The long anticipated black curtain has finally fallen over the consciences of the deceived and the parsimonious. Now comes the painful task of living with not much more than the audacity of hope.
Contrary to many, I do not believe a Barack Obama presidency will be the end of this nation, just the beginning of a four-year-long hibernation. We Americans are strong and driven, and this great nation is not yet so weak as to be brought to its knees by one single individual’s delusions, no matter how inspiring they sound.
Capitalism may be down, but is not dead and neither is democracy. The recent elections are testimony to that. My congratulations to the Democrats and all their entourage that now will have the curse of total power and the challenge of delivering on the dreams of, or of making the wake up call to, the populace that is already waiting for the "chosen one" to come and feed them, clothe them, give them jobs, take care of their mortgages and bring down extremism with the same power of tongue that got him this far.
My congratulations also to the Republicans for this blessing in disguise – you may not see it now, but this is the best that could have happen to the party and to the conservative and business class in general. The psyche of the nation is clearly not ready for the demands of the new world order. We need to get way down, hopefully without touching bottom, before we could see and embrace our way up and forward. You need this four-year hiatus to gather your strength, clean up your house and let the crude realities of a global economy, a rising China, a competitive India, a nuclear Iran, an aggressive Russia, a drifting Europe and a militant America south of the border fall like a hot potato into the hands of those who claim to have all the answers.
The populace has not and would have never believed your warnings and listened to you message unless they see it first-hand. Four years from now, if you do what you must, you will find a more receptive and willing audience. The voices of ignorance will be silenced, their populist arguments will lose their steam, and the hard decisions that are needed will be easy to make by those of us who can see pass the dollar-green smoke screen.
A John McCain presidency would have been handicapped from the beginning. An uncooperative Congress paired with multitudes of misinformed constituents and an unavoidable weak global scene could have spelled the real doom of a permanent rise of the left. As it is, we are only witnessing an abomination that will soon run its course. We just need to brace for the storm, wait it out and do a good deal of damage control as to not to let our livelihoods go to pieces before we get the chance to come back in force in 2012.
For us average Joes, damage control must take the form of preparation and constant vigilance. If there is something good coming out of this election, it is a renewed interest in the political process. Democracy may have taken the Democrats into office, but it did not give them carte blanche.
The power is not ultimately in the hands of the officials, but in the hands of the people they represent. We still have a voice, and we must make it heard even louder now as to keep their campaign schemes from becoming reality.
Bonilla, a project management technology graduate student, can be reached via [email protected]
