It's a Different World Than Where We Come From

As the snow flies outside my window (growl), America continues to get used to the idea of President-elect Barack Obama. Many are optimistic for the future, many are trying to find ways to see the inauguration in January. I continue to be cautiously optimistic that Obama will do the right thing as president and he has made gestures that certainly echo his call for unity, meeting today with his election opponent, John McCain. Unfortunately, the usual suspects did not exactly wholeheartedly embrace our soon-to-be-44th president's call to "resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long."

It took about 5 minutes for Limbaugh and his ilk to go right back after McCain, saying the GOP lost the election because it nominated a moderate. Rush is now going so far as to say that not only did Bush have no responsibility for our current economic situation, but that really the recession is OBAMA'S fault. HUH? I can understand saying that the recession Bush inherited in 2001 was Clinton's because Bush had no way of preventing the dot-com bust of 2000 or the fallout from that... but saying Obama caused Wall Street to sell out 2 months before he was elected when McCain was leading in the polls? That makes ZERO sense and is ridiculous even for him.

So what does the right-wing version of the 23% Crowd want the GOP to do to get back on its feet? Yuh-huh, go far right. They hang their hats on the propositions banning same-sex marriage that got passed, and say that social issues will get them back in power. They refuse to realize that America has become more tolerant and fail to realize that a move like this will only alienate them further in the eyes of a nation that just elected its first minority president. John McCain was correct when he said the so-called "culture warriors" were "agents of intolerance" in 2000, and having that be your model is just wrong. If you right-wingers are so concerned about the next generation and finding new leaders from your party, here's a news flash: I AM the next generation. I'm 30 years old; Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana whom many see as a future GOP star is just 7 years older than me. If you really want the Republican Party to have a future, you better listen to people like me, because so help me if you guys just turn around and nominate Mitt Romney in 2012, I'm going Libertarian.

As for the opposite end of the spectrum... liberals put the blame for McCain losing on Sarah Palin, and some who can't accept the fact that the election is over and the attacking should (theoretically) cease continue to jump on every word she says. I found Keith Olbermann's commments particularly reprehensible; he said Palin should just step down as governor of Alaska now and avoid several more years of being a target for him and other vitriolic types. Well, that's what we would expect from many on the left... now that they have the government, the next objective is not to solve the country's problems, but instead to destroy the Republican Party, first by taking out anyone who may aspire to be the new party leadership, then by demoralizing and shutting up the rank and file.

Take Jindal, for example... as soon as he was mentioned as a future star right before the election, Cynthia Tucker speculated that he wasn't considered for VP this time around because of rampant GOP racism, a charge she loves using at every possible opportunity. If she had actually done a little research, she would have found that Jindal TOOK HIMSELF OUT OF THE RUNNING last summer, saying he wanted to focus on running Louisiana for a while before aspiring to higher office.

Meanwhile, Palin herself was dead-on when she said that it was the low popularity of Bush that had a lot to do with McCain losing the election; the economic troubles that he was partly to blame for were the final straw. But consider that McCain lost by 7 percent in a year when a generic Republican was supposed to lose to a generic Democrat by double-digits. He and Palin did BETTER than expected, BECAUSE he's a moderate. I've seen what people have said about McCain officials throwing Palin under the bus and how she was mismanaged. All I can say is people make mistakes, and I think in the long run, both McCain and Palin will hopefully emerge from this election with reputations intact and more popular than ever.

But what happens next? There's what we hope for and what we fear. What we fear is what has people running out to buy guns like crazy... and crazy's a pretty good word for that. You're afraid the government is coming to take your guns so you go out and buy more guns. Gee, that's not scary at all. Meanwhile, people of all political stripes have their own wish lists for what an Obama administration can do for them. The peaceniks want us to not only leave Iraq as quickly as possible but they also want us to desert Afghanistan (again... remember we did it to them once before in the 90s). There are the people I already mentioned who want to try to consolidate permanent one-party rule (ya know, like they had in the good old Soviet Union). But there's also a large portion of the country (which involves me) who want this incoming administration to be pragmatic, use common sense, and find a way to solve our problems without being antagonistic, hyperpartisan, socialist, or condescending. Maybe November 4th at least planted the seed of bringing the country together.

Then again, 10 days after the election... the Sub-Standard, errrr, Post-Standard featured an editorial calling for higher state taxes on the rich... a Bob Herbert column saying that if we can run the debt up to $10 trillion because of Iraq, what's another few trillion on government programs... a Michael Gerson column warning of the Fairness Doctrine... and letters saying Bush and ONLY Bush is to blame for the current economic mess and he should follow all the Wall Street crooks into jail...

So we're not exactly on the road to reconciliation as a nation yet but let's at least give this thing a chance, huh?

30

So here I am. The birthday has come and gone, my age now starts with a 3. I believe I'm mostly through adjusting to this fact, but permit me this one last chance to bitch about it. It's what I do...

I know the gravity of what that first digit of your age changing can do. It gets you that much further away from being young or cool or any of those things. For better or worse, we live in a youth-targeted culture, where the heroes of your youth are replaceable, and eventually become outdated, irrelevant, forgotten, or if you like the Eagles or Kid Rock, country stars. Trust me, I try to keep up; I listen to current rock and find a lot of it still really good, and I blame the fact that sometimes I need to look harder to find it on the crappiness of local radio than me becoming "out of touch". However, I've also seen "The Simpsons" become tired, I've seen "that one" go from a snarky line my friends and I used back at OCC to a line used by a presidential candidate in a debate, and I've been around long enough to see 2 pop culture recyclings of the same thing.

If you don't quite know what I mean there, I've always had this theory that pop culture runs on a 20-year cycle. That which was popular 20 years ago shall come back. Want examples? OK... "Grease" and "Happy Days", 20 years after the original "happy days" of the 1950s. The neo-hippie movement of the late 1980s. "Mamma Mia" becoming a Broadway smash 20 years after Abba was popular. The fact that EVERY GIRL in my TA class wears leggings now like the kids did in the late 1980s. And now, 20 years after the neo-hippies... it's the neo-neo-hippies. Yes folks, peace signs, tie-dyes, and the like are coming around again... again. I don't know whether to feel old or to shake my head at the fact that there truly are no original ideas left.

Anyway, back to me (especially since I never was a fan of "Grease", "Happy Days", "Mamma Mia", neo-hippies or neo-neo-hippies)...

Remember my whole thing about working out and self-improvement from a few months ago? Yeah, I've fallen off that wagon. Repeatedly. I think I've been to the gym a total of three weeks in the last 5 months. I am seeing the consequences. And like many in their 30s with the same predicament, I say I'm gonna get back to the gym one of these days... you know, when I have the time. I am clearly no friend of the aging process and this will no doubt continue for the rest of my life. It's not fun watching your medicine purchases evolve from Advil to Prilosec to Gas-X. And I have a feeling that my warped take on things that takes up regular residence in this blog will go from whiny youth to curmudgeonly old guy in about 4.3 seconds.

My birthday itself? Oh it was a lot of fun (that's not sarcasm). Hey if you're going to jump into a new decade of life, do it in style. And as I did, do it in a way that results in not being able to remember much of the latter portion of the evening. So it is that I'm now 30 years old and while I still don't like it, for the most part I've accepted it.

However, I'm letting you know now that I will outright refuse to turn 40. Not a chance. I will do the Jack Benny thing and be 39 forever. Take that to the bank.

An Appeal for Civility

We have reached the weekend before Election Day (FINALLY), and I am ending my hiatus from talking politics. I feel I need to try once more to appeal to everyone to behave by what Lincoln once called "the better angels of our nature" on Election Day and after the results come in.

It's no secret that things have gotten even more hostile in the world of politics since I last blogged on the matter. People on both the far left and far right are becoming borderline rage-a-holics. Here in the 'Cuse, Local Talk Host got a caller who called him un-American and dropped an f-bomb on him. Later he had a wackjob threatening protests and efforts to take him off the air. This was all because Local Talk Host didn't speak kindly of Senator McCain and Governor Palin. A colleague of mine (an Obama supporter, by the way) thought it would be funny to dress up at John McCain for Halloween. He was walking down the street with his mask on, and a group of drunk college kids started yelling at him and threatening him. So apparently satire is just as bad as actually being in favor of the guy now.

As I write this, it's the Saturday before the election, Obama's still expected (at least by the media anyway) to win the election, and should he win, I'm not gonna scream and yell and cry foul and prepare for four years of hurling vitriol at the guy. But I know there are those who have spent the last eight years hurling vitriol at Republicans and they've fired themselves up so much that they are downright giddy now. I don't wish to trash Democrats by saying what I am about to say; as you know, most of my friends are Democrats and that is just one of the reasons why I wish to keep some measure of civility in the public discourse. I just want you to know that I am frightened.

The letters coming in for Obama the last few days are the reason why. There are those on the extreme Left who think they have this thing sewn up so they have no reason to sugarcoat their beliefs anymore. We are now getting letters to the editor proclaiming that "clinging to the past should be forbidden" or that the rich cannot be trusted to do the right thing with their money so it must be taken from them and given to the middle class, who rightfully deserves it. I almost want to rerun a column from the old days in response: it was titled, "You Don't Deserve ANYTHING." The fact is that this hatred that has been building up over the years has been vented in this election unlike in no other, and it's establishing some very disturbing precedents.

What have we learned from this election?

1) If you're an up-and-coming governor who gets your big shot at the VP gig and you excite your party's base and draw large crowds to your rallies (but you are opposing the Media's Chosen Candidate), you will be destroyed.

1a) If you're all of those things and a woman, it will be destruction by sexism.

2) If you're a regular guy (say a regular "Joe"), and you have the audacity to ask the Media's Chosen Candidate a question that will catch him off-balance and create the perfect soundbite for the opposition to use against him, you will be destroyed.

3) Democrats decide what is a negative ad. For example, no Democrat ad is negative, even if it's a local state assemblyman blaming President Bush for the continuing dysfunction of state government.

4) If a woman at one of your rallies calls your opponent an "Arab" and you seek to correct her, not only will you be booed by your own supporters, but you will elicit angry letters from offended Arab-Americans.

5) If you're over 70 years old and a major party candidate for president, it will be assumed by the opposition that you will die in the next four years and beyond characterizing you as developing senility and dementia, they will focus their true attacks on your VP choice (see #1). Incidentally, does this mean that if Obama does win, Biden will get tossed off the ticket in four years when Obama runs for re-election? After all, Biden will be pushing 70 himself in 2012.

And now, the last straw is fear. For eight years, Republicans have been accused of using the "politics of fear" to get what we want. But now, many Obama supporters are using that tactic to cinch victory. Not just the misguided attempts to tell us what the country will be like if Sarah Palin becomes president. We now have fear of race riots across the country if Obama loses. One left-wing blogger is quoted in the UK Telegraph article I have linked to as saying that if McCain is announced as a winner, it can only be a lie, and that Obama supporters should march on Washington and surround the White House until power is ceded. How would you like to be an undecided voter in a major swing state city like Philadelphia, Cincinnati, or St. Louis? Here's your choice: Do I vote for Obama or do I make myself indirectly responsible for my city burning?

And worst of all has been the outright insulting of a whole large bloc of the country. "Middle America" has become a slur. If you're from "Middle America", you are an IQ-Deficient Republican (I'm sure there are those who would consider that term redundant), you are white trash, you are a redneck. I would propose that "Middle America" did this to itself in some respects. We've spent the last several years embracing all things redneck, celebrating the Redneck Olympics, loving NASCAR, singing along with Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman", following the "White Trash Beautiful" trend. And now that you've done all that, you have become a lower form of life to elitists. And let me clarify something here for elitists who find it upsetting (naturally) that elites no longer engender respect. I have no problem with people who are "elite"; being a graduate student, I guess I would be considered an elite. However, to be elitist is to look down your nose at people who you don't consider to be as good as you, as smart as you, as well-off as you. I've certainly tried to see all men as created equal (like it says in our Declaration of Independence), but others have unfortunately gone for the Orwell "Animal Farm" worldview of "some are more equal than others." And this goes for both sides; this is not just a leftist problem. Conservatives are just as guilty of questioning the intelligence of those who disagree with them.

I close by noting that some of the best moments of this brutally long election campaign have been the less-than-serious ones, and I don't mean the flubs that get scrutinized by people on both sides who are eager to seize on their opponent's every misstatement. I mean moments like the Al Smith dinner, where McCain and Obama took turns good-naturedly roasting each other and other Washington luminaries. I mean moments like Gov. Palin's appearance on "Saturday Night Live", where she proved herself to be able to take a joke. Even in this most serious of elections, we see from time to time that even the people running don't take themselves too seriously. Perhaps we should do the same. Perhaps we need to realize that November 4 is not potentially the end of the world or the end of the country, but a new beginning. Regardless of who wins, we will have a new president, and it would be nice for a change to have the people of this country at least giving the guy a chance to make his mark before we ratchet up the bile again. Maybe it's too much to ask, but I'm asking for it anyway.