What I am about to write may be sappy. I may be accused of furthering a cult of personality. That is becoming a popular dismissal. What I am about to write is trite in some ways. It is not about issues or important ideas. It is not about policy or activism or anything else other than the fact that many of us have been losing for so long that we simply can't believe that anything good can happen. But as Barack Obama said tonite, "Cynism is a sorry kind of wisdom.", so here it goes.
There are many posting on dKos and around the blogosphere who are scared to believe that the dam is breaking. Many who aren't ready to say that the die is cast. There are many people that I speak to everyday who are certain that these (re)thugs will spin themselves out of trouble again, winning another 4 years and continuing the destruction of our democracy. It is a form of PTSD. The last seven+ years have been that painful.
I want to say to these people ...
Trust Yourself.
Reality is breaking through. It is not just you. When you watch the victories of Barack Obama and you hear him speak of them and you look at the results and see that he has won again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again....
... you aren't just having another fit of optimism. You aren't just deluding yourself that as another Bush scandal streaks across the sky he will be frog-marched, only to have those hopes excruciatingly dashed when the story disappears down the memory hole.
You aren't the one who needs a reality check. You are the one who sees clearly. Even though you were certain that you saw clearly in the past and it turned out not to be true. You are the one who sees clearly.
Let's face it. We've been dazed. All of us. Even those of us who have fought tooth and nail all along have been dazed. The way the republican noise machine has defined reality since 911 has taken advantage of the fact that we've been dazed. They've controlled the spin masterfully. There have been many diaries written explaining how this could happen so I won't get into that here, but hell, the Democrats even took the Congress and STILL we feel frustrated. It is as if our cynicism has been institutionalized. Formalized. We are conditioned to think that we will fail. We fight on, but don't really believe.
Well. OK. Here goes then. Listen.
As you notice the press wake up to the fact that a black man is about to become president and as you notice your friends and family wake up to this fact and as you notice the establishment and MSM wake up to the fact that the reality based community is about to shatter the mighty wurlitzer that has been playing at our feast of bread and circus ....
Trust Yourself.
It is really happening.
The time has come.