By Troy Ygnacio Soriano

You know what to buy stock in? Whole Foods. Their catering dept. will be very busy over the next four months as liberal nation eats it’s god-awful fill of celebratory caramelized-onion hummus and edamame dip with garlic crostini. I just made myself hungry.

Unlike Bush, whose Texan non-style couldn’t be adapted into anything funner than pigs in a blanket dipped in gloppy ranch dressing, Barack will have exotic, leafy party themes dedicated to him. An Obama-inspired menu will be slimming, energizing, even enlightening. You might even lose weight at them. If you’re thinking of planning an inaugural party, go big. Go Hawaiian, go Indonesian, hell, go Middle-Eastern and call it best wishes for first round of talks with Iran. Like the Democratic Party of old, boring parties, just another thing Obama’ll fix.

First thing I love about the Obama years? You can take almost anything about this guy and turn it into a party-theme, have an Ivy-League party, a Harvard-specific party (a touch more formal), play on Renegade, The Weather Underground. For myself, I’m gonna have a Cling To Your Guns and Religion opus for all my snobby pals in Cambridge. Obama’s often described as disciplined. Discipline as a party theme, now there’s the fraternity paddles out of the boxes in the basement for a night!

Who guessed that Republicans would be such crap losers? Oh right, everybody. But them. In each interview, with shocked expressions, America bears witness the Audacity of Dopes. You can almost hear them say “Who fucked up stealing the election?”-it’s near uncomfortable to watch. They’re so un-used to losing, even in the face of a changing culture, they are so disconnected from the country and the history being made in it, and so steadfastly on the wrong side of it, I’m almost embarrassed for them.

With every red-faced prediction that Obama’s going to be bad for the country, blaming him for the economy already when his President-elect status is days old, with every news story pointing to the nooses hanging from the trees, with every grim preist who says that if you voted for Obama you sinned and must repent, with every ominous prediction that something bads gonna happen, when we all know what they are referring to, I feel as if I’m watching someone resurrect a plantation owner, coming back to defend the logic behind slavery. The threats that Obama should govern from the center-right, the endless minimalizing, “the win wasn’t that big …”.

In the horror films of the Eighties, the monster is always fueled by the fear of the people trying to escape his bloody plan for them-in each of those movies, the characters invariably found out, usually after many bloody tries, that they shouldn’t be afraid, that the evil drew it’s power, precisely from that fear. As that awareness dawned, the backlash was predictable, The Freddie’s, the Michaels, the Jason’s, each of them-upted the ante, throwing up ever more and more gruesome imagery in order to get that fear-charge from their victims, and so make themselves more powerful. Expect to see that.

This is a very serious spiritual metaphor. How you know change has come permanently to America, is that a crucial mass of Americans are simply not afraid anymore, and are also not willing to become afraid. 9-11, health-care, financial collapse, a President who they may have wanted to have a beer with eight years ago, but who never, ever wanted to have a beer with them-we are a people who can’t be made to be afraid anymore. Our worst has already happened. You can no more put a burning cross in the America’s front yard today, than you can put Sarah Palin on TV accusing anyone of pal-ing around with terrorists.

On the other hand, as a Progressive voter, I love love love that media puts these crazy people on TV and the radio. The Republican party has become as hard to take seriously as the front page of The Sun, and Mitt Romney is it’s ever present Alien Boy. Deepening it’s tabloid-style politics, every day we hear the greatest hits of last centuries GOP from Ann Coulter, Mitt Romney, Rush Limbaugh and the aptly-named Crazy McCain Lady. Without the few sound conservative ideas they had, the very ones that Republicans have enthusiastically abandoned, these people, these faces are the public face of the GOP. What have they become? Doesn’t this political party have any new people?

They are here and there, discussing the Republican meltdown, or even more funnily, how it’s only a momentary set-back. They’re ready for a comeback they say, all over. That’s nice. Obamba may in fact be a snob, he may have an ego, and a whole host of ultimately human character defects and faults, but he’s natural. When he says he will speak to the American people often and be honest, people can feel that is true, instantly. Recently, when asked what really good ideas the GOP had for the future of the country, Sarah Palin answered with a weak smile and said, “nothing specific right now”. The leaders of the GOP seem so non-human in the Age of Obama. I love love love that Mitt Romney feels like he can hold forth anytime, as if he’s public face, the living embodiment of the GOP. A man passionately dedicated to every Republican idea the country just rejected, loudly. He wants to run for President in four years. Wow. Perfect.

Michael Reagan talks about all the Republican grassroots. That’s like talking about all the Republican singer-songwriters. Aside from Utah Mormon’s, Democrats are a lot more comfortable going to door to door, than Republicans. No matter anyway, Obama has the netroots, the grassroots, the cultural roots and heavy media love. He can ask for twenty bucks, from millions of people, for anything he wants, anytime. If it’s reasonable, they’ll give it to him or whoever he says needs it. They’ll make calls for him. They’ll call their congressmen for him. He’s charismatic, discliplined, and has a ferocious intellect. With the engine of support that he’s built, America should be prepared for a lot of change, relatively fast. A telegenic leader who delivers on his promises, who is also history-making? It’s more than plausible, it’s even likely that Obama could be more loved in 2, 4, 8 years than he already is, and the country doesn’t give a shit about gay marriage, they want to stop mortgaging their homes to pay for their health care.

Let’s be crystal clear now: The only way the GOP can get ahead in the new century is to adopt at least part of the Progressive platform, and they won’t necessarily get to choose which part. That means, that despite George Bush winning and some ultimately small progress of their agenda here and there (I’ll discuss Prop Eight next week) that the socially liberal Left has won the bigger game, won over the bigger piece of the heart of this great country. There might be a few moments of drama, some tantrums, and hold-your-breath minutes. But I hope you like blue, because the country will never, ever be as red as it was before Election Day, 2008.

TYS 2008

by Troy Ygnacio Soriano.

After eight years of a Bush presidency which, as of this writing, I feel we lack the adequate verbiage to describe (it’ll probably have to be invented), after Dean’s scream, almost winning with Gore, coming close again with Kerry whose only crime was an interest in unconventional sports, after Rovian wedge tinkering, after a primary season which can only be described as Party Unity At Last, only one question remains, and it isn’t who is gonna be President, because OBAMA WINS THE PRESIDENCY IN A HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES might as well already be floating above this country, in giant, slowly revolving, glittery block letters in the sky.

So, from one Progressive to another, I only have this to ask you: exactly how hard are you going to party when America changes forever and Obama wins? How many days you taking off? Are you deep in party hats, liqour cabinet stocked, friends at the ready?

Because this one’s gonna be big.

Obama senses it. He’s already telling us to take the day off. Just another one of his good ideas, a mental health day or two is not a bad start to this. On second thought, better take the whole week off. Cash out your miles, pay the 75 dollar checked baggage fee and go somewhere fun, apparently that’s about how much money millions of people sent to Obama, think of it as the last donation of the best Election Year ever. You phone banked, you yard signed, you pounded the pavement, you emptied all of yours and your friends coin jars and for all that you sweat you deserve a party unlike anything else, much bigger and better than New Years.

You deserve it, America. The Bush Years sucked. We can say it now with new horror and marvel, Oh God, they really sucked! Maybe you deserved what you got with Bush, but as we head to the electoral equivalent of dragging Bush out into the town square and putting him in the stocks for anyone to throw an apple at, remember the schizophrenic, reward/punish psychology mechanism of the American psyche also demands that you get what you deserve with Obama; rationality, calm, bold action, respect from the world, a leader who can form a sentence.

You have all those new friends in red states, so just turn that fifty state strategy call list into a fifty state party plan, this can and should be bigger than ever. Much, much bigger than when 1999 turned to 2000, which really should have been better than it was, don’t you think? Remember when you thought bringing in the New Millennium doing yoga with all your friends would be enlightened fun? This would a good time to make up for that.

Analogous to the unbelievable 2002 Super bowl, or better yet the Red Sox in the 2004 World Series, when everything finally clicks, when CNN says the moon is definitely in the Seventh House, when Rasmussen says that Jupiter has aligned with Mars, when peace finally guides the planets, and love does throw caution to the wind and agrees to steer those stars, you better answer if you get a text you at twenty till midnight because trust me you’ll want to be somewhere really cool when this all comes down, whenever this dawning of the Age of Obama finally happens. When it really sinks in, when you finally exhale, you’ll ultimately realize how badly you’ve needed this bender. It’s gonna feel so good to shake all that Bush off you, Florida disenfranchisement, ghosts of racism, demons of slavery, heroes forever lost like Kennedy, MLK, Harvey Milk, even 911-you’re like a PTSD victim whose a bit afraid to have fun and believe something good can actually happen to you. Be guilt free. This party will be soul-cleansing, Joe the Plumber flushing, delicious.

Down the shot, kid. Down those Crown Royalies, just like Hillary did. You know she’s already moved onto something new, now so have you -and so all of us are. Forget turning the page, voters just doused the book with gasoline and threw it in the bonfire at Burning Man. Old books, bad juju.

America. Some of the worst worst is behind you. You got a whole new top-to-bottom look, and though your debts are high, your exes are killing themselves over losing you so badly. You got some new global prospects, some badly needed r-e-s-p-e-c-t, now you’re heading out to have a grand time with the best of your friends. Well, you deserve it baby.

You’re about to get your groove back.

2008 TYS.