Take a deep breath. Fill your lungs with that sweet, sweet air of exhilaration. You, right now, are living in one of the most exciting and important times in American history. A brand-new president has been elected to lead our country. He represents a break from the past — it feels like a fresh new set of diapers has replaced the nation’s old, soiled, shit-ridden pampers.
His speech and attitude is stained with none of the petty squabbles, bickering and scare tactics that have polluted American politics over the last two decades. He calls for an end to the obsessive self-interest and narrow-minded concern for one’s own welfare that other politicians from both parties have encouraged for decades. In its place, he implores people to take responsibility for the well-being of the state, to make sacrifices for the welfare of their failing country and to come together as one nation to work for the common good. No president in recent memory has called upon those ideals.
Equally important, the thought of a black president was considered a far-fetched, idealized pipe dream only 20 years ago. Now, our new leader stands as concrete, tangible proof of the opportunity that America has always promised its citizens, but has always failed (and in many ways still fails) to completely deliver. Most important of all, the amount of support, enthusiasm and hope he inspires throughout America is unparalleled in our nation’s past. If the cold numbers of polling data don’t convince you, the mass euphoria and joy that erupted in the celebration march on State Street and in cities nationwide should.
However, even though Barack Obama represents a profound and promising change from the politics of recent memory, his ability to protect the nation’s future from today’s most pressing issue is far from ensured. The imminent threat of economic depression is a chaotic and uncontrollable crisis, and it would be naive to assume Obama can magically make it disappear. The economic recession will hit us no matter what steps the government takes. At best, the executive can only take away part of the pain that is sure to come.
David Brooks, the conservative New York Times columnist, described the problem of scarcity that we will face in the future, a problem completely alien to our generation that was raised in prosperity. “In the next few years, the nation’s wealth will either stagnate or shrink. The fiscal squeeze will grow severe. There will be fiercer struggles over scarce resources. … The challenge for the next president will be to cushion the pain of the current recession.” These problems will not go away when Obama enters the White House, and there is no guarantee he can fix them, even with (and some would say because of) an overwhelming Democratic majority in the House and Senate.
Our generation, the people who have just entered and are soon entering the job market, cannot look to Obama to improve the problems of the nation for us. If we are truly dedicated to Obama’s abstract but inspiring rhetoric of change, sacrifice and welfare, we must make that change ourselves.
Our generation’s participation in Obama’s election has already provided a crucial break from the past. Although the “youth vote” was not the deciding factor in Obama’s win, the campaign, run by younger people at the local level, used groundbreaking grassroots efforts to connect with supporters. Twenty-year-olds used relatively new technology like mass e-mails and text messages to connect with the voters before the news media did. Obama supporters were notified of his decision to run for office, of his primary win, and of his presidential win long before he stepped in front of the camera to announce the news to the nation as a whole. More, the wild display of enthusiasm for Obama came most vigorously from our age bracket. The spontaneous celebratory march on State Street, as I mentioned before, was truly a fitting image of what is hopefully a politically active generation.
Obama is in many ways the product, not the cause, of the change we wanted to see in the nation. His effectiveness is rooted in his ability to motivate us to act, in being able to represent the change we want to see and giving us a unifying goal toward which we strive. Several gentlemen over the age of 50 who regularly sit in on my Wednesday morning lecture told the class on Wednesday morning that this election was in many ways a way to make up for the mistakes of their generation.
The future will be a test of how seriously we have accepted Obama’s call for responsibility and sacrifice, of whether or not we can remain motivated and empowered enough to take control of current issues to support the changes we feel are necessary for the problems we see today. This could mean anything from helping as a taxpayer to “spread the wealth around” on the national level to the most desperate during the financial crisis, to taking local action toward the specific needs of your community. The specific changes we need are ill-defined in Obama’s rhetoric, but the motivation his message carries is just the kick in the pants our generation needs.
Jack Garigliano ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in history and English.
