Obama won. There are some good points to take from this.
Firstly, from now on when people say that the US is fundamentally racist, we will all know it's bullshit.
I am glad that when you tell a little black boy that he can be president one day, he will believe you. Unfortunately if you still tell a little girl of any colour that same thing, they wont quite.
Perversely, for all this talk of redistribution of wealth from Obama, the very fact that he is president might make Black people and Americans in general go more self-reliant. If minorities really believe that "yes we can" achieve status and wealth and power then they might be less despondent about their future and less dependent on welfare as a group.
Obviously this is a historic moment, just like Thatcher becoming the UK's first woman PM. The next test becomes whether that person fights for the narrow interest of their group within society, or really does govern for all. But the guy deserves props just for getting elected.
Or as we say in Australia, "Good on ya, mate".
Secondly, it looks at this point that the Democrats will not achieve a filibuster-proof super-majority in the Senate. That means that their most drastic agenda for change can be delayed and stopped though rigorous debate. The Dems control the white house and both houses of congress, but they will have to explain what they do and bring others with them. Rather than "crash through or crash" in the Whitlam-style.
I think Obama will be like Rudd. He will be cautious about implementing his change, aka income redistribution and proto-socialism. There are still close to 50% of Americans who disagree with it, and most of American history disagrees.
Obama is already watering down is rhetoric and managing expectations. Talking about a hard road or whatever in his acceptance speech, and how we all need to make sacrifices etc. It sounds like he's going to leave them in a bit of a rut for while yet. He's not going be be anyone's saviour in a hurry.
Obama will be loathe to tinker with, let alone pull apart, a system that fundamentally works. After all, it worked well enough to put him where he is.
On foreign policy, it's one thing to bash Bush for taking action, but when you are commander-in-chief and you risk something going very wrong if you dont take action, like Israel getting nuked, then you change your mind pretty fast. I think,like Blair, Obama is driven by ambition (not to say vanity) and he will be very worried about his legacy. He does not want it to read "they guy who sounded cool but allowed America to become weak in the eyes of the world." Blair was a left-winger swept to power by wets who became a stauch ally of the US in the war in Iraq. When Obama says he'll invade Pakistan, i believe him.
"Yes we can" change American foreign and domestic policy, but do we really want to?
Thirdly, and i think most importantly for the long term future of America and the world, the American conservatives have been electorally punished so badly that they must now reform.
The Republicans conceded this election when they nominated McCain. McCain was too much of a maverick to have a direction, see Ace on that. I was rooting for Giulianni 18 months ago. He still might have lost against Obama but this race was not a walkover, and if the Reps had hit Obama hard over the economy, which McCain never could because he hates Wall St too, they could have had a chance.
BUT Giulliani was a deal-breaker for the religious right in the US because he was not socially conservative enough. They stopped him getting the nomination. I dont like those guys. They freak me out. They freak alot of people out both in the US and abroad. I also think they are part of the reason why the GOP lost.
I supported Bush because i thought he was a strong leader and a defier of conventional weakened wisdom of the hippies in suits and no ties who run the media. i did it because i am a conservative. I am not religious. I dont think you have to be religious to be conservative. It's about pride, patriotism, hard-work, honesty, self-reliance and a fundamental distrust and distaste for the politics of pity. It should have nothing, or very little, to do with religion.
I do not begrudge people their religion and I dont think anyone should be excluded from a political party on the basis of religion, but when the whole identity of a party is bundled up with a religion I don't like it. The Christian right have too much control over the US Republican party. They should be a part of it, but not the dominant part.
The other conservatives, the economic and foreign policy conservatives, need to form a values platform that can compete with the Christian right, so that they can then compete with the values-talk of the left, of which Obama is the master. They need to create a form of Social conservatism that is not based on religion. To talk about real-world rational reasons why we need to take responsibility for ourselves in our personal lives, as well as defend basic personal rights in the same rational way. If you have religious reason too, fine, but that should not be seen a sufficient justification on it's own from now on.
I feel a bit apprehensive in saying this, because i'm not an American and i dont really know that much and it's not really any of my business. But i think it's true. I hope these will be the last words I say on the topic of US politics for some time. I got a country of my own to worry about. Good luck y'all, and if there is a God, may he/she bless America.
