Obama's Victory, and Beyond.

I just came back from a long victory march through the streets of my home town: Bezerkely, The People’s Republic of Berkeley, The city that gave 83% of its vote to the only congressperson who voted against the Patriot Act, and the home of the last dozen Trotskyites and Maoists on the planet. Thousands of longhaired deadheads in tie-died shirts, spike-haired punks in leather, and latte-sipping liberals in suits and tee shirts, were marching shoulder to shoulder and chanting slogans. “Yes, we can” and “Obama” were the obvious choices, but it was fascinating to see what else popped up. An obscene chant against George Bush started once, but died away almost immediately. People were waving American flags, some of which had only 13 stars, or the number 76. My friend Mica Dunstan was making and passing out hats made of red, white and blue balloons. A raucous out-of-tune version of the Star Spangled Banner, pitched too high for the top notes, appeared tentatively, then grew to a triumphantly ragged crescendo. Shortly after that, “America the Beautiful” started somewhere in the middle of the song, and I received grateful shouts of “Thank you” from several 20-somethings when I started it from the beginning and taught them the rest of the words. When we got to “Crown thy good with brotherhood”, I knew I was surrounded by people who were thinking, without fear of condemnation from either the right or the left “For the first time in my life, I am proud of my country.”

When I returned home, and scanned over the electoral map on the New York Times website, I saw a pattern that was impossible to ignore. In almost every state, the margin of victory for each candidate was near ten percent and frequently greater. The same pattern appeared when I zoomed in on the individual counties in both red and blue states. When each candidate lost, he usually lost by large margins, but there were also always places in each state where he won by large margins. California voted over 60 percent for Obama, but Tehama County voted over 60 percent for McCain. Alabama voted over 60 percent for McCain, but the city of Montgomery and environs went almost 60 percent for Obama, and Macon County went almost 87% for Obama. The City of Washington D.C. voted 93% for Obama.

These kinds of margins did not exist in presidential politics for over a century and a half. The first president to win by over 60% was Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. However, the polarization that began in the sixties produced two 60% landslides: One on the left, when Johnson beat Goldwater, and one on the right, when Nixon beat McGovern. Because of these demographic patterns, this polarization has remained in place since then. Today most people never talk to, or even see, anyone who voted for the other candidate. However, the Obama/Dean strategy of speaking to all 50 states has begun to change this. In the middle of large stretches of red real estate, there are now a few places in which both candidates were running neck and neck. Tennesee and Kentucky went to McCain with over 57%, and are adjacent to North Carolina, which is still too close to call. In California, Tulare and Madera counties went to McCain with almost 57%, but adjacent Fresno county split with 49.2 percent for each candidate. There must have been some lively discussions in Fresno bars to produce that result. My friend Brian Kenney Fresno, who has built a musical career around ridiculing his hometown, must be very proud.

We now need to recognize that this lack of contact has caused Us to stereotype Them as badly as They have stereotyped Us. We won this election because a lot of people admitted, at least in the privacy of the voting booth, that they made a mistake. It will be a lot easier for them to admit this publicly if we are gracious in victory. During the past few weeks, when I was terrified that poll fraud and vote suppression might steal this election a third time, I received several viciously satirical emails, which I greatly enjoyed. But now the time has come to look at those with a fresh eye. One of them began this way:

“Dear Red States:

If you somehow manage to steal this election too we've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. . .You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. . .”

I’ve never actually been to Dollywood, but I doubt that anyone who received that message realizes that Dolly Parton eloquently defends gay rights in her autobiography, partly because her manager is gay. Her book also contains sharp criticisms of the fundamentalist intolerance that she sees as a betrayal of her deep Christian faith, and her quarrel with Sylvester Stallone that started when he sneered at a homeless man for not being as rich as they were. He ended up apologizing to her, and gave the man 20 bucks. The whole book artfully undermines the stereotype she has spent her lifetime constructing, and was written without a ghost writer by this complex and talented woman.

Another emailed essay titled “This is how fascism comes”, contains a litany of red state failings that includes “If fascism comes, it will dress like a hockey mom, or a NASCAR dad. It will believe Toby Keith to be an artist, Larry the Cable Guy to be a comic, and that the world was made in six literal days less than 6000 years ago.” A few years ago, Mr. Keith angered many of us with lyrics like “You'll be sorry that you messed with The U.S. of A. , Cause we'll put a boot in your ass, It's the American way.” and an accompanying video of planes bombing people in turbans. His most recent #1 hit, however, has these Lyrics:

Sometimes I think that war is necessary.
Every night I pray for peace on Earth.
I hand out my dollars to the homeless.
But believe that every able soul should work.
My father gave me my shotgun that I'll hand down to my son,
try to teach him everything it means.
(chorus)
I stand by my right to speak freely.
But I worry 'bout what kids learn from TV.
And before all of debatin' turns to angry words and hate,
sometimes we should just agree to disagree.
And I believe that Jesus looks down here and sees us,
and if you ask him he would say
(chorus)
I'm a man of my convictions. Call me wrong, call me right.
But I bring my better angels to every fight.
You may not like where I'm going, but you sure know where I stand.
Hate me if you want to, love me if you can.

How much of this did you have to read before you stopped responding with Pavlovian bursts of annoyance? Are you willing to agree to disagree with the millions of people who listened to this song on country radio, and share its values? It won’t be easy, after all we’ve been through the past eight years. There are some real disagreements that won’t go away, and we’ll have to negotiate those. But we have got to get beyond the point where “Conservative” and “Liberal” have degenerated into matters of taste about beverages, music and headgear. Neither a turban or a cowboy hat automatically makes you a villain. Obama is quite right that we are going to have to grow beyond those kinds of quarrels if we are going to get this country working again.