This past Tuesday night, history was made again in these United States when Barack Obama
was re-elected to a second term in office. The statement made that night will resonate for
decades because not only did the President win by a substantial margin of electoral college
votes, he also won the popular vote - a feat that hadn’t been done by an American president
since Ronald Reagan. But there are other elements to this that cannot be ignored.
The first thing to consider is, Obama’s re-election is a validation of what America’s character
is. The obvious knee-jerk analysis will say that the Democrat contribution to a $2.5 billion
campaign expenditure is the main cause, but that would belittle all of those volunteers, the
community organizers mocked by arch-conservatives. It brushes aside those who braved
tortuous long lines to vote early in many states, Ohio & Florida most notably. Tuesday was
a victory for the process. It was a victory in an election that was bitterly divisive due to the
machinations of the Republican Party and all of their corporate allies. When you consider that
Karl Rove, the GOP strategist got 390 million dollars to get Obama out of office on the heels
of the Citizens United decision allowing campaign donors to hide, this re-election is a crushing
blow to corporate elitists who hoped to get one of their kind in office. People stood up, and
were counted. Barack knows that it wouldn’t have been possible otherwise, hence his tears
of appreciation the day after while addressing organizers in Chicago.
The next element to consider is, this election once again exposes the cancerous growth of
racism that America still lives with. I laughed when folks started saying that Obama’s election
in 2008 marked a ‘post-racial’ United States. Any person of color, if they’re honest about it,
knew it wasn’t worth the crap on a buffalo nickel. This entire election for a cross-section of
the country wasn’t about issues. It was simply, ‘get the n——- out.’ From the GOP primaries
you could tell that they were playing on white fear and privilege. Using coded racial language.
Recycling mottos from the KKK. Purchasing threatening billboards in Black neighborhoods about
voter fraud. Disenfranchisement through voter ID laws. And when the results came in, the
absolute mental breakdown of the right wing was a true sight to behold. Donald Trump, a man
whose decisions seem as bad as his choice in hairpieces, called for a march on DC, a revolution!
Karl Rove had a prolonged meltdown on Fox News while Bill O’Reilly proclaimed that this was
‘the end of traditional America.’(Which for some reason makes me think that all of the Native
brothers and sisters, if able, would’ve loved to make O’Reilly eat those words with a pile of dust
found from the debris of Pine Ridge, South Dakota.) And to top it off, social media, primarily
Twitter, saw a explosion of hateful and vile tweets which when traced, were found to be mostly
from the south. Stay classy Mississppi and Alabama. Tuesday night, for these folks said this: you
better get with it, or get left behind.
Because Tuesday night was the beginning of a road that may lead to some real and permanent
change in this country. There is a ton of work to be done. The economy needs to continue growth.
We need to focus on overdue infrastructure work. There needs to be more pressure brought to
bear about how we wage conflict by drone warfare. We need better education initiatives enacted
on state levels. More work on destroying the prison industrial complex. Immigration. LGBT Equality.
And on top of it, another fiscal showdown along party lines. It is decidedly better to fight and agitate
for these changes under President Obama than it would have been with someone like Mitt Romney,
a man who his own party didn’t like, in the White House. Barack Obama’s re-election means that he
can be more aggressive on policy that we all would want. But we also cannot be naive and fall for
the ‘magic Negro’ appeal that he got tagged with back in 2008. We also cannot let apathy and
cynicism replace action. Barack Obama is our president for another four years. Tuesday night was
another chapter in an America that is slowly coming to grips with how it is seen in the mirror and
learning to cope with what it sees. Let’s hope that the vision will continue to exude brilliance.