A New Birth of Freedom?

I looked on the internet today to check reaction to the American election among bloggers and podcasters. I certainly didn’t make any kind of exhaustive survey because I don’t look at right wing stuff. Big surprise, I know.

The reaction is pretty much universally positive, tinged with a healthy dose of realism, maybe, but positive nevertheless. I think the general feeling is, to quote Gerald Ford from 1974, “our long national nightmare is over.”

One of my favourite podcasters, Adam at This Boy Elroy, posted a great podcast on the election results. In it, he says “for the first time in six years I have so much optimism and hope for this country.” But he also points out that we “need to be more outspoken than when we were the underdogs.”

I absolutely agree. Still, as Adam points out, there’s plenty of reason to feel excited today.

Sure, we all know that this new Congress isn’t perfect, and Bush/Cheney still occupy the White House, but let’s look at what we do have: Rumsfeld is gone. Let’s savour that one: Rumsfeld is gone! Rick Santorum is gone, Arizona voters rejected bigotry, South Dakota didn’t play the christo-fascists’ game on abortion, Karl Rove was taken down a few pegs, and Nancy Pelosi will likely become the first woman to serve as Speaker of the US House.

There are plenty of things to work on, and in some ways the work will be even more important now because it has a chance of succeeding.

So bloggers and podcasters: Keep up the pressure and the scrutiny, keep talking about the ways to make American better. It’s what we can all do to counter right-wing propaganda, and it’s something that the corporate media can’t control.