The country was a hot mess four years ago, but we've muddled through. What many failed to see was that there was a long game at work. As a nation we've become so accustomed to the short term and instant gratification: short term profits, on demand viewing, drive thru (meal, groceries, banking, even church services) that we've lost the patience to wait a thing out. We've also become far more adolescent in our thinking and behavior, it's like a national arrested development.
With the 2008 election of President Obama a change was afoot that we barely noticed. Yeah, there was all the hue and cry about a post-racial society. But the change had already started. We all recognized it on Tuesday, November 6, when President Obama was re-elected, to the chagrin of some, to the delight of others. We have as a nation become far more tolerant and diverse. The gay lifestyle is fairly mainstream. Religious practice is not limited to Christianity. Atheists have raised their voice in the public square. Interracial marriages and mixed raise identity are on the rise. The economy is improving, not nearly as rapidly or as well as we'd like, but we are better off than we were four years ago. Many Americans have or will have healthcare thanks to the Healthcare Act. We are leaving the two protracted wars started in the Bush administration. The guy who actually masterminded the attack on our nation September 11, 2001 is dead.
So that hopey changey thing, it's working and the next four years will demonstrate just how well it's working. We will need to grow up as a nation because change is never easy. The President learned and we learned a few things in the last four years. Hope still remains. The President said it best in his acceptance speech on election night:
"I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting."
