It's Over! ...Now what?

Election coverage, polling data, editorials, vicious attacks, compassionate pleas, and history in the making. Real Clear Politics, BBC News, Digg, Drudge Report (Wow, he was a real douche this cycle), and the refresh buttons, my God man, the refresh buttons.

I couldn't get enough of it. Every Gallup and every low-blow, I was there, feasting on the newsy opulence. At times I would get sick of it, like a child that found the sugar in the pantry, but I would always come back for more.

So now what?

It's over. We won. I, the self-hating republican, can revel in the death knells of the Know-Nothing domination of the GOP. Perhaps fiscally responsible, intelligent republicans like Ron Paul can finally move back to the forefront of the party, and we can be done with the reign of mediocrity characterized by Dubya and most recently Palin.

Something magical has happened. We have a president who is smart. It's amazing. I would ask why smart people have been attacked for so long, but I already know the sad answer.

Several years ago the republicans realized that they could win elections if they swung their focus to the religious right. Okay, I understand; it was a tactic, and they thought it would be best in the long run. Well, obviously that tactic succeeded for a long time, but the cost was most dire. Because the religious right tends to be more rural and less educated (as a statistical group, I don't mean to imply anything inherently negative about religious people), the campaigns had to downplay their candidates' education and intelligence or else they might alienate their electorate. Well if they had continued to nominate intelligent individuals, then their wouldn't have been a problem, but instead they realized that since intelligence and education was no longer a prerequisite for the campaign process, then they could essentially choose anyone that would win the needed demographic. This of course culminated in the hollow puppet we've had for the past 7-8 years.

But here I am dwelling on the politics of the past; let's briefly touch on the politics of the future.

Barack Hussein Obama. Now that he's elected; we can take that second name off of the list. Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Judas, and a few select others are names that have been utterly ruined for general usage. When we hear those names, we have visceral responses that call forth images of horror, tyranny, betrayal, and the worst of humanity. Indeed, for Hitler, that power extends even to Adolf, but luckily for Josephs everywhere, Stalin didn't ruin it for them.

Good news Husseins, you're off the list; the name is redeemed. Other people might disagree, but us hating the name Hussein (and people with it) is like everyone in the Middle East hating the name Kevin; it's ridiculous. Kevin's a fine name, and so is Hussein.

Speaking of which, a whole lot of people are named Hussein or have friends or family named Hussein. Before this election, a lot of those people may have feared/hated us, but now, we just got one of the greatest PR boosts in the history of mankind. It might, might, be enough to get us back to where we were in world standing prior to Bush.

With Bush, everyone outside (and most inside) the States knew that we were torturing people regardless of how much it was denied. This was the final crack that shattered our "shining city on a hill" national persona which we honed over the decades. We stopped being the land of hope, openness, and freedom. We became, in the eyes of the world, a closed minded brute who rapes and pillages (coughblackwatercough).

Luckily, we get to hit the refresh button every 4 to 8 years, and we can get a shot at picking up the pieces and putting it all back together. Maybe we can be that place again which other countries want to emulate and where foreign people want to emigrate. Maybe we can actually be the melting pot we claim we are and be stronger for it. So now, we need to turn that hope we've all been offered into reality. Luckily, that happens to be America's specialty.

JetSetArnett Out.

Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.