I'm The Only Guy In America Who Got What He Wanted

I caught worlds of hell when I told people why I voted for Barack Obama for President. It wasn't when I expressed my displeasure with President Bush - that was expected and arguments could be made logically on both sides. I caught hell because my reason, when people first read it, made them uncomfortable and sounded extreme. "Identity Politics" they call it. Women who vote for women because they are women. Rednecks and reactionaries who vote for rednecks and reactionaries because they are redneck and reactionary. Black people who vote for black people. And so on.

I tried to explain that it wasn't identity politics per se (um, I'm white y'know) but ran deeper than just that. I was shouted down, mostly, by both sides. My liberal friends hated my reason and my conservative friends hated my reason. And if I don't do a good job explaining it now the chances are, if you weren't a reader during the election, YOU are going to hate my reason.

I voted for Barack Obama because he is black.

And I am unapologetic about it. And now, a year and two months later - it turns out - I am the happiest man in America because I got exactly what I wanted.

Check it out - - - President Obama's critics on the Right excoriate him and his policies because he has a "leftist agenda", some call socialism, others - in response to those who did it to President Bush from his first day - were determined to criticize every. last. single. thing he did for whatever reason was handy. It doesn't matter that the deficits and economic collapse happened after Republican-sponsored deregulation and bridges to no where and an entire war in Iraq based on an untruth - it's all Obama's fault now. They are entrenched to do everything they can to block everything he's doing and they will keep doing it because - politically - it works back home.

President Obama's critics on the Left wring their hands and stomp their feet because he hasn't fulfilled one promise and is moving to the center (did he just say off-shore drilling in tonight's speech?? GAH, they proclaim). Forget hope. Hope is down the toilet. Never mind that no matter what he does his own party sabotages him and the obstinate and obtuse Republicans are on automatic pilot with the "no" button. The Democrats are entrenched to do everything they can to sound liberal but act anyway that is politically experdient (whichever works at that moment) because - politically - it works back home.

It's a funny place he finds himself in: The Right says he is moving this country to the Left and the Left says he isn't doing anything at all. It is a wonder how we can have that both ways but there it is.

And me?

I have a black President. Who I voted for strictly because he is black, because electing a black chief executive - no matter what happens once he is in office - is quite simply a seismic shift in American culture. It doesn't automatically end racism, but it changes the paradigm that underpins that particular social disease. He is black. He can succeed or he can fail. He can be criticized on principle. The huff and puff of the race-victim industry doesn't have as much heat, and this will help it send it into a dive. The actual bigots in the world, exposing themselves with this phony (and you can always spot them) "I'm not against him because he's black" (which is a giveaway that that's exactly why they oppose since there's no need to say it if you're just in a discussion about his policies), are being shoved aside by honest critics who don't want to be associated with that kind of bogus crap. To people who doubted it, he can show that there are - and has always been - such a thing as a black American who serves the country. To people who ever wanted to use their race as an excuse, their point is suddenly much weaker than before.

I view the Presidency of Barack Obama as a cultural signpost. It therefore doesn't matter what he does - if anything - on the political sphere. And I have always said - even when President Bush was receiving my ire - that a President always gets too much credit when things go well, and too much blame when things go poorly. We've survived Presidential disasters (Carter, the last Bush) and we're still us. We make it or break it, regardless of the party in power.

And in the history of the country the total transformation of our culture - for the better - in which we all deal with each other across the races more honestly, starts here.

Maybe you still don't get me. But I'm thinking in terms of big units of time and sociological conditions. As a country, having a black President is and was a necessary part of our life as a country because it reaffirms that what we say we believe in is not the basis of a hypocrisy. But it's a real thing. And we actually believe it.

3 or 7 or however many years from now, when President Obama is a private citizen again, no matter what else happens from here on out, this was the best thing that could happen. The shift will be slow and hard and it won't look like anything in the short term. In the bigger picture - it's going to be amazing.

So I got what I voted for. Even if it may take people, if I do say so with all due hubris myself, a longer time to see it than it took me.

I'm the most contented man in America. Well... politically.