November 4 changed everything

I realized as I was walking to work today that there was a lightness to my step, that I was feeling prouder of my country than I think I ever have been before. And I sensed from the many smiles I saw this morning and the many conversations I heard and overheard today that I am not alone in feeling this new pride.

I thought -- no, I hoped -- that Barack Obama would win, but I also thought that it would be pretty close and that there would be serious efforts made to undermine or directly sabotage the election. Instead, he won pretty much around the country -- the Northeast, major portions of the South, the upper Midwest, the Rocky Mountain States, the Far West, including both traditionally Democrat and traditionally Republican states. He won with a convincing majority -- bigger than any Democrat since Lyndon Johnson's landslide victory over Barry Goldwater. He won with solid numbers across nearly every demographic group, and even economic group. Did you know that he won in that portion of the electorate that reports a family income above $200,000 as well as that portion below $100,000? I thought that racism would rear its ugly head and be decisive, or nearly so -- and that was clearly the hope of many of the Republicans -- but even more clearly, Americans by in large were much bigger than that.

It's as if we emerged from a long national nightmare that climaxed during the past eight years but stretched back 38 years to Ronald Reagan, and realized that instead of waking up fearful and confused, we awakened to a remembrance of Martin Luther King's dream, and smiled.

I am certain that future historians will recognize this election as one of the defining moments of America. We have always been a diverse country, but the mythologies we've created have denied that diversity for nearly all of our existence. Last night, we embraced it, and in embracing it, we moved into our common future, a future that can be far more hopeful, far less fearful, and far more progressive than any part of our history we have ever seen. This will indelibly alter -- and alter in the best of ways -- the way we see ourselves, and the way we see our nation. Pundits like to say that September 11 "changed everything." I think that is mistaken. But I think that November 4 changed everything.

Note: this originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 5 November 2008