#584 – BlogChild of Thursday, November 6 – Part II

Audience to History

Unless my political views directly affect poker, I generally keep them out of the blog. So I haven’t made a big deal about my support for Barack Obama. I think Democratic leadership may be better for poker players than Republican leadership, but it seems pretty likely (a) the country has a lot of bigger problems to worry about and fixing a dumb anti-poker law can’t be high on the list; (b) despite the noise made by the PPA, I haven’t sensed that online poker has tried to wield the political influence of similar multi-billion dollar businesses, or is doing so but not quickly or conspicuously; and (c) when you lose 409-2 in the House of Representatives, you really can’t blame one party over the other when trying to get that law repealed, nullified, neutralized, or clarified.

But it was exciting for me to watch the election results, in addition to the obvious partisan reasons. Being just a month shy of my fiftieth birthday – President Obama will be the first President of my lifetime who is YOUNGER than me – I have the perspective of history. When I became eligible to vote in 1977, voter apathy was a big thing. A huge number of eligible voters did not register. And a huge number of those who registered didn’t bother to vote.

Back then, a lot of people were dissasfied with the system and expressed it by not voting. Registration (and voting itself for that matter) has been made easier since the late 1970s, but we Americans deserve to congratulate ourselves for getting involved and trying to participate rather than just griping from the sidelines. Voter registration and participation have gone way up and it’s hard not to be excited – regardless of the outcome – that people are voting.

In addition, it’s hard for me to be unemotional about how our country handles “regime change.” We take this for granted but changing the direction of our government and having everyone afterward be gracious and cooperative is a big thing. It goes beyond saying that there are a lot of places in the world where this is not accomplished without bloodshed, or that bloodshed keeps the will of the people from prevailing. Maybe we think we’re too “civilized” or “advanced” for that, but look closer. At its worst, American politics and political campaigns are dirty, nasty business. The stakes are extraordinarily high. Groups with millions of people or billions of dollars at their disposal are watching their futures significantly change in one day.

But then you have John McCain graciously offering his services to his adversary, the President-Elect. And you have George W. Bush, about whom some of these results were a referendum, not only pledging his help and support (the orderly transition already being underway, thanks in part to his administration’s advance planning) but encouraging people to applaud what the result represents.

The next great step into history will be to watch how Barack Obama and the Democratic Party respond. Obama is, by reputation, a very smart man and a keen student of history. I think everyone would agree that he’s said the right things about putting partisanship behind. But President Bush said the same thing eight years ago and wasted no time proving he didn’t mean it.

As an American, I’d like to see everybody get along. But I think I need it as a partisan as well. My party seized back the government in 1992: a new young president, strengthened majorities in both houses. It looked like “my side” had all they needed to build the kind of world we wanted to see.

And the result? In just two years, the Republicans swept like a firestorm through the legislative branch, retaking majorities in both houses of Congress and taking seats even from some of the most powerful and entrenched members of the Democratic Party. Newt Gingrich declared the embattled, ineffective President as irrelevant.

That, of course, was another history lesson on how fast things change, but the message is clear: It’s impressive how you get power but the really impressive thing is how you use it. Not even when gets accomplished, but HOW the group in power governs.

The whole experience of the last three days gives me goose bumps just thinking about it. This was an incredible ending. It’ll be extremely interesting to see how it works as a beginning.

• No Related Post