#4moreyears

Reblogged from Serenity in Perspective

As the numbers first started coming in on Tuesday night, I'll admit that I was scared. I groaned every time a state in the South was called for Romney, trying to placate myself with constant reminders that they'd already called Texas and we were still waiting for California/The West Coast as a solid entity. I pulled at my hair and curled up on the couch, unwillingly envisioning life under the Romney-Ryan regime. I was afraid that we'd lost America again, that robber barons had somehow become vintage and cool again. 

As the night wore on, my tension dissolved into laughter, laughter and joy as Obama-Biden proceeded to take every single battleground state. Laughter and joy as we re-won the White House by over a hundred electoral college points (side-eye at Florida taking 48 hours to come in). Laughter and joy because y'all had me shook, America. It still really worries me that 58.6 million of you thought that Romney was better suited than Barack Obama to take care of this country, but that's not something we need to worry about right now. (#rememberwhenMittRomneywasrelevant?) 

Reblogged from Tudo Bom(b)

As the night wore into the next day, my laughter and joy swelled into pride. I am so proud of us, America. It was one thing to fall in love with rhetoric of hope and change and a face the color of which seemed to usher in a new era of American leadership in 2008. Obama's 2008 campaign tugged at your heartstrings, I know. We were history in the making. Voting for Obama in 2008 was easy. Voting for Obama in 2012 was a little bit harder for a lot of us, I know. It is another thing entirely to re-elect a president whose rhetoric of hope and change rang a little more hollow than many of us would like, even if the circumstances surrounding that hollowness were out of his (or anyone's) control. It is another thing entirely to say we're not totally pleased with the way the last four years have gone, but we know that our best chance of success lies in you. It is easy to fall in love. It's hard to stay. 

I'm proud of America for giving Barack Obama four more years to carry out his dreams. I am proud of Maine, Maryland, and Washington for voting to allow same-sex marriages in their states (although I fundamentally disbelieve in the validity of the majority voting for the rights of the minority because civil rights should not be left up to public opinion), and I am proud of Minnesota for refusing to ban same-sex marriage. I am proud of New Hampshire for electing our nation's first all-female delegation. I am proud of the country as a whole for electing the most women to ever serve in the Senate, and I am proud of Wisconsin for openly lesbian senator-elect Tammy Baldwin, of Hawaii for Asian female senator-elect Mazie Hirono and for Hindu-American combat veteran representative-elect Tulsi Gabbard, and of Illinois for disabled veteran female representative-elect Tammy Duckworth. I am proud of LA for Jackie Lacey, the county's first Black District Attorney. I am proud that Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin, Richard “Rape Is Something That God Intended To Happen” Mourdock, Allen “We Are Not Going To Have Our Men Become Subservient” West, Joe “Abortion Is Never Necessary to Save the Mother’s Life” Walsh, Roger "Some Girls, They Rape So Easy" Rivard, Tom "Having a Baby Out of Wedlock is Similar to Rape" Smith, and John "On the Rape Thing...How Does More Violence Onto A Woman's Body [i.e. Abortion] Make It Better?" Koster were all soundly defeated. I am proud that it seems that America stepped up and realized that women matter and healthcare matters and equal opportunity matters and the ACTUAL middle class (i.e. not people who make $249,999 a year) matters. I'm proud that America remembered who and what it is made of. 

But don't get it twisted--don't mistake my elation for satisfaction. We still have a helluva lot of work to do before this country lives up to the words and ideas it was founded upon. This post is just to thank all of you for keeping us moving in the right direction.