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Much of last night was spent first avoiding the early poll results, and then obsessively refreshing them, then giving up and getting in the shower right before the networks started calling the election for Obama. (D'oh.) Likewise, somewhat later that evening I gave up again and went to bed right before word got handed down that Romney had conceded and speeches were made. (D'OH!) This morning I woke up to plenty of well earned left-wing schadenfreude. Which I'm okay with. We did have to deal with 8 years of Bush after all, this is just righting the balance.
I also seem to have woken up to a country that has pleasantly surprised me on a few fronts. We have a significant uptick in women heading for the US Senate. Two of these women happen to be the first Buddhist (AND first Asian-American!) and first openly gay senators as well. We have a few more states with legal gay marriage, and I'm sure you've heard the relevant pot jokes about Colorado and Washington. The next few episodes of South Park are going to be amazeballs, not to mention I almost snarfed my coffee upon reading all the "AW MAN PAX IS GOING TO BE AWESOME NEXT YEAR" tweets on kotaku. (Calm your tits, people, it's still illegal federally.) My feeling of pleasant surprise is a big contrast from four years ago, actually - while I quite clearly remember the massive nationwide Obamagasm of 2008, the news was definitely nowhere near as good on the local election front. Remember Prop 8? yeah, that shit was ugly. And there were a lot more gay marriage bans voted into law then as well. So my inner militant pinko commie is by contrast much happier this time around. I guess we're all collectively tired of the Right's BS. Teabag the Tea Party!
I can't help but think of other differences between four years ago and now, mostly concerning place-in-life type stuff, and who I was with when the results came down. Four years ago the disintegrating Camp Amoeba threw an election day party. This time it was just me and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cell23 curled up at home on our living room couch, joking about having watched the last one together as well. (We did. I have pictures. That was an... interesting night, considering later events.)
Still, much like I pointed out last time, now is not a time to rest on your laurels or wallow in your defeats, depending on which side you're on. Tomorrow is another day, there is still a gross amount of injustice in this world, and voting isn't just every four years - people need to be paying attention to what's going on closer to home, what's going on in your town, county, region and state. The work of building a better tomorrow, no matter what you feel that entails, is never truly done.
I also seem to have woken up to a country that has pleasantly surprised me on a few fronts. We have a significant uptick in women heading for the US Senate. Two of these women happen to be the first Buddhist (AND first Asian-American!) and first openly gay senators as well. We have a few more states with legal gay marriage, and I'm sure you've heard the relevant pot jokes about Colorado and Washington. The next few episodes of South Park are going to be amazeballs, not to mention I almost snarfed my coffee upon reading all the "AW MAN PAX IS GOING TO BE AWESOME NEXT YEAR" tweets on kotaku. (Calm your tits, people, it's still illegal federally.) My feeling of pleasant surprise is a big contrast from four years ago, actually - while I quite clearly remember the massive nationwide Obamagasm of 2008, the news was definitely nowhere near as good on the local election front. Remember Prop 8? yeah, that shit was ugly. And there were a lot more gay marriage bans voted into law then as well. So my inner militant pinko commie is by contrast much happier this time around. I guess we're all collectively tired of the Right's BS. Teabag the Tea Party!
I can't help but think of other differences between four years ago and now, mostly concerning place-in-life type stuff, and who I was with when the results came down. Four years ago the disintegrating Camp Amoeba threw an election day party. This time it was just me and
cell23 curled up at home on our living room couch, joking about having watched the last one together as well. (We did. I have pictures. That was an... interesting night, considering later events.)Still, much like I pointed out last time, now is not a time to rest on your laurels or wallow in your defeats, depending on which side you're on. Tomorrow is another day, there is still a gross amount of injustice in this world, and voting isn't just every four years - people need to be paying attention to what's going on closer to home, what's going on in your town, county, region and state. The work of building a better tomorrow, no matter what you feel that entails, is never truly done.
