They no longer speak for us

They don’t speak for us. The warmongers. The torture-lovers. The reverse Robin Hoods. The crooks and thieves and racists and liars. Those who would leave our own countrymen and women to die in the streets.

That’s what this election was about for me. Making it absolutely clear that we are done with having these people represent us in our government. Shouting from the rooftops that we are better than this, and that we will live up to our potential as a nation instead of letting ourselves down. Letting the world down. We can do better—we must do better—because this is America and America cannot fail.

We are America: all of us who made history by electing Barack Obama to the presidency. We are America whether we are black or white, Christian or Jewish or Muslim or atheist, straight or gay, young or old. Whether we live in big cities or suburbs or small towns, there are no fake Americans here.

But, that said, if anyone has been destroying the promise of America, it’s been the race-baiters and the warmongers and the neo-cons--those who would kill and pillage and steal using our tax dollars, in our names.

As Gary Kamiya wrote in Salon today:

The Obama triumph means the Reagan revolution is over. The anti-government, anti-tax, trickle-down, every-man-for-himself ethos collapsed with a whimper during the catastrophic presidency of George W. Bush, and Obama's election put it out of its misery. By electing Obama, the American people have emphatically rejected the selfishness, masquerading as freedom and rugged individualism, that has been the calling card of the American right wing since Barry Goldwater. In its place, they are calling not just for a new and expanded vision of government's role in American life but for a new vision of American society.

Let's hope that Obama's election will be the impetus for driving a stake through the heart of the wrongheaded conservative philosophy once and for all. YES WE CAN!