Future World

[davidn]

The final tally looks likely to be 364-174 now, based on a couple of predictions that aren't anywhere near rocket science. That's pretty much landslide territory - which I was hoping for, but they certainly kept us waiting for it yesterday evening. I don't think it's truly sunk in yet, even after a few hours' sleep, and even though it didn't go on for nearly as long as I had though it would. President Barack Obama. The words still seem unbelievable. Well, technicaly he's President Elect Barack Obama until January, but still, in 2008, America have elected their first black president. It's an absolute landmark. You know in all those futuristic films when the president's always someone like Morgan Freeman? We're there now. Not long until flying cars. I've bought two papers reporting his victory, so we can file them away and give them to our children as cheap-as-free 18th birthday presents or something.

Thanks to kjorteo, marcobiagi, dr_dos, and lordrosemount for being my main contacts from at least two corners of the globe during the evening and for sharing the historic (yes, I'm sorry, I said it) experience as it happened, along with everyone else who messaged me throughout the process. It's a sign of just how important this is to everyone that so many from Britain stayed up until about five in the morning for it, and that my parents wanted me to phone them and wake them up as soon as we knew the result. I thought that I would be able to make a leisurely update with the numbers every half hour or so, consulting a few other people's journals along the way, but it was more madly hectic than I ever imagined with information coming in constantly and I'm still catching up with sites that I meant to read as the whole thing happened, so I recognized the point of live-livejournalling the whole thing was diminishing throughout the evening. I hope that you weren't too surprised this morning if your Friends page consisted of... me.

Of course, as much as we all would like to believe it with the level of enthusiasm last night, this isn't going to fix the country in one day - but already it's clear that by making this choice, America's standing in the eyes of the rest of the world has improved immeasurably. But if, as the next president said in his acceptance speech, he tries to reach out even to the people who John McCain was trying to quieten down during his concession, who would try to turn his message of hope into one of fear and hate, and tries to put the "united" back in USA... then even though We don't All Live In Future World just yet, I would like to think that each day from now on might be just a little bit brighter.

Comments

[jenny0.livejournal.com]

Hooray! But you know, I really thought the landslide nature of it would quiet a lot of the muttering - I mean, clearly Obama was the nation's choice. But so far this morning, I've heard one person say that she hopes no one will throw themselves off the lighthouse (though I couldn't tell if she meant a) because there are so many irrational McCain supporters or b) because it's so awful Obama won); and that now, everyone is going to stop paying their mortgages and health insurance premiums because "the government will make it free". Which, a) how is that bad (even if it were remotely possible)? and b) seriously?

[davidn]

If so, I would go so far as to say that they deserve everything they get.

I was actually hoping that at least some of the Republicans I've seen threaten to leave the country because of the result would actually get on with it and shove off, but I think that these promises are just as empty as those from our side four years ago.