Postscript… on the airplane from Cleveland to Burbank

I think my fear for our country has metamorphosed into a fear for President-elect Obama. Or vice-versa. I can remember the depression and funk our country fell into after the assassinations of the Kennedys and MLK. Some optimistic heart of America grew dark after that. I hadn’t felt much light until this year.
Watching those people in Grant Park, the tears and optimism and joy on those white and brown and yellow faces, made me more afraid than hopeful. If something bad happens, it’s all over for us. If something bad happens, we are already so deep in cynicism and doubt that we can never come out of it.
Ultimately, the election was about more than a politician, even a charismatic and eloquent one like Barack Obama. It was about Americans regaining, however tentatively, their capacity for hope again. Even those too young to have lived through the age of assassinations have their lives colored by it.
Or maybe it’s all the other stuff we’re going through, the failing wars, the terrible economy, the endless corruption and malfeasance in the highest offices in our land, that make our anticipation so dreadful and our last’s night’s joy so tentative.
I remember a young black woman in East Cleveland, getting out of her car to talk to me while I was canvassing. I said it was important to get out the vote because the bastards had stolen two elections, and we can’t let them steal a third.
With an angry glint in her eye, she said, “If they do, we are gonna tear this country up.”
Good thing Barack won by such a big margin.

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I think I’m done here. Thanks to everyone who sent me messages of support, to those who were off doing Obama stuff on their own, and to those who just read and maybe even enjoyed this blog. Gobama.