Like many other people around the internet, I’ve been trying to process my thoughts and feelings about the election results. My team won, so on the one hand I’m relieved and elated. But as the week wore on, I identified another feeling: disbelief. Let me explain.
The intelligentsia on the right also seemed to be espousing disbelief after the election: disbelief that they could possibly lose. (And in Karl Rove’s case, it happened in real time.) I know that the right has been drinking its own Koolaid for years, but until this week, they always seemed to be able to explain losses away and go on about their merry way, maintaining a certain relevance. But if this election proved nothing else, it proved that the right cannot continue to live in their stainless steel, Halliburton-constructed, bubble-shaped echo chamber and hope to win future elections on the national level or help the country at any level.
The United States of America is not the lily white, center-right place it once was. People of color matter now and they know it. Gay people matter and they know it. Women and young people as well. I’m a straight, white male, and unlike conservatives in that category, I know the USA is different as well.
What does this mean? Lots of things. But mostly I hope that the right finally has that long, dark night of the soul that they’ve been threatening to have and that they evolve. (They irony of that word choice is not lost on me.) I hope this because we need a full complement of reality based problem-solvers in our government that stand ready to make the country better for all of its citizens – not just the well-to-do white ones. The right needs to acknowledge the world around them and deal with what they actually find… not what they wish was there. Otherwise they are going to end up obsolete.
I wonder if they can do it. I wonder if they can pop the bubble. I’ll believe it when I see it.
...because of infinity... 