So it took a good 96 hours before the joyous high that enveloped me immediately after the networks called the election for Obama started to uncloak itself from my being. Since there is now some distance between that glorious euphoria and now, I’ll just take a moment to summarize in brief some of my thoughts:
- The world actually feels different. This isn’t some hoary bullshit, it’s palpable and happened almost immediately. It feels more profound for those of us outside of the States, I think, because as Americans we’ve been accustomed to this automatic defensive posture ever since the invasion of Iraq, and now for the first team the citizens of the world seem to be back on our side. It’s weird, but it’s definitely real.
- The overwhelming sentiment here is that we are more proud of our fellow Americans than we are of just Obama. As I was explaining to a friend on Saturday night, it’s not that we wanted Obama to win because we felt he was going to suddenly make everything better. It was more because if he did win, it would say something about our generation and our countrymen and women than anything. It makes this Californian and espoused Berkeley liberal feel unbelievably closer to those in Iowa, Ohio, Florida, and Virginia than I ever did before.
- As an ethnic minority, it’s great to point to the prejudiced areas of the country that didn’t vote for Obama and say “YOU are the minority!”
- After following this campaign as intently as we all did, combined with the Obama campaign’s savvy outreach to all of us supporters, we really feel like we know this man more intimately than any other politician. So when he strode across the stage at Grant Park, or when he stood behind the lectern for his first press conference as President-elect, it wasn’t some distant and unknowable leader that stood before us, but this guy that was a part of us, that we could root for and look up to and still recognize as another human being. This is the kind of shit that makes you want to work hard for someone.
Now that the campaign fervor has subsided and some of us are left feeling more sorry for the likes of Palin than disgust, it’s appropriate that everyone is putting the clamps down on hope barrages and reality checking all over the place. But this time, it feels a little different. For instance, let me paste here an e-mail my dad wrote to my brother and me a few days after the electon:
Glad to know you guys celebrate the result of the election. From many points, Obama does represent changes lots of American are looking for. But he is facing a very, very tough job ahead. The higher the expectation there is, the likelihood of disappointment will also be higher. We can wait and see how a smarter president goes to action and who are those people he has around him. The current government together with many previous one are all controlled by the big corporations. Change will be needed but changing it will be very difficult.
My dad has been a consistent Republican his whole life, and even though he was totally revolted by the Bush administration, he was still leaning toward McCain toward the very end. But like most of the stuff I was reading online in the aftermath, there was no vitriol or antipathy or disgust from those on the “losing” side when it came to Obama. Most of it was guarded optimism, and a lot of it was the same pride in the American people that we all felt. What a change compared to 2004, and doesn’t that say a lot about what the election of Obama has already done? Let’s keep the ball rolling, guys.
And I’ll end this post with some snippets of the kind of calls/emails I got when Obama won:
My brother in DC sent me a text after Obama won Ohio. “Ohio, baby!” Jean, all the way from Honduras, GTalked me: “Ohioooooooooooo!” When 11 pm ET rolled around and the networks called it for Barry, everyone at Malone’s (the American restaurant and bar that was hosting the Obama election watch party) jumped up in the air and started screaming with joy. Half an hour later, my brother called me. He was screaming and crying: “Can you believe this? Oh my God, can you believe this?” Clint e-mailed me an empty email with the subject line “YEAHHHHHHH BIAAAAAATTTCHHHH.” My friend Peijin, who was next to me, asked a girl if he could bum a cigarette by saying: “Yes We Cancer.” That night, I went to Sasha’s for the Shanghaiist Election Hangover and hugged everyone in sight. Everyone hugged me back. And 5 hours later, after 3 Obama-tinis at Glamour Bar, I was in a cab home, my head out the window screaming into the night.
It was a damn fine day.
