Hope: No Longer Audacious

It is 5:22AM in Copenhagen and I am watching Senator John McCain's concession speech. The headline on my television says, "Barack Obama Elected President: CNN Projection - McCain 155, Obama 306."

Part of me is in shock, part of me is not surprised at all, yet all of me is at peace.

Growing up in a blue state, I spent the first half of my life watching Democrats in power and feeling that the American government reflected my family's values. My grandfather was a World War II vet who wore flag pins on the lapel of his blazer before they became a fashion statement. I made flag cakes on the Fourth of July and never begrudged saying the "Pledge of Allegiance" each morning in elementary school.

I saw no reason for the 2000 election to be any different. I went to bed confident in my Vice-President's victory and woke up hopeful. As the days and weeks dragged, pregnant with tension and chads, I was convinced that it was just a ridiculous phase in my country's history. It will pass. Clinton will come back. America will still be great.

I see no reason to recount the loss of our collective innocence in September 2001. But I will say that I have felt like a foreigner in my own homeland for the past 8 years. I chalked my alienation up to several factors: teenage rebellion, an increased consciousness, a generally precarious political situation. But one thing remained constant:

I never blamed President Bush. That was too easy, too obvious. My newfound cynicism was borne from something less concrete and more profound, I was sure of that. It can't just be one man.

I have always considered myself an optimist in every respect... except for politics. There is a newspaper clipping on my bedroom door at home that says, "Politics. From the Latin "poly" meaning "many," and "ticks" meaning "blood-sucking parasites." I had no trust for politicians - any politician in any government in any country. Therefore, I was wary of Obama and downright terrified of the ObamaNation "YES WE CAN" groupthink.

But now I'm watching John McCain say, "the failure is mine, not yours."

Of course he is referring to losing the election, but that statement has made me think.

I became disillusioned as a result of the actions and inactions (mostly the latter) of the American people, the American president and the global community. It was not America itself.

Tonight, I believe in America.

I know I'm unintentionally regurgitating tired pundit lines and I'm sorry. But that is how I feel. I think our country redeemed itself by choosing Senator President Elect Obama. We aren't a bunch of stupid, backwards, unchanging, passive, racist hicks. We can change. We can move forward. We can hope. Yes...

we can.

(That's the first time I've said that without making a joke, by the way)

John McCain just said, "believe always in the promise and greatness of America... Americans never quit. We don't hide from history, we make history." I didn't for a long time. But now I think I understand.

America is not George Bush.

America is not Barack Obama.

America is not me. Or my grandpa with his flag lapel pins. Or the pundits or the soldiers or the intellectuals or the hicks.

America is at once more solid and more amorphous than that. Living abroad and traveling has taught me that. I have never been one for partisan politics and I am not going to start now. My faith in my country has not been restored merely because the comparative liberal has been elected, that would be petty.

My faith has been restored because I see that America can move forward. America can heal. And this resolve comes from the mouths of all Americans, not just those in Florida and Ohio.

Now Obama has taken the podium:

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.
It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.
We are, and always will be, the United States of America."

I am crying. I am actually crying.

"Change has come to America."