The Democratic Socialist has soundly defeated the Republican Socialist in the presidential race. We live in interesting times.
It's good to focus on positives when you can. Sez David Bernstein:
Much as I didn't want Obama to win on ideological grounds, I am nonetheless thrilled that the American voters elected their first black president.I've spent a fair chunk of the last two decades writing about post-Civil War African-American history, a history replete with segregation, lynchings, intimidation, humiliation, exclusion and so forth. I can't tell you how disgusted I am when I read this history, and I'm not sure that those of us who haven't studied the history really understand the pervasiveness and invidiousness of the mistreatment of African Americans. And this mistreatment crossed ideological lines. As late as the 1930s, liberal Democrats had few if any compunctions about intentionally creating massive unemployment among African American farmers and industrial workers in pursuit of New Deal goals they considered far more important. Adlai Stevenson, as I recall, ran with two separate segregationist running mates in the 1950s! Just forty years ago, the Supreme Court had to force Virginia to allow interracial marriage. Now we see the son of a black African father and white mother carrying Virginia in a presidential election. Amazing!
Prejudice, of course, hasn't disappeared, not will it disappear under an Obama presidency. But all American ethnic groups have faced prejudice, sometimes severe prejudice, and thrived nevertheless.
And we can hope that good beats any harm an Obama administration might bring.
