Over the past eight years, we have been treated to a period of highly ideological politics. Every sort of rightwingery has taken the center stage of American politics, from supply-side economics, to gay bashing and warmongering. In response, a countervailing movement has arisen, one of idealism and belief in the power of good governance.
It's been a riveting decade. Not a week goes by before some new outrage comes to fore, some of them very great indeed. It's been an era that keeps one guessing. And while many derive from all this action the vigor to fight back harder in the other direction, now that the forces who brought us these frightening times are in disarray, I find myself thinking perhaps this desire is a bit overwrought. For my part, I'd much prefer that rather than have a new era of unflinching, in-your-face politics, that politics go back to being boring.
You see, with all this talk about sticking it to 'em, having Lieberman flogged in the public square, and whatnot, I have to admit, I frankly don't give a rat's ass what he's saying on talk shows -- or rather, I wish I didn't. I just wish I didn't feel compelled to keep up with those damn things so that I wouldn't know. When I ask, "Who cares?" And then have to answer, "Well, I kinda care," this really does not sit well with me. It would be so much better if I could count on political news being mostly irrelevant and generally in the good to neutral range the rest of the time.
I don't have any major expectations for Obama. If he gets some kind of health care thing passed and manages to somewhat un-fuck up the situation abroad, he will have exceeded my expectations considerably. If he can salvage some kind of decent economic situation at the end of four years, I will be ecstatic.
This is my hope: That four years from now, even if we're not materially better off than we are now, at least we won't be worried about what'll happen next. My friends, this is hope we can believe in.
So while you're spending your days trying to "hold his feet to the fire," I hope you'll stop for a moment and say, "You know, fire is hot and holding people's feet to it makes me hot too. This sucks, let's go bowling."