Victory in Europe

Bologna, Italy. SAIS University
In the early morning hours before Barack Obama’s election victory Wednesday morning, my brother mused about the self correcting nature of the democratic system: Democracy doesn’t always produce the best leaders, he argued, but it gives the people an opportunity to get rid of the bad ones without unnecessary strife and violence that comes with war and revolution. As EH Carr wrote, Democracy substitutes the counting of heads for the breaking of heads.
I always thought that elections were a lot like wars. In an election, we don’t fight campaigns by searching for high ground, we fight over bellwether states. We commend those politicians who seem tough, and attack and are best able to brush off attacks from their adversaries. As in wars, certain attacks are universally condemned for their brutality: Barack Obama better not swift-boat McCain and McCain mustn’t play the race card against Obama. Most importantly as in war and revolutions, elections produce winners and losers. Over the last eight years, it was the liberal cosmopolitan coasts (where I’m from) who found themselves suddenly conquered by the alien bushies and their right wing Texas politics. During this period, we weren’t physical crushed as in war; it was our collective psyche that took a beating. We all felt a subconscious need to disassociate ourselves from the country we loved. When the TV monitor showed that Barack Obama had finally done it, a collective cheer of profound joy emanated from the lecture hall, some were crying, others were hugging random strangers. At that moment, it occurred to me that these American SAIS students who had helped propel Obama to victory with their vote had become, for at least a day, the Greatest Generation. This was our Victory in Europe day, minus all the broken heads of course.