![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I am not and was not surprised. Elated, yes. Thrilled to see the GOP Senate candidates get the drubbing they so richly deserved - oh, the tweets after McCaskill won were priceless - overjoyed that gay marriage succeeded at the polls for the first time ever, in not one but three states (with an anti-gay marriage amendment defeated in Minnesota, another state that has a piece of me) - and richly satisfied to see Mittens sent packing once and for all. I am deeply grateful that Prop 30 passed here in California, and really unhappy that 34 failed and 35 didn't. Here in Berkeley, the deeply mean-spirited Measure S was narrowly defeated, to my surprise; I will ameliorate my criticism of the townies here accordingly. My friend whose mother is an anti-death penalty lawyer tells me that the Prop 34 vote was closer than anyone had expected: only half a million more Californians are willing to spend $184 million a year so the state can kill people than aren't. The fight goes on - like Springsteen says, the future's rarely a tide rushing in. It was a surge in 2008, but in 2012 it was the slow march, the long haul, the grinding fight. And the right side won again, this time around.
It would be a mistake to sit back and say that the only winners in this election were flying killer death robots (though, make no mistake: the flying killer death robots came up big). To say that there's no difference between the two parties (or the two candidates!), or that nothing's going to change, or that nothing can change (nothing can change! compare 2012 to 1954, where Romney wanted us to return!), is to fundamentally misunderstand what this election was about, and to undervalue the democratic process - a harebrained idea, really, letting the masses choose their own leaders! what monarch of any era would ever have thought it credible? - that the GOP, in particular, worked so hard to sabotage and buy but that rejected its false promises in the end. I continue to believe, as The New York Times editors do, that Americans aren't actually as stupid as the GOP thinks we are. 2012 shows that 2008 was no fluke, that we are capable of choosing a more perfect union and of staying the course. And the course is a long one.
As soon as the last of the hangover wore off this morning I dove into the political coverage. There's a lot of good writing out there, particularly on The New Yorker: Obama's Political Intelligence. A Victory for Obama's America. And a blog post and an article from Alex Ross that deserve to be read in concert: Gay-Rights Victories and Love on the March. I continue to read with skepticism all the pundits saying the GOP has to change and this will make them read the writing on the wall. I've read these articles before, starting in 2006, and so far, nothing doing. By all means, GOPers, continue immolating yourselves on the pyre of your own fear and mean-spiritedness! The demographics argument often seems to become very deterministic very quickly, but the truth it contains is real: you can't win an election with just the white male vote anymore. When the Republicans actually realize that it will change American politics, but American politics have already changed in light of it. In the meantime, Puerto Rico should offer a highly illustrative test case for the whole question of whether the GOP can change its tune. (Puerto Rico! Congratulations!)
What's next?
It would be a mistake to sit back and say that the only winners in this election were flying killer death robots (though, make no mistake: the flying killer death robots came up big). To say that there's no difference between the two parties (or the two candidates!), or that nothing's going to change, or that nothing can change (nothing can change! compare 2012 to 1954, where Romney wanted us to return!), is to fundamentally misunderstand what this election was about, and to undervalue the democratic process - a harebrained idea, really, letting the masses choose their own leaders! what monarch of any era would ever have thought it credible? - that the GOP, in particular, worked so hard to sabotage and buy but that rejected its false promises in the end. I continue to believe, as The New York Times editors do, that Americans aren't actually as stupid as the GOP thinks we are. 2012 shows that 2008 was no fluke, that we are capable of choosing a more perfect union and of staying the course. And the course is a long one.
As soon as the last of the hangover wore off this morning I dove into the political coverage. There's a lot of good writing out there, particularly on The New Yorker: Obama's Political Intelligence. A Victory for Obama's America. And a blog post and an article from Alex Ross that deserve to be read in concert: Gay-Rights Victories and Love on the March. I continue to read with skepticism all the pundits saying the GOP has to change and this will make them read the writing on the wall. I've read these articles before, starting in 2006, and so far, nothing doing. By all means, GOPers, continue immolating yourselves on the pyre of your own fear and mean-spiritedness! The demographics argument often seems to become very deterministic very quickly, but the truth it contains is real: you can't win an election with just the white male vote anymore. When the Republicans actually realize that it will change American politics, but American politics have already changed in light of it. In the meantime, Puerto Rico should offer a highly illustrative test case for the whole question of whether the GOP can change its tune. (Puerto Rico! Congratulations!)
What's next?