Obama 2008

Yes, We Can.

I woke up this morning to a decidedly more somber day than just a few hours prior, when I was walking back from Union Square, still shouting "Yes, we fucking did" at fellow revelers. The sky was dark with the coming of rain and I had to be at work in an hour. Walking past Union Square on the way to the NQRW, I saw the remnants of the night before, most notably the giant light bulb some NYU student accidently smashed to the ground around 2 AM. I shook my head without thinking and then remembered how we cheered and hassled the cops, "Let him go!"

That brief four-hour period is one I am unlikely to ever forget and it felt like it lasted a lifetime. Never before have I felt so unbelievably happy, so absolutely proud and so stumped by what was happening that all I could say was, oh my God, Obama. At 10:57, Russell and I were getting ready to smoke when we looked at the clock, immediately at one another and without a word, ran towards the TV. Two minutes later, MSNBC announced Obama as our president elect and seconds after that, we were hanging off the fire escape, screaming Obama's name like everyone else who poured out onto the street.

There are no words, no phrases I can think of to recapture the ubiquitous joy in the air and the camaraderie it inspired. More than anything, what touched me the most--what continued to send warm shivers down my spine throughout today as I read article upon article about 'what this election means'--was that last night, for the first time in my life, everything and everyone around me felt like one whole country. We ceased to be a collective of individuals who happened to be living within the same borders; we became a country, a people, the United States of America. September 11th brought us together in mourning, in tragedy, but this was something that legitimately--however corny and overused it may sound--we did together. Yes. We did. No one, however cynical you may be, however Obama-hating, should be allowed to trivialise that statement, because the numbers show just how true it is. We decided and then made it happen. It's sappy, it's drowning in ideology and it's almost kind of annoying, but we have a president elect to prove it.

That is not to say however, this is end, we've done what we had to do and it's time to go home. I have always been a political cynic and I think now is just a good a time as any to be one, given the unwavering faith in Obama's ability by many of his supporters and the overwhelming expectation of sheer greatness.

Last night in Union Square, countless people climbed to the top of lamp posts, the statue. I stood up on a railing precariously, after almost falling while crowd-surfing, and stayed there because I got a chant started. Girls climbed up on guys' shoulders, guys scaled trees, anything to get higher up, because higher up is, well, the better view.

Any lingering doubts I may have had with Obama's ability to lead were washed away with the humility and grace with which he accepted the nation's vote of confidence. He understands, better than anyone else I expect, that "the road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep." I don't expect him to fix everything and to be quite honest, I don't expect him to really fix anything. If he does, I'll be proud. What I expect him to do is to begin the process, to steer us in the right direction, as he said, "...block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand."

Everything I have said, everyone has said. Every blogger, every journalist, everyone has come out with their own recounts of the 2008 election. What it boils down to though, isn't what Barack Obama is capable of or what he accomplishes, because he can accomplish plenty and still change very little. It comes down to what we are willing to do and, as Obama reminded us, to sacrifice--what we are willing to give up for the greater good of this country. It has been a long time since there has been such high-handed talk but we've reached such a low, fucked up so much that for once, we need to grab hold of our ideals because they are all we have left. And believing in them can only raise us up.