You guys. We have a mandate now! Let me tell you why.
Because the demographics of this country have changed so much in the past four years that Republicans are now functionally irrelevant.
No, I'm not fucking kidding.
Republicans have very few African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, people of all ethnic skin tones, women, and thinking-class white men.
That leaves Republicans with ... what exactly?! Elves? Hobbits? Dwarves?
Orcs?!
No, see. That leaves Republicans with only upper-class, angry, ignorant white men who have no effing clue how to talk to "others" of this nation, which is now the majority (yay!), and are actively racist, sexist, and homophobic.
This is the lesson I'm learning from the 2012 national elections. And it makes me smile like a little kid in a candy store, I can't lie.
This morning, in a Republican-leaning 'burb of Denver that I happen work in, I was standing in a Starbucks line with my best friend/former partner, talking shit about Republicans.
We were way too giddy to be talked down, and we made the two Republican-seeming women in line ahead of us not only glance back at us, but give us dirty looks that could kill.
It was fuckin' awesome. :)
This is the first election ever that I have felt a major paradigm shift. Shit's gettin' real, yo! White people, and especially older, white, male people, no longer dominate the conversation. Or, at least, they do as much as they do on network TV (and feel they must), but no one is buying the shit they're selling anymore! Not the viewers of MSM news, and certainly not American voters.
Can you think of a time in recent history when that happened? Honestly, can you?! Because I can't. Seriously. Not even in 2008 was George Will an irrelevant talking head, who used to wear bow ties but now wears regular ties (because, what? they help him out with the over-70 crowd?), and predicted so badly the 2012 election that it could potentially be used as toilet paper quotes that mean exactly nothing?
That feels so good, you guys! To be in the middle of 2012, for 2012 to be almost over, and to feel like the USA is actually IN 2012!!!!!
.....
I KNOW!
This was a special kind of election for me. As many of you know (or maybe have no clue, or maybe just don't remember), I'm not a huge Barack Obama fan. I'm just not. Ask anyone who's been here for 3+ years, and they can give you the lowdown.
But the bottom-line is this:
I never wanted Mitt Romney to become President of the United States. I was so very worried about it that I, in fact, voted for Obama via early mail-in ballot two weeks ago.
I could not, in good conscience, let Mitt Romney take the Great State of Colorado. And he didn't, which makes me very happy. :)
My hope is that Barack Obama uses this mandate to enact truly liberal laws, such as ending indefinite detention, ending unwarranted assassinations of American citizens anywhere in the world, immediately ending the use of predator drones, expanding Obamacare, and not touching the Third Rail of politics.
Barack Obama earned his mandate, peeps. It would be a fucking shame if he used said mandate to entrench and expand laws made originally by George W. Bush.
Because that Second Bush motherfucker still haunts my dreams. I was embarrassed and ashamed to have Dubya as our president, for 8. goddamned. long. years.!
I cannot handle that shit again. And I shouldn't have to, with a Democratic president.
Little Shiz is this wonderful little kid, 12 going on 30, who is absolutely gorgeous. I don't know how else to say that. (Yes, OF COURSE I am biased, but I'm just sayin'. :P) Ever since she was teeny, I have taught her to use her physical (and emotional, and mental) beauty For Good, and not For Evil.
Little Shiz knows what that means. And so does Barack Obama.
So Obama, fuckin' get goin', guy! Use your powers For Good, and not For Evil! Make me as proud of you as I want you to be!