Last Night Was Not a Wake-Up Call, It Was the Act of Waking Up

The Good Professor has a fairly typical take of the independent-minded, non-hyperpartisan reaction to last night's election results. He says that the Obama magic has faded. That's most likely true, but that is not the big story in my opionion. The big story is that anybody thought for a moment that it wouldn't fade. That anybody expected even the most basic level of governance from Obama, let alone monumental and transformative things, is the story of greatest import here. And it is not that the hope, dreams and expectations placed into the Obama vessel were so grand, it is that the vessel that is Obama is so small. I have said it before - in November of '08 I said we bought ourselves a pig in a poke. Later I said that disappointment and pain is what we deserve given that we elected a man of no consequence and no achievement to the highest office in the land. Why we expected a man with no discernable track record or proven record of leadership to lead and to achieve in the name of this massive and complex society is a story of historical proportions. Did we think that plucking just any man off the street - essentially what we did - to wield enormous power was wise? And a young man to boot. And a man who never held a job at a profit-making organization. Why did we think that the wisdom acquired over a long life and the first hand knowledge of commerce gained by private sector work somehow weren't relevant anymore? Why did we think that - after over 200 years of electing (with a few exceptions) staid, boring, but presumably wise, adults, who could draw to them the counsel and assistance of many more wise, older adults - we needed a rock star of relative adolescence? Why did we think that a man with no knowledge of the private sector would lead a mostly private sector nation out of a severe economic slump? Why did we think that a man who consorted with raving America-haters would inspire a mostly proud and patriotic nation to excellence? Why did we think that a man who views our role in the world as flawed would draw our allies nearer to us? Why did we think these things?

You know my answer. Delusion. We are more susceptible to it now, having lived for decades in a celebrity-soaked, instant gratification society. We've kept the wolves of reality at bay for so long, we are easy prey for delusion - that we can borrow and spend our way to prosperity, that taxing the rich will yield windfalls as if these people are willing and ready to just hand over their money, that reducing our defenses makes us more secure, that using less energy won't hurt our standard of living, that a prohibitive regulation will eliminate an anti-social behavior, that you can love jobs but hate job creators. Delusionary. All of it. Yet, we wallow in it. The culmination of our wallowing in delusion was the building up of a cipher on a cloud of dreamy unreality into some messianic figure. That edifice is now crumbling. From California's budget to Iran's nukes, from high and rising unemployment in the face of a trillion dollars in stimulus to improving healthcare by slashing doctors pay, to "jobs saved or created", the whole phony edifice of delusion we have constructed is starting to crack. It is not all Obama's fault, it is not even mostly his fault; this has been building for years, and he is merely the embodiment of it all.

This election wasn't about sending a message, it was about coming out of a state of delusion, about shedding, slowly, our warm, soft cloak of unreality. As will be the next election, and possibly even the next one after that.