On This Day in History: November 4
Obama is elected president
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I don’t give a shit if you don’t like the guy. Comparatively speaking, he was fucking awesome, and his election filled many with hope that America wasn’t irrevocably fucked. And yet, for four years, America was ever so fucked.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: November
First, we need to talk about Jeri Ryan, who is mostly known for playing “7 of 9” in the Star Trek franchise, and her unwillingness to take her husband’s shit. Wait, what? Yeah, she played a significant, if indirect role in the election of Barack Obama.
Back in 2004, Jeri’s ex-husband Jack Ryan was a likely winner for election in the Illinois senate race. But then Jack’s divorce records were made public, revealing that he’d pressured Jeri to have public sex in various swinger’s clubs. But resistance is not futile, and Jeri said fuck that noise and divorced him instead. Jack denied the allegations but dropped out of the race a few days later and was replaced by the unexciting MSNBC host Alan Keyes. Obama, who had only been a state senator up to that point, annihilated Keyes in the election and became senator, and then four years later became the Democratic nominee to be president, narrowly beating Hillary Clinton.
The 2008 election was the war hero supporting the war in Iraq that had been going on for five years vs. a man opposing the war who proclaimed a need for change in Washington. McCain was hindered by being tied to George Bush, and a lot of people were sick of eight years of Republicans in power, especially since the economy imploded right before the election. I don’t think Sarah Palin as a VP choice did McCain any favors either.
Conversely, a lot of people were wondering if a Black man could win the presidency in the United States of Racist America. When Obama did win by a wide margin on November 4, 2008, many were elated. They felt this represented a hopeful future for their country. The massive attendance at Obama’s inauguration was a love fest. His supporters were overjoyed.
Of course, there was a substantial portion of the American population that was just fucking seething over the Obama victory. How dare a Black man occupy the White House? The Tea Party, A.K.A. the American Taliban became a thing only a month after President Obama assumed office, and Republicans made every effort to block Obama’s policies no matter what they were. For eight years the racism festered like an infected wound, becoming a major contributor to the election of the blatantly racist and vocal Obama critic Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016.
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I love everything you write. I do have to say though, I take a bit of exception with the statement "For eight years the racism festered like an infected wound..." The wound had been festering for hundreds of years. It's nothing new, and the blowback from Obama's election didn't create a new wound -- it lanced a wound that had already been festering, and sprayed that infected pus all over the place where everyone could see it, and nobody could deny the wound was there without showing themselves to be either more racist, or more in denial about racism, than the average (and maybe there's really no difference between those two). The resulting trumpery was all those assholes saying yeah, of course there are wounds. It's our right to cause them whenever we feel like it, because "White Supremacy! Yay!"
One of the best days of my life. I remember being glued to the television and social media. It was almost surreal.