Just one punch of the ballot is all it took. Now suddenly almost every one, here and abroad, is supposed to appreciate the newfound morality of the American people, change their own prior wicked ways, and do what they must for newly elected Barack Obama.
Some columnists are now putting Europe, Russia, China — and the whole world — on moral notice: we Americans did the right thing in electing the first African-American president and a charismatic, hip, commander-in-chief. They must now, too — or else!
Our divine edict from on high is simple:
O wide world of little faith: Don’t blow it! So Europeans buck up for Barack, and get back in Afghanistan! Illiberal Russia, hands off those democracies on your borders and don’t make Barack do something we will all regret later! China, keep Barack’s air clean and don’t dare burn any more dirty coal!
Excuse me?
The world may be temporarily awestruck with the wise and all-powerful Obama, but it’s not quite ready to coalesce into a kinder, gentler global family — one people, under one Messiah, indivisible, with peace and justice for all.
In fact, Vladimir Putin doesn’t care a whit that Barack Obama is a path-breaking African-American, much less the first person of color to be an American president. The Chinese can’t quite appreciate in translation Obama’s mellifluous cadences. France’s cool Sarkozy isn’t swayed much by the Obama sunglasses, snazzy polo shirt, or nifty outside jump shot.
All these states have interests — not deities. For the most part, either their enmity with or fondness for the United States antedated George Bush. The world’s mental map wasn’t erased away when Bush took power. Being the planet’s most powerful democracy, and a free and confident world peacekeeper, either excites admiration or earns envy — and even the most crude or the most elegant American president can’t change much that simple fact of global human nature.
To the small degree Obama’s superior charm and style will improve things, the Russians may toast, backslap, and bear hug Obama — before seeking to body slam him against the wall on Polish anti-missile sites. The smiling Europeans will scurry around mumbling “Yes, but of course!” — as they shirk even more. An unhinged President Ahmadinejad will endlessly write rambling letters to Barack Hussein Obama as the last centrifuges come on line. The jihadists will sigh rather than swear as they continue to try to blow us all up.
Next we are told by many in the media that African-American activists of the race industry will inevitably bow before the transcendent, postracial new President Obama — and recede into the background as they shut down the once-productive victimization assembly lines. After all, did not Americans just prove, through their magnanimous vote — again, it took just one punch of the ballot — that we are no longer racists and should be collectively, if not at least symbolically, relieved at last of an age-old charge of intolerance?
Excuse me, again.
An Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, or Charles Rangle is not about to close the plant, and issue lay-offs just because Americans elected an African-American president.
Why should they? Would a Rev. Sharpton really wish to confront his unresolved Tawana Brawley past? Would a Rev. Jackson welcome the public opprobrium accorded most pious white evangelicals, in leisure suits and pompadour hairstyles, who foster out of wedlock children? Or would Charles Rangle wish to pay all his taxes on time, without excuses, as do most other Americans who are not the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee?
Victimization for generations has proven lucrative, precisely by allowing self-appointed leaders to advance their careers through doctrinaire “they did it” complaints. The script is now old indeed: Blame the pathologies of the underclass that hamper economic progress — inordinate drug usage, illegitimacy, crime, or dismal graduation rates — on the racism of those with “power.” “The Man” can find penitence only through perpetual apologies and the proper channeling of plentiful lucre. All that, too, antedated Obama and will transcend him — until either African-Americans
en masse reject their leaders’ racial scapegoating; or bored whites, Asians, and Hispanics simply cease listening to the shouting of “Racism! Racist!” and turn the channel.
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