| Barack Party This news is making me smile. I'm biased, of course, because it's telling me what I want to hear: Barack Obama is Doing Very Well. I'm only bothering to make a post about it because one sentence in the article gave me pause: That could mark a historic realignment of the country's politics on a scale with 1932 or 1980, when the out party was given power it held for a generation, and used it to transform government's role in American society. I already knew that information, but seeing the years 1932 and 1980 provoked some historical-context math in my head. The span between 1932 and 1980 is forty-eight years. Granted, the Democrats did not have exclusive control for all that time, but even Republican presidents of the period were forced to cope with them. In terms of actual legislation passed, Nixon was a Communist compared to Bush. Forty-eight years can easily be two generations, not one. So the impact of the 1932 election lasted for two generations. Granted, 1932 was not 2008. We are not in a true depression -- not yet. We will never have another catastrophic global-map-changing imperialist nation-state war to shoot green ink into the country's veins. However, the likely Democratic landslide may still be felt for another two generations at least. There are five reasons why: 1). Archival memory of the Bush years will be long and nauseating. Much more archival footage, transcripts, angry rantings, documentaries, and satirical comedy exists about George W. Bush than exists about, say, Herbert Hoover. Thanks to the Internet, it is much more easily accessed, too. In the future, more people can, at their leisure, learn about how bad things were shortly before 2008 than before 1932. As a bonus, more people will be able to learn about how Reagan led to Bush than how Coolidge led to Hoover thanks to archival memory. And very few of those memories will cast a pleasant glow on the word "Republican." 2). Archival memory of the Obama years will be longer than Bush's simply because of who he is, and physical memory of an Obama administration will be longer still. No matter what the man himself does, a Democratic majority will do things long remembered for the United States' infrastructure. It will show to future citizens in concrete terms that Democrats were about construction while Republicans were about destruction. 3). With advances in health technology, the young voters in this election will have the longest average life spans of any generation before them. They are already legion, and a Democratic victory (or simply a Republican defeat) will give them their first taste of empowerment. They will love it. They will never forget. And, should the unthinkable happen, they will never forgive. 4). Republicans gave themselves a hell of a jinx. Many who have desired power claimed that, once they attained it, it would last either forever or for a great span of time. 1000 years, for example, for a regime that lasted twelve. Prior to 2000, prominent conservatives created the Project for a New American Century -- a title suggesting power for at least 100 years. In 2000 and 2004, there was much trumpeting about Karl Rove's dream of a "permanent Republican majority." Claiming that your political group will keep power for longer than one or two election cycles is like spreading your asshole to the splintered table leg of History. 5). Obama's education plan is going to get more people into teaching, and make just about every teacher in the country happy. Teachers will know who to thank. Many of them, and you'd better believe that includes me, will subtly ensure that students know too. It's enough to make a cautious cynic gleefully hopeful. |
