Like many Americans, I was up late last night. I've been watching this election with all the excitement I usually devote to my favorite television dramas. I've seen every debate, many of the speeches, and absolutely every Tina Fey skit. After two emotional years of following this campaign, last night felt to me like the climax of a really long movie. Cue music and credits as the audience gets teary-eyed and slowly files out of the theater, back into the real world.
But, of course, last night wasn't the end. It was the beginning. As Obama said so powerfully in his speech last night, "This is not the change we seek. This is only the opportunity to make that change." I know a lot of my friends didn't vote for Obama, and a lot of people are scared about what his administration will mean for this country. I'm not one of them. I voted for him--in the primaries as well as the general--and I've never been so excited about a candidate in my life.
And although there are plenty of historic and social reasons to be excited about President Obama, my reasons are, I think, a little different than most. It's not because he's the first African-American president our country has ever elected, although I am happy about what that says about the slow eradication of racism in America. And it's not because he's a young, inspiring speaker who's fun to listen to, although I do look forward to actually listening to the entire inaugural address for the first time ever. Nor is it because of his strong energy and environmental plans, although those were my original reasons to vote for him.
No, today I am excited about a president Obama because it seems to me he has run a campaign entirely different from anything we've seen before in this country, and I believe he has the potential to restore the practicality of democracy in America. Rich Mullins once said that democracy was a great idea, an experiment he was happy to be part of. I've always thought that I would feel the same way if I really thought I was part of it. Truthfully, even though I've cared about political issues for a long time, I've never thought that America really worked as a democracy. Democracy, to me, means that everyone participates--everyone has a say in the laws, the issues, the day-to-day reality of governmental decisions. Democracy is supposed to be a government by the people; it's supposed to mean self-governance. And sorry, but two minutes of casting a ballot in a voting booth doesn't count in my mind as governance. So for a long time, I've felt that the only true form of democracy is a small one--about the size of the Greek city-states that originally invented the idea. Democracies ought to be small enough that ordinary individuals can be part of the important decisions that affect everyone. And America is just too big to do that.
Or so I thought.
But now, Obama has changed my mind. In the world of the internet, America just might have shrunk small enough for us to build a real democracy. There was some controversy over Obama's refusal to use public financing for his campaign, but it says something huge about him that his incredibly rich coffers were filled by ordinary people like you and me, and the average donation was a mere $80. Many of them were $5 and $10 donations, gifts from hundreds of thousands of people that added up to Obama's amazing political machine. This is incredible to me because it speaks to the grassroots nature of his campaign: lots of people donating time and money and energy to make something happen together. And it wasn't just the money. Obama had thousands of offices all over the country, in every state, staffed mostly by volunteers. People were making calls for his campaign from their own homes. I think more people volunteered for this campaign than have ever volunteered for a political campaign in this country. Obama has leveraged ordinary people all over America in a way that no presidential candidate ever has before.
And he was sometimes criticized for running a campaign that was all about him, calling for a change that ultimately amounted to nothing more than electing him. But last night, he made it clear that that was not his intention. When he reminded his supporters that this is not the change they've been working for, he also told them that they would still be needed.
So now I'm excited to see if it's really possible for a president to truly stay connected to the people of this country at a grassroots level. Will a President Obama really be able to listen to ordinary people and their concerns? Will the volunteers who were so excited to elect him stay excited about enacting new policies for his administration? Will the families who were willing to sacrifice time and money now be willing to sacrifice convenience and ease in order to change our energy policy and protect our environment? Will the inspiration last?
For the first time in my life, I feel like I'm part of history. For the first time in my life, I feel like I am part of the great experiment of democracy. And, at the risk of sounding like Michelle Obama at her worst, last night I was prouder than I've ever been in my life to be an American.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
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6 comments:
All I'm going to say is that the United States of America is not, never has been, and never was intended to be a democracy of the from one finds in historical Athens. This can be easily seen if one reads the Constitution.
Technically, we are a Republic. I might go so far as to say we are a "Democratic Republic", since we get to elect our representatives, but at almost every step of the way in forging our nation our Founding Fathers did much to separate the governance of the country from the average individual.
For example, this is part of why, originally, the Senate was not elected by the People; Representatives represented the People, Senators were elected by and represented States. This all changed in 1913 with the enactment of the 17th Amendment (one of the amendments I believe should be repealed).
This is also why the Constitution specifies that the President is not elected by the People (i.e., popular vote) but by the Electoral College. The Founding Fathers didn't trust the average "man-on-the-street" to elect the President (and given how well-informed that man is, they were right!). By the way, although what typically happens is that the electors cast their votes for the candidate elected by the State, there is no law saying that they must! In other words, we don't elect the President; we elect people to elect the President for us.
All that said, I do believe the USA used to be more of a democracy than we are now, as more decisions were handled locally rather than federally. However, as power has centralized in the Federal Government, and the States have more-and-more become nothing more than the puppets being pulled by the Fed's elastic-clause strings, we have increasingly lost what democracy we had.
So, if President Elect Obama works to put more power in the People and States' hands (and, from what I've heard from him, that's doubtful), I'll be happy. Otherwise, he's no different than any other President we've had recently, IMO.
Yes, I know we're a republic, not a democracy. That's the problem. I don't like republics. I like democracies. :)
Another quote by Rich Mullins:
"I think the big problem is that, as Christians, we forgot that our identity is wrapped up in Christ and for a long time we bought into the illusion that the will of the masses would be more generous and more benevolent than the will of one dictator. But democracy isn't necessarily bad politics, its just bad math. A thousand corrupt minds are just as evil as one corrupt mind."
I, too, am excited about some of the change coming, and agree with Obama that it is still our job as citizens to create it with our own actions. I think that community is better than loneliness. I think that it is good for us to try to be the best we can be.
Good point, Daniel! Although it's always been a premise of the church that it takes many different minds to hear the mind of the Spirit. That's why decisions were always made by counsels, not individuals. One could argue that a counsel of Christians can't be compared to a democracy of everyone, but I think there's a principle worth imitating...
Good thoughts. I'm most excited because I feel Obama has a lot of humility -which is the quality I look for in a leader of anything. Glad you're blogging and hosting Carnival of the Green. Christian and environmentalist are words that should be used more often together!
I would suggest checking out this article in Popular Science, about the potential for the Internet to revolutionize democracy: http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-10/dear-mr-president
On another note, I've been getting the e-mails from the Obama-Biden transition team, and they continue to revolutionize the way our government gathers it's citizens' input: the e-mails encourage us to schedule, advertise and host small groups in our community to talk about stuff, and have the leader report back to the Transition team what we all came up with. Unbelievably cool!
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