandalizing women’s dreams and he was perfectly willing to do just that.

So I am not happy that Obama won and I am not likely to be. Nonetheless he will be my President after January 20 and I will support him when I believe he is right and oppose him respectfully when I believe he is wrong. And I very much wish him a wildly successful Presidency - we desperately need one.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is the third website (counting one I wrote at my sister's and my site) that I have seen today expressing the same or similar sentiments; and I haven't been on but about six sites yet.

If he had won the nomination honorably and honestly, I would probably have supported him despite my misgivings because at that time I was a true and loyal (kneejerk) liberal Democrat. If he had won the election fairly and honorably, I could probably muster some happiness at the election of a minority.

But since he did neither of those, I'm afraid I will feel about him as I have toward Bush during his two terms -- he is the President, but I do not consider him "my" President. But this is my country; and for its sake, I too wish him success (or at least not to screw things up too badly).