Iterating on Light and Dark

I am normally not really huge on blogging about politics.  There are a lot of really good reasons for this:

• Everyone thinks about politics differently
• It is almost always intensely personal - people take politics as personally as they would insulting their mother
• Much to the contrary as one might imagine - people do not think nearly as much as they should when it comes to politics - they merely react, and those reactions are generally strong and visceral
• People make huge value judgments on each other based off of politically charged statements

So, I’m never in the mood to discuss politics.  But for now, I will.  And ironically, all the things I’ll mention are pretty much perfectly geared towards hitting all of those particular points.  I’m sure most people will get irritated by any of this, but whatever.

Oh, and by “Loose Change”, I am in no way referring to that annoying “the government did it” video about 9/11.  Let’s just get out of the way.  Instead, I want to talk about what people mean when they say the words, “change”.

So yeah.  I don’t know about you, but being in the Bay Area on 1/20 (”Obama Day”, as some seem to be calling it) seemed almost surreal.  Posters depicting Obama with the words, “Change” and “Hope” littered the streets.  The air was still, bated by the reticent breaths of San Francisco’s many Left-leaning residents who had felt so personally wronged these past 8 years of the Bush presidency.  The morning was quiet in the most unsettling of ways:  though this morning had happened 43 times before, it had not happened like this.  It had not happened with so many watching.  It had not happened with a black man before.  And above all, it had never seemed like such an opportunity for the world switch directions from what looks like nothing but despair.

Things I overheard:

• “I’m so glad that douchebag is leaving office!”
• “Any more and I would have killed myself!”
• “We can finally no longer be embarrassed to call ourselves American!”
• “We’re finally world citizens again!”

These being a small sampling among the multitude of statements I heard - often grandiose statements about how much the world had shifted and how quickly.

Of my (probably soon to be reduced as soon as they read this) 170something Facebook friends, nearly every one whose status updates end up in my feed reported feeling “hopeful” that the world would truly become a better place.  That we are on a path to change.

And then this happened.  And the IMs trickled in at work - “what a bunch of losers”, “those people are such idiots”, etc.  The mandate for change had happened, had these people not heard?  The world would be reborn shortly.

Except it wasn’t really a mandate.  Though it’s difficult to consider given the number of electoral votes that were in Obama’s favor, the lead was not that big.  Though Obama won 365 to McCain’s 173, the actual popular vote was a much closer 53% to 46%.  Certainly the electoral vote belies the 7% spread, which ultimately means that more than anything, the country was in fact conflicted about its identity than mandating “change”.

Is a 7% split a big deal?  Yes.  it represents a good number of people.  Never mind that still, while it was 131.2 million people who voted in total, it still represented ~60% of registered, eligible voters, which means that 40% of people didn’t feel they had a horse in the race.  This is change?

What strikes me is that we still have what amounts to an incredibly partisan country.  The economic stimulus plan passed by the House had not a single Republican vote to its name (though “luckily” still passed, depending on how this all turns out).

What we have is not change of ideology, but a change of who’s in power.  From a level setting perspective, we should be thinking about how we can create the changes that we’re interested in seeing happen long term.  It will never happen over night - we will never suddenly become “world citizens” from one night to the next.

The real problem is that, as I’ve mentioned was my general concept with this blog, monolithic change is generally a terrible idea.  Large shifts in gestalt, changes in paradigm, are often times difficult to manage and have unexpected and unfortunate consequence.  The goings-on during the Bush Administration upset so many, but ultimately, we are unlikely to change directions quickly or easily without alienating a lot of people.  Assuming that having Bush out of office will mean no more war in Iraq or no future conflicts in general is setting oneself up for failure:  there is a conflict in Afghanistan that needs attention that might leak over to Pakistan (at least, it will leak over in a way we will formally recognize as opposed to our passive recognition of issues), and a good portion of the Arab world will continue to not particularly appreciate the US.  This will not change because there is a rich black man in office as opposed to a rich white man, no matter how many times the words “hope” and “change” are thrown about.

What’s worse, is that relying so strongly on that messaging to get elected sets the expectation that things will have solid change.  Our economic crisis isn’t going away any time soon, neither is our net contribution to climate change, and neither is our dependency on foreign oil.  These are long term problems that will not get solved in the short term, and a president’s term is in fact actually in the realm of the “short term”.

Trying substantive change also alienates those who do not agree with the change, and as we saw, it’s actually 46% of eligible voters.  And when the changes the other 53% expected don’t happen fast enough, their hopes will dash and their opinions will swing in the opposite direction.  This is the way of politics.

The blow-back from this kind of thought has the potential to be terrible.  This is the sort of statement I find difficult to make, though, in San Francisco:  I consider myself reasonably moderate, if not actually somewhat left-leaning.  Certainly, within the grand populous of the United States, I’m actually quite liberal - probably considered a communist by most of the US.  Of course, here, even stating that the tack of “hope” and “change” and the mentality that our “nightmare” is now “over” might be a bit much is, for some reason, akin to stating that I am planning on moving to Texas, buying an armory and seceding from the Union.

There are, of course, a good number of people in this country that did not think it was a nightmare.  They do not believe in the values espoused by our new President.  These are the ones who see whatever change may come of this as change for the worse, and will do whatever they find reasonable to ensure it ends the second Obama leaves the White House.  It is for this reason there is no true, drastic change - particularly of the type it seems most here wistfully long for.  It is also the reason why I worry this administration will fail, and why we as a nation will continue to have problems.

Before change can come, we have to agree on what it is, and how.  We need to focus on this, not the nebulous concept of change itself, otherwise we will never be ready to accept any change that may happen.