What Now

I’m wondering what will be the first disappointments of Obama’s presidency. There’s never been a US president taking office with such high expectations, realistic and unrealistic, and no one politician can be everything to all of his constituents. Signing on to Bush’s Warrantless Wiretapping has been my biggest disappointment with Obama so far, when he did that I realized that there will be times he does the wrong thing in order to win other, hopefully more important battles later on. Of the things Obama has said he’ll do – closing the Guantanamo prison camp, getting out of Iraq in 16 months, balancing the budget with a fairer tax system, what promises do you think he’ll break? The things that inspire us to vote for him – that he would support reproductive rights, stem cell research, and marriage equality, that he would oppose torture, secret concentration camps, and corporate welfare – those are positions I’ve assigned to him based on my perceptions of his values but I haven’t heard of specific actions he’ll take. What if he turns out to be not as good as we thought he is, what if he’s only sorta-good, what if he was only an inspiring speaker and capable politician, and nothing more? Whatever he’ll do, whatever we can be, it’s so exciting to think about. The chance to emerge from the insanity of eight years of conservative republican disaster, it’s positively intoxicating. Now to see what we can do in the real world.