With the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the Untied States, I have been trying to sort out my feelings for my former senator. He was, as I have mentioned many times previously, a terrible senator. He did a bad job representing my state, rarely voting, and introdicing hardly any new pro-Illinois legislation during his term. Almost as soon as he was elected to the Senate (in what I remember as a terribly exciting and uphill battle in Illinois) it was clear that he had wanted to be a senator only in order to have a platform from which to run for president. This upset me because I don't think that a job in Congress should be treated as anything other than that. He didn't do his job in representing my state, and I felt, to be honest, jipped.
So my thoughts on Senator Obama are pretty clear. Presidnet-Elect Obama, though, I have no opinion about. One would think that someone as attuned to American politics as I am would have strong thoughts about such a divicive (though he claims to be otherwise) candidate. I'm pretty liberal, too, so really it shouldn't have been a problem.
Obama himself, however, has been so thouroughly eclipsed by the Obama Cult throughout his campaign, that however I might have felt about him were I to know him or his politics at all is washed out by my loathing of his supporters.
There seems to be a large group of Americans (and a surprising number of Canadians) out there who are having a difficult time distinguishing between Barack Obama and God. Frankly, this scares the shit out of me.
Don't get me wrong. I think it's wonderful that President-Elect Obama was able to get people excited about his campaign. It's been a long time since so many people have been excited about American politics, and the ability of his campaign to get "unlikely" voters, and especially young people to go to the polls yesterday is incredible.
The problem is the attitude with which they went to them. "Change" is a fine attitude. It doesn't mean anything, so I don't really have any problem with it as a voting criteria. I don't really like it as a platform, but whatever. The people I have issue with are the ones who, once Obama was declared the winner last night, said things like "I can be proud of my country again." or "I'm glad to be an American again."
Would these people not have been proud of their country if Senator McCain had been elected president? I still would have. Have they not been greatful to be Americans during President Bush's time in the White House? Would they rather have been citizens of some other country? I've been living outside the U.S. for over a year now, and to be perfectly honest, I'm thrilled to be an American. I wouldn't give it up for anything.
I'm proud of America because we had an election yesterday. No matter the outcome, the fact that our country has free elections and that in January, President Bush will willingly surrender his power to a member of the opposing party, just because the People have said he should is incredible. That's why I'm proud of America. And the resons I'm glad to be an American extend way beyond the executive branch of our government. They have to do with the ease and relative safety with which I can travel because of my American passport, and my representatives in Congress, Mark Kirk and Senator Dick Durbin, both of whom spend their time in Congress fighting for the rights and benefit of citizens of Illinois. I'm glad to be an American because I got to vote in the election yesterday (though I had to vote absentee, because of America's inability to provide affordable post-secondary education). I'm proud to be an American because all my life, I've thought that Americans are reach for higher standards, and that this was a good thing.
Barack Obama's election as president does not make me more proud to be an American than I was a week or a year or five years ago. Perhaps once he takes office, I will be able to say that I am more proud of my government than I have been. Perhaps I'll be able to say that I'm glad that my country is able to present a face to the world that doesn't make people in streets in Paris and Rome and South Africa and Iraq to look at it's citizens with disgust and hatred. But none of this has to do with my country. It has to do with my government.
I have always been proud to be an American.
People keep asking me if I'm happy about the results of the election last night.
I suppose I am. Or, rather, I suppose I will be, if President Obama is a better public servant than Senator Obama was, and if he makes good on any few of the hundreds of promises he made during his campagn. But for now, I don't know how to respond when someone asks, because truth be told, the Obama Cult has overshadowed the man, and I, an American Semi-ExPat living ten minutes from the Canadian/American border, don't know President-Elect Obama from Chicago, my hometown, at all.
