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Remember in November 2004, when the media declared that Bush's eyelash-breadth lead on Kerry was actually a "MANDATE?" Remember how alienating it felt? Remember how we all felt like exactly half the country had absolutely no representation in government? Remember how demoralizing it all was?
Few psycholgists, philosophers, moralizers, etc. recommend revenge as a balm. I don't care. After tonight, our priority will be cleaning up THEIR mess, taking resposibilty for THEIR fuck-ups, dispensing salve to a nation wounded by THEIR mandate. It will be a long road and it will demand discipline and rigor from all of us - not just in learning to live with diminished expectations, but in doing the actual lifting. We will be adults. We will lead by example. Obama's transition team will be busy fixing stuff for YEARS before any of the policies we salivate over (living wage, environmental rescue, sustainable energy plicy, ending the Iraq War, etc.) can be implemented. We must learn the value of patience and magnanimity.
But TONIGHT, I don't care. Tonight I want a fucking mandate. I want that half of the country who strove so vigorously to rub our noses in our wounds, to drive our liberalism down our throats, to feel like we did four years ago. That terrible slight, which still smarts after so long, must be redressed before any healing can be done on either side - and that requires that our reactionary urges must be sated tonight and tonight only. America's republicans need to sit and hurt and realize how badly their short-sighted and mean-spirited and bone-greedy lust for dominion hurt everyone else - literal, smoldering hurt - before either of us can go forward. They need to know the meaning of loss, because loss is a facile teacher, a reliable imbuer of humanity in the reluctant.
And after tonight, of course, their punishment will be to share in the peace and prosperity that an Obama presidency will bring.
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