In my darker moments I occasionally think that this administration has fucked up the country so badly that it might be better if the Republicans actually win again this year. A Democratic president would have to spend so much time digging out from the rubble that at best—
at best—all he could do (and, yes, he) is hold the line against things getting worse. I’m well aware that there’s a serious strain of defeatism in that attitude, but it ties in to another defeatism I’ve noticed during the campaign. It’s most prominent in people of my parents’ generation. They’re all good liberal folk whose support for Hillary is less a function of Clinton nostalgia or the desire to see a female president than it is a deep, persistent fear that Obama can’t win because the rest of the country won’t vote for a black guy. I’m optimistic to the point of naivete on the subject, thinking that not only are Americans ready for a black president, some of them actively
want to vote for one because it’ll help them prove to themselves that they’re not racist (or they somehow think it’ll even up the books for slavery). Still, the results from West Virginia give me some pause. I do still think that we can and will, but you know what? Let’s just do it and see. If America really is so racist that it would rather sign up for four more years of mismanagement, cynicism, and deceit, let’s just come right out and put that on the table. Because only then will we truly get the government we deserve.