Rapper Jay-Z attends the inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial (Zbigniew Bzdak/MCT Campus).
It kills me to say this, but it is a good thing that Barack Obama is now the president of the United States, as opposed to John McCain, for a few reasons.
Obama was not my candidate; McCain was. I felt McCain was more bipartisan, experienced and grounded than Obama, as I still do. But McCain couldn’t do what Obama is doing, which, at the risk of sounding clichéd, is inspiring hope.
However irrational this may be, without the misguided hope and belief that everything inevitably will progress towards being better, it probably wouldn’t. McCain would never be able to overcome the misconception that he was Bush III (and whether that is entirely a bad thing is also debatable) and thus the country would continue down the path of disillusionment that was paved by power-hungry war hawks.
Without the backing and excitement of the country, the next president
would find it impossible to succeed when combined with all of the other
obstacles he or she would face.
Something else Obama can do that McCain couldn’t would be to gain the interest of the youth. This is primarily why he won. Imagine McCain
being introduced by Denzel Washington and Ray Romano, sung for by the likes of Beyonce, Mariah Carey and Bono, and given the Kanye West Seal of Approval. You can’t.
I am betting the aforementioned celebrities’ comprehension of the political system before Obama ran was on par with a toddler’s understanding of quantum physics. Sadly, it doesn’t matter. The support from these celebrities will be enough to engage the public in American politics like never before. When the country is in the sad state that is in, the ends justify the means.
Towards the end of his campaign, to most, Obama became Nietzsche’s ubermensch. He was more eloquent, suave, sophisticated and domineering than McCain. He approached superman-ish. McCain was the friendly old neighbor, someone you respected and wanted to spend ime with, but not lead the free world.
Obama’s election also will somewhat alleviate the idea that we are still a bigoted, racist country. The false belief that racism will now vanish ike common sense on MSNBC is ignorant. But electing a black president should go a long way toward smoothing over a past that has plenty of racist blemishes.
While abundant jobs seem far off in the future, along with a thriving economy, the belief that we are on the right track is something we didn’t have last October. If President Obama is half as knowledgeable, confident and ready as he appeared during his campaign, our situation by default will improve.
January 24, 2009 at 11:03 am
Racist “blemishes”? What an egregious understatement (and highly wishful thinking). Electing a black president isn’t going to smooth over anything that happened in the past; that past is something that will always be with us, and he can’t change the past any more than anyone else. Instead, we can all hope that the election of Barack Obama as President will help the present and future of African-Americans–and, by extension, all people–in this country.
Your statement about “the aforementioned celebrities’ comprehension of the political system” being “on par with a toddler’s understanding of quantum physics” shows how little you know about those celebrities’ political inclinations. How have you missed Bono’s work with the United Nations and political leaders around the world to alleviate poverty and eliminate debt in developing countries? He is just one example in the group of celebrities you mentioned, but he is not an anomaly, as many celebrities are deeply involved in politics and political causes.
The overall point of your article is well taken, but you need to be more careful about the generalizations you make and the words you use along the way to making that point.