Pre-Post-Election Hypothetical

WARNING: DON’T READ THIS IF YOU ARE SUPERSTITIOUS ABOUT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS AND THINGS PEOPLE SAY ABOUT THEM WHEN THEY’RE REALLY JUST NERVOUSLY SPECULATING THE DAY BEFORE THE ELECTION.

I don’t believe in superstition—or maybe I’m just contrasuperstitious: I always feel like the thing you’re not supposed to say is precisely the thing you must say, if only to take away its imaginary power. I hope the plane doesn’t crash. I hope it doesn’t rain. Et cetera. Well, all the “Obama Victory” parties and people quoting polls proving electoral college math and talking as though it’s all wrapped up and we’re about to begin the actual 21st century for real this time with a real president who isn’t a venal buffoon, have triggered a familiar feeling.

I know I’m not the only one who sustained lingering trauma in 2004, when it seemed inconceivable that anyone could actually choose Bush, regardless of Kerry. Perhaps naively, perhaps just emotionally, I felt that we (not Kerry/Edwards, we) would win, because we had to. And then to just simply not come close. To retroactively not even have had a chance, in spite of being better, in spite of being right. Because of being better, because of being right. Because Idiot America said so. The way the collective spirit of the Stranger Election Night party just sank into abysmal dread. The way everyone—rightfully—took it as a personal defeat. The way everyone I knew was a zombie on some level for weeks afterward, months even. And the way, as a direct result, I couldn’t bring myself to pay passionate attention to this election until a couple months ago (thank you, Sarah Palin, actual demonstrable enemy of everything I have ever cared about or believed in, for disgracing an already disgraced campaign, and for waking me up—I was always going to vote, but now I’m yearning to do the only thing I can to reproach you and your masters)…

ANYWAY. I know this is not then. I know things are looking better now: better candidate, better campaign, better momentum, better speeches, better pretty much everything. But I can’t ever forget that night four years ago, and all the certainty that seems to be swelling around the likelihood of an Obama victory (it even feels good to type it), is reminding me of the time when we, or when I anyway, thought that the thing that obviously should happen would happen but then didn’t happen because the real truth about real America was that the majority of its citizens were small-minded and easily fooled into voting for a complete bastard because he pretended to believe in god.

I guess this is all just a long way around saying that like you, I want Barack Obama to win, and win commandingly, tomorrow. I want him to fulfill the promise of his oratory and the goodwill of all the sign wavers, button wearers, bumper stickerers, and money donors, and to be the president who reverses as much of America’s social, economic, educational, psychic, and spiritual riptide as is possible for a president to reverse. I want this to be his moment, and therefore our moment, so much I could burst. I want it to matter that we feel like a proper we—not united by contempt for someone we want to depose, but by the desire to elect someone we are inspired by. That someone is plainly, by any rational, intelligent measure, the best man in this contest, and everything seems to point to his certain triumph.

Everything except for the putrid racist heart that beats deep inside that same Idiot America that fucked us last time, and the time before that, and all those other times.

Those rational, intelligent measures didn’t help the last two best men who ran for president against Idiot America’s idiotic prejudices. And this time, the IA arbiter isn’t as ephemeral or imaginary as religion or just folksiness. It’s skin color. We can pretend otherwise because we are human and progressive and liberal and awesome, but it just is. Because poll fraud aside, Idiot American objection to Barack Obama’s mixed-race pallor seems to be the only thing that can stop him now. Despite being the most pluralistic major country in the world, America’s heart is choked by racism, and its land is lousy with overt and covert racists—white people of all ages, classes, and Christian denominations who simply can’t countenance the idea of a black president, no matter how righteous he is, no matter how much better he is than his gnarly white opponent, no matter what, full-stop.

I know, I know: duh. But are there more of them than there are of us? I really hope not, but I have no fucking idea. And neither do you. And neither does any poll.

I’m just saying that every time somebody says the math proves Obama can’t lose, I get ready to vomit blood, because Idiot American somehow always manages to get left out of the math. Which leaves me wondering what it would feel like if he not only lost, but got trounced. If the same Idiot America hive mind that rallied behind Bush II was just quietly, in the absence of a candidate they actually liked, waiting to rise up and defeat one they wouldn’t allow in their homes. If he had to give a concession speech, after everything he’s said and done, and it had to be a corker anyway. If he had to congratulate President-Elect McCain on running a tough but fair campaign, and pledge to work with him and VP-Elect Palin on moving America forward. If he had to go back to the Senate like Kerry. If we had to hear the news show dimwits give their trenchant analysis of McCain’s stunning, come-from-behind win, and the idea that in times of crisis, Americans really do put their faith in conservative stand-bys. If we had to well up at Keith Olbermann’s rhetorically rousing Countdown salute to “Senator Obama, who changed the face of modern electoral politics in the country, a change that was long in coming; the citizens of this great nation owe you a debt of gratitude. Senator Obama, I join them in saluting you, sir.” If the only solace was, again, in bitter laughs from Onion headlines and Daily Show and Colbert Report bits. If we had to read infinite blog posts and screeds, another round of Urban Archipelagos and Fuck the Souths to make everyone feel even worse. If we had to listen to all the sideline politicos rant in bars about where it all went wrong. If there wasn’t another black candidate for decades because the tacit understanding was that he lost because just couldn’t get past the race thing. If the Bush War went on another 20 years. If the recession became a depression. If John McCain became President of the United States.

[Cue: Alarm sounding. It was all a bad dream. Time to go to the polls]

But seriously, the reason I even started this is because I had a hypothetical question to consider before we know what’s what. It concerns the experiences a lot of people had in 2004 when Bush II beat Kerry and this blanket of anomie shrouded everyone and everything for a long time, eventually leading to increasingly scathing disavowals of Kerry and the board he windsurfed in on.

So let’s say the best man doesn’t win [THOUGH I TOTALLY HOPE HE DOES AND WANT HIM TO AND BASICALLY BELIEVE HE WILL MAYBE THOUGH THAT’S JUST BELIEF WHICH IS HARD ENOUGH TO CLING TO WHEN YOU HAVE INFLUENCE AND I DON’T HAVE ANY INFLUENCE OVER THE ELECTION AND NEITHER DO ANY OF YOU; I’M NOT BEING DEFEATIST, BUT REALLY, BIG DEAL IF I WERE]:

Are you still going to be glad you voted for him, proud you volunteered to boosterize him, wore the t-shirts, flyered the doorknobs, donated the cash, gave him the motor of your genuine conviction that he was the right man not just for the job, but for THE job, that you listened and heard and were stirred and moved by the oratory to get on board and give a damn? If Obama loses, will you still love him tomorrow?

(But really, let’s just say he does win, ok? ok!)