Blue America

Republicans haven’t yet grasped the enormity of their failure or the resounding rejection of their governmental ideology. But as we sift through the data, and more importantly, assess the meaning of this election, it will become clear that Americans have rejected the idea that government should do nothing when a quarter of the country can’t afford health care, when our schools are failing, when Wall Street recklessly gambles away our retirement savings and our kids’ college money. We can’t sit by while a major American city disappears under flood waters we knew were coming. Government should facilitate scientific research, not suppress it. It should hold our soldiers back, until all efforts to avoid conflict have failed, and never throw them into a slow-motion massacre in pursuit of oil or to establish the validity of a new strategic blueprint. All of this – all of this – was rejected on Tuesday. So don’t believe conservatives who blame “this President” or “the financial crisis” or “their candidate.” This was a repudiation of conservative principles. Look at the map above. It is a graphic representation of some remarkable data. The darker the blue, the greater the shift in voters’ preferences toward the Democratic party. The paler blue hues show a less dramatic shift. The rose colored counties became even more Republican this year. Don’t misunderstand this, we are nor looking at a Democratic Idaho, but compared to 2004, more voters in Idaho voted Democratic. It – and Texas and Alabama and Mississippi - remains a Republican state, but less so than in the past. Only Oklahoma, Alaska, Arkansas, and Tennessee seem to be uninfected by the spreading blue that is transforming the map.

I can't help but think that we have witnessed the beginning of a sea-change in American politics. Voters under 24 voted for Obama, even in deeply, deeply red counties. In California, they voted against Proposition 8 in overwhelming numbers. Helping out in the Obama campaign, I saw young operatives and volunteers - many not old enough to vote - carrying the ball. Paul Krugman called this election the death of the monsters--Rove and DeLay and all the other despicable Republican Freddy Kruegers who only wanted to eviscerate their liberal opponents and savage the poor and bleed away all hope for change. I hope he's right. But as significantly, it is - or could be - the start of a new citizen corps of hands-on voters and volunteers, freed from cynicism, no longer alienated from the wider nation of which they are a part. In 2004, after George Bush won reelection, I woke up on November 3 feeling like a stranger in my own land. Surrounded by New Yorkers, I knew I was hundreds of miles away from the people who reelected our disgraceful President, but never in my life had I felt so alienated from the great majority of Americans. Now, I look at the map of the United States and I see blue spreading across even the most unlikeliest of places, and I want to mobilize these young voters and these converts to carry forward the transformation. Of course I want the Democrats to march across the country and win everywhere. That won’t happen, and maybe my hope is misguided. I dislike the proselytizing impulse in Christianity. People need to find their own path to truth and morality. And, I guess, I should feel the same way about politics. But, like religion, we should all be able to agree that we are seeking truth and morality and, in the process, put aside our politics of contempt and ugliness. I look at this map and I see people turning away from a party that promised nothing and delivered less, a party that believed we owed nothing to one another and we should expect nothing from our government. I see people who want to believe that we can collectively fashion solutions to shared problems. We might differ on how we accomplish this, but I see people who want to have that conversation, and are sick and tired of the idea that we are all alone with our problems.