A Vindication of American Exceptionalism

What does November 4, 2008 mean for America?

For the record, I am not a big fan of Barack Obama. I believe his experience is adequate at best, and I am very skeptical of his economic policy positions, especially those on taxation and health care. While I admire his oratory, his slogans of hope and change often ring like hollow homilies in my ears. I would have been much happier with a more moderate Democrat or Republican president-elect (i.e. Hillary Clinton or John McCain v2000). Yet, one cannot escape the history made on Tuesday.

Fundamentally, the election of Barack Obama represents justice delivered — a justice that was denied for centuries since the founding and delayed for decades after the civil rights movement. Our election of Obama is not the final verdict on the Bush administration, the Republican party, the floundering economy, or the war in Iraq. It is a vindication of American exceptionalism. When introducing the Voting Rights Act to Congress on March 15, 1965, President LBJ proclaimed, "At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama." And so it was Tuesday, November 4, 2008 in Chicago's Grant Park. On that evening, in this republic, America was made anew. Not by war or revolution, but by the election of the unlikeliest of candidates to the highest office in the land.