Matt Elliott’s Online

Driving Rain

Drove to Guelph today. Had to take the long way (up, and over the top of the city) because a truck spilled a bunch of copper tubing all over the highway. One person was killed and several more were injured. It’s a tragedy both for them and for the orphans who today are all without the soothing nourishment that comes from copper tubing.

I went to Guelph because I had a meeting. I am very good at meetings. Some people spend hours, even days, in meetings. I can have a meeting in ten minutes. When I was younger I did not ever foresee myself being the type to “get down to brass tacks” but now, today, I precisely that type. I get down. Down to brass tacks.

While driving to Guelph I listened to This American Life. This American Life is probably the best podcast ever made in the history of the world. And I mean that not only figuratively and literally, but hypothetically as well. As in, if famous historical types like Humphrey Bogart or the Marquis de Sade or that hot chick from The Odyssey (Who am I kidding? They were all hot chicks in The Odyssey.) had a podcast, This American Life would still be way better than all of them.

The show I listened to was about the election, and was recorded previous to the election. Erin had told me it was an awesome episode, and I believed her. But I didn’t really want to listen to it before the result of the election was assured. I couldn’t handle that kind of stress.

So, yes, let’s talk about the election. The defeated elephant in the room. Sometimes Americans get all indignant when non-Americans talk about their elections, which doesn’t make any sense to me. There is absolutely nowhere on this earth that is insulated from the American president’s reach. For better or worse, it affects us all.

But whatever – let’s put politics aside. (I actually probably said this more eloquently — definitely more concisely — last night at yworking.) As glad as the liberal in me is happy that McCain lost and Obama won, what really inspires me about America’s election is that, for the first time in a long time — and, indeed, maybe the only time in my life — idealism worked.

We’ve been trained to be so cynical. That bad and corrupt people can still succeed in the face of good. That the only real course to getting anything done is a pragmatic one, littered with compromise. That generally, in politics, you hold your nose.

But, last night, people got together and elected a black man with a muslim name to the highest elected office in the world.

That still hasn’t quite set in.

I drove to Guelph today. I took the long route because someone spilled copper tubing on the highway. Made it out okay, though. Me, I mean — not the copper tubing.

There’s more eloquent things to say about today, I think.

I wonder if this election was really about idealism. Could it be that the previous administration simply messed things up so badly that Americans were willing to overlook the fact that they were electing a black man with a Muslim name?

If things were rosier in the States, I’m not at all convinced that idealism would have panned out… Pardon the cynism, but it seems like just another example of compromise. Albeit one borne of desperation.

You’re definitely on to something. I was pretty deep into the internet Obama movement, which was incredibly idealistic (so much so that it even grated on me sometimes — he’s a politician, not a superhero) but the vast majority of voters probably didn’t really have that much of an idea of who Obama was. Their vote was as much against the Republicans as it was for Obama.

Still, though, for a lot of young people, it feels like idealism won. And what’s perception if not (almost) reality?