More than a slogan

This is still not the post-election blog entry I've been meaning to write but hey, there's plenty of analysis of the new president-elect out there, and much of it speaks my heart and mind these days (see for example, Eugene Robinson's column Morning in America). 

So no analysis from me yet.  Instead this is the kind of personal-political post that you've come to expect from this blog.  [If "Lucky White Girl" weren't such a damn pithy-and-memorable-yet-dead-on-accurate name for this blog it might be called "The View From Here" (la vista desde aca) because one of the main ideas of standpoint feminism is that one's understanding of the world is profoundly shaped by one's place within it, that is, by your socio-economic position which, in turn, depends a whole lot on the race and gender identity society plops on your head (which may or may not coincide with the one you yourself choose)]. 

So I'll just say that from my (feminist) standpoint, the view from here is just fine these days!  I've never felt this way before about a leader of our country, never felt a glimmer of hope for a future where maybe my country doesn't rule the world with a bloody iron fist, invading sovereign nations left and right, engaging in immoral wars and irresponsible fiscal policy and using and disposing of the planet as it sees fit for short-term convenience.  Maybe things can indeed change.

Coupled with this, is my own struggle with adjusting to life in this strange world that is Washington DC.  (Although how different the city seems now that I know the Obama family will be moving into the White House down the street!) and my recent vacation back home to Florida gave me time (not enough!) to reflect on my first year in the big city and wonder if it suits me or not.

I decided that if I'm ever going to feel at home here I'll need to develop a sense of place.  Easier said than done.  I have such a sense of place for where I grew up: the smell of recently trimmed lantana bushes, the light in the sky after a rain on a humid summer day, that classic arboreal mix of oaks and palm trees that formed the backdrop of my childhood --all that is gone here.  There are different things.  Things I don't know yet.  Cherry blossoms and cold weather.  This is the city of Presidents, about as far away from the cypress knees and black muck of Florida backwaters as you can get and I need to start feeling it, really feeling it.  Especially now that we have a new President. 

Obama reminds me of the best of our country's former leaders, Roosevelt (Franklin D.) or Kennedy, (in some ways one, and in other ways the other).  I've never really studied much domestic (U.S.) political history.  I might as well start.  So I'm reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's Pulitzer Prizing winning history of the Roosevelts called No Ordinary Time.  (Any thoughts on this book?)

For the first time, I feel really invested in my country.  Invested in the sense that I don't just see it as the place where it just so happens that I was born and if it gets too bad or ugly I can always leave for friendlier shores, but I feel, instead, that it's a place representative of an idea --democracy, progress-- that, surprisingly enough, turns out to be alive after all.  This is the road back to the embodiment of greatness that this country was on, in some ways (not in others), in the 1930s.  It's an idea I want to help make happen.

I know expectations are high for this man we just elected last Tuesday but this is a country so demoralized by eight years of the worst leadership in its history that I have to say we need this feeling of unbridled enthusiasm, of idealistic aspirations.  It's more than just a slogan, it's a prescription for a sick nation; yes, we can!  Democracy is not dead.  The dream of America is still possible.   And a great leader like Obama is going to be the one to bring us there.

Comments

[Sarah J]

Yes.

What you said about feeling invested for the first time--yes. I've worked on campaigns before, but they lost, and maybe that's the difference. We won here, and as Obama likes to say, we need to go along with him.

And I've said it in so many places, but that of all things about him gives me genuine hope. That he asks for our help, our involvement, our continuing work. That's real democracy, not this vote-and-go-home business.

[Moderate Republican]

DC went for Obama 92%-6%. Are you registered in Fla or DC?