A Reflection of an American Election

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It was a very satisfactory night. The election returns from across see-sawed back early as the southern and eastern states battled for supremacy. It wasn't until the final piece, mid-eastern state fell in to place, that clarity came. Ohio leaned and then tilted in the favor of the incumbent president. A president that led the nation kicking and screaming with a health-care reform, a president that battled for the passage of equal pay for women. A president that battled for reform of Wall Street financial service companies; and, a president that sought too seek out civil liberties for people in love with the same sex.

Today America reaffirmed the belief that anybody can be president – even a black man. A man of color is just as entitled to lead the country for consecutive terms as any white man;  meanwhile, the United States of America has reasserted that the vision of its people are far-reaching and ambitious. The re-election of President Barrack Hussein Obama confirms that the documents of America's founding are more than a sum of its parts, but as a whole, aspirational and inspirational confirmations of human dignity, liberty, and vision to the human spirit.

Admittedly, some might declare that this victory of President Obama's was nothing more than main stream media selling a bill of goods to a gullible public. Nonetheless, I would counter to those cynics that the reason the “main stream media” sells the product it has is because they reflect public attitudes and those attitudes are the main stream.

The failure of Mitt Romney and the republican party is that the self-delusion that propagates conservative media and the extreme right relies on the illusion of a false nostalgia of “days gone by.” The image of a golden age, where conformity, uniformity, conservatism, and that “father knows best” are no longer a reality. In fact, it never existed. The naïve belief that the face of America has always been conservative has never been true. Quite the opposite. United States of America has always been quite progressive. From the Federalist Papers to the Declaration of Independence to the United States Constitution of America demonstrates our country's progressiveness.

Moreover, the failure of the republican party has been its failure to recognize America's changing demographics and that their need for inclusion is dependent upon its survival. In addition, the extremes of the right fail to recognize what conservatism really means. Conservatism does not mean to preserve – and remain static – or pass some ideological purity test, but to mean, according to the Miriam-Webster on-line-dictionary -- to believe in “a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual change to abrupt change.” Notice it does not call for stagnation the succession of progress.

The Miriam-Webster dictionary continues, “specifically: such a philosophy call individual financial responsibility for personal needs (as retirement income or health-care).” Notice that the dictionary tries to crystallize a succinct meaning in the modern political forum not in the archaic. The dictionary does reference the first usage of conservatism by referencing Edmund Burke's observation of the French Revolution and its effect on the population. in which he argues for the conservation of the State and the institutions of civilization and the rule of law and therefore gradual movement of change.

The evidence before the republican party has been on the wall since 1996. The future of United States changing demographics  was noticed,  in 2004, by republican President George W. Bush with the inclusion of others that are not like “themselves”-- Latinos. Unfortunately, the core base of the republican party soon retracted the hand of extension once the re-election of  President Bush.

 In November 2012, however, the Presidential election revealed that United States of America face of its people is changing, more diverse, more inclusive—and more libertarian than ever before. The “live and let live” philosophy in terms of social issues significantly impacted many races across the nation and that the consensus for many Americans is to move forward as we the people and our government try to heal from the polarization of a hard fought political season.

United States of America is truly becoming its a potential -- the melting pot -- that has been proclaimed in our Americana ethos legends...