Political Comment

I mentioned in one of the earlier posts about my Italy trip that we watched the election returns come in starting at 2:30 in the morning (Venice time) through Obama's speech in Grant Park around 6:00 am (after which we got about an hour's sleep before getting up to drive down to Florence). As regular readers of the site can imagine, I was quite thrilled with the results, and there was something special about receiving them in a foreign country, courtesy of a foreign news service (the BBC).

As a student of American history, I'm well aware that for most of our country's existence it was viewed by people around the world as a special place, filled with opportunity whether economic, political or social. Even though there have been long stretches when we collectively failed to live up to the fullness of that promise (often involving the treatment of minorities, immigrants, and women), there was always a general sense that we'd overcome those shortcomings and truly embrace the ideals we professed since the days of the founding fathers, ideals that revolved around the core values of freedom, democracy and equality. Certainly that was essential to compel the waves of foreigners who came to this country to share in those opportunities despite what were often overwhelming odds, including a degree of resentment from nativists who begrudged them their share of the American dream. Obviously most of those of African descent did not choose to come here, but from the earliest days of the Republic, they too felt invested in the promise of how America defined itself (check out the poetry of Phyllis Wheatley, or the writings of Benjamin Banneker), and could imagine eventually becoming full participants in that dream (even if they couldn't imagine how long or how difficult that transition would be).

Watching the results of the recent election overseas, and reading and hearing the reactions of people whose interests were as world citizens and not as Americans was striking. They almost uniformly saw the result as proof that the US has not lost its connection to those core values; that we have not forsaken, or taken for granted, the leadership role that we assumed through the second half of the twentieth century-- that is, leadership based on ideals of international community, compassion, and collaboration and not just unitary military might (which has sadly been the direction we've drifted in the past eight years). They did not seem to feel this way primarily because of the historic selection of a black man (though that was certainly part of the heightened drama invested in this election), but because we selected a leader who represented thoughtfulness, deliberation, engagement and optimism and rejected the politics of selfishness, bullying and fear. Granted, it remains to be seen if Obama can live up to all of those expectations, but it can only be an aid that he'll come into office with not just a mandate from the American electorate, but also the momentum of international respect and support.