Elections I remember

On the eve of one of the most extraordinary US elections in my lifetime, I am pondering the presidential elections I’ve been alive for.

In 2004, a group of us sat hopefully in front of the TV in a tiny one-bedroom flat in Brooklyn. We watched on pins and needles as Ohio looked to be leaning toward Kerry and then Bush and then…cap in hand, John Edwards and a long-faced Kerry announced that they were conceding the election to a man we had desperately hoped would be knocked off of his evil perch. We were stunned because all of us felt that this election meant the difference between lives saved and lives lost. We could not have predicted the sheer scale of actual lives lost those 53 million people who voted for Bush now have on their consciences. We braced ourselves, nonetheless, for 4 more years of needless war, of violent rhetoric, of suppression and censorship, of isolationism, corruption and big oil.

2000 was a wake-up call for my generation. Supposedly one of the most exemplary democracies in the world turned out to be deeply dysfunctional.  When George W. Bush took office, we were only nine months away from an event so shocking, it would forever alter public discourse in our country and indeed the world. What a comedy (tragedy?) of errors that led to the moment when this idiotic despot-in-waiting would be in power at this defining moment when America needed leadership of the highest caliber. It was the perfect political storm that has gone on for 8 years too long.

Aside from the upset victory he snatched from the first George Bush, Clinton’s eight years in office were blissfully uneventful by comparison. The worst crisis his administration faced was because of an extra-marital affair. I suspect that nowadays, most Americans would gladly trade our current problems for those days. I guess that’s the great paradox of history: it gives us the gift of perspective and insight only upon hindsight.

We’ve had a rough decade, and we’ve been humbled and tempered in ways that are not fun as a nation or as individuals. Culturally, philosophically we still face huge maturity gaps. But I expect that four years from now, I will remember this election day with pride and excitement and a real hope for the future of my beautiful country. Obama for President.