ELECTION RESULTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[beccatoria]

OH THANK [INSERT DEITY/HIGHER POWER/EXPLETIVE OF YOUR CHOICE] FOR THAT.

Really. I know the polls predicted it but I didn't trust them after the illegalities of the last two and just...just...hope is fragile and I honestly felt like I had to convince myself losing was a possibility or I wouldn't be able to handle the crushing despair that would take me if it happened against the odds.

I was too afraid to take it for granted. So I'm just...massively massively relieved.

Like there's an actual feeling of adrenaline-relief going through my entire body, and I don't think I realised I was quite so consciously blocking feeling anything about it until it was over.

It's so weird to have a President I think was put into office legally.

I always loved that line, "I might not have voted for him, but he's my President," (though clearly not enough to remember who said it) as a way of approaching the idea that you can still expect your President to be responsible and honourable and good at the job even if it wasn't the President you hoped for (and conversely I guess it can be used to suggest that you need to shut up and support everything that President does, but I don't like thinking about it that way).

It was a really weird day when I realised that I didn't feel that way about George Bush. I didn't feel like I could claim him as my President because I didn't think he was anyone's President. Our President was elsewhere.

It's sort of weirder to now feel that there's someone in that office who is my President.

Yeah. It's...a sense of slightly dazed wonder that democracy worked this time and massive, massive relief.

Anyway, I'll end there. Everyone and their dogs are making posts about this, but that's as it should be.

ETA: So I finally got to watch Obama's victory speech. It was a good speech. I actually cried which makes me feel sort of dorky because while I cry at the drop of a hat, usually not about like, at speeches that I'm acutely aware are very cleverly crafted and think are about 50% excellent and 50% very cheesy.

Partly it was that "tears of joy brought on by adrenaline and emotional-all-over-the-placeness." I think it was also just because it kind of hit me how enormously huge this is, that I actually helped somehow, and that it's both wonderful and absolutely fucking terrifying.

Wonderful for obvious reasons; terrifying because it's so big. The everything's such a mess, the job is so huge, and it seems so impossible. I think true, honest hope goes hand in hand with terror. Because if there's no real and frightening chance that you might fail, it's not really hope, it's just an expectation.

I think perhaps this is the first time I've felt safe enough to really consider having hope, and the enormity, and, yes, to steal a quote, the audacity of that are...enough apparently to reduce me to tears.

Comments

[nightxade.livejournal.com]

I am relieved too. I was pretty stressed at the very start when it was 8-3 McCain.

Not that I think Obama is the PERFECT candidate. I do hope he can live up to it all and do what he says he will. Or rather, I do hope that America will get behind him and let him try and understand that, as he said, it isn't going to happen tomorrow.

I was impressed by the speech. It wasn't what I expected, particularly after hearing McCain's (which was positive and good). Obama's wasn't just a woohoo we won thing - it was a harsh reality speech. Especially the part where he called on Americans to make sacrifices to move forward...

I hope the haters can move past and remember that he is now their president too, as you said. Guilliani was interviewed and was asked what he would feel as a Republican and he said that tomorrow (today), we're all Americans.

I hope everyone remembers that.

[asta77.livejournal.com]

I didn't start getting weepy until he mentioned Michelle and the girls and the future first puppy.

I wish I had time to share my thoughts with everyone, but I need to get dressed, finish packing, and get on a plane. Maybe I'll jot down some thoughts on the plane. And I still owe you some responses. ;)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I hope everyone remembers it too. That was something I loved when I listened to Obama's speech - his talking about how he's going to be the president of people who didn't vote for him too, especially since I'd just posted something to that effect on my LJ without knowing he's referenced a similar concept.

I think it was wise to make a reality-based speech. No one will remember, of course, and I confess that even with a fairly realistic view of what can be accomplished, I'm...hoping for something at least larger than the usual "nothing changes," attitude. But...I trust him to really try you know? And that's a start.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I wasn't so weepy at that, which I thought was really sweet - and also true - but in my cynical mind it was also a little more scripted. But I also understand why that was the bit that got to you - it was quite affecting and it certainly caught my emotions just not quite enough to make me tear up. That part was both the part where he talks about how two hundred years later it's still a government of the people, by the people, for the people, and the bit where he was talking about the 106 year old woman who voted and all that she must have seen during her life.

And don't worry about owing me responses: I'm sure I owe you half a dozen! :D I'll look forward to reading your thoughts if/when you get the chance to share them!

[nomoreanonymous.livejournal.com]

Im so Happy Obama won. If not just for the reason of McCain sounding more and more like an idiot in the last few days of the election. " WERE GONNA WIN YEAH YEAH FIGHT FOR FREEDOM JOE THE PLUMBER BLAH BLAH BLAH MAVERICK MAVERICK MAVERICK"

I hope he makes you feel proud about the USA again or at least not like you've got something to feel sorry about. Not that you ever should have done in the first place.

Makes me wonder with all the fuss about Lewis Hamilton and Obama over the last week. They are both black but both have white mothers, so does this not make them both as much white as they are black?

I dont want to get into all this rubbish people like Jesse Jackson once said about "about he's black but not black enough" but i do wonder if for all the people where race is an issue did it make a difference at all? I hope i havent come across like an idiot its just a point that greatly intrests me. He was clearly the best choice for president by a long shot. Just wish Bush would move house sooner.

Hugely relieved here, too.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

The end of civilisation occurring within our lifetimes has become just that tiny bit less likely. Which, given that it felt like it was practically guaranteed, is actually a *huge* improvement.

(I really, really wish I didn't live in a world that made me sound like a tinfoil-hatted madperson so often...)

Re: Hugely relieved here, too.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

The end of civilisation occurring within our lifetimes has become just that tiny bit less likely. Which, given that it felt like it was practically guaranteed, is actually a *huge* improvement.

YAY! You're right, that is always good to know.

(I really, really wish I didn't live in a world that made me sound like a tinfoil-hatted madperson so often...)

If it helps, I find your tinfoil hat very fetching and thoroughly expect it to look a good bit less ridiculous to others in fifty years time?

Re: Hugely relieved here, too.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>If it helps, I find your tinfoil hat very fetching and thoroughly expect it to look a good bit less ridiculous to others in fifty years time?

No, actually that doesn't help at all, and I really *want* it to look utterly ridiculous in fifty years time.

Re: Hugely relieved here, too.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I WILL NOT BE FOILED IN MY ATTEMPTS TO SPIN THIS IN A POSITIVE FASHION, WOMAN!

Therefore:

Either you're right and therefore aren't wearing a tinfoil hat, or we all get to live!

It's not exactly a win-win situation, but at least it means that you don't have to die while wearing a ridiculous tinfoil hat?

Re: Hugely relieved here, too.

[nomoreanonymous.livejournal.com]

Have more faith in the future. If we think times are tough now imagen how people must of felt during the height of the cold war, cuban missle crisis etc. Are world is rather peachy compared to how grim that must of been. I guess they didnt have 24 hour news channels though :P