Whatever Happens Today

It's looking like we can expect an Obama victory.

But even if Romney wins, we've had a good four years, and the campaign has brought out some good things.

Bloggers, as usual, were ahead of the curve, but the New York Times and the Washington Post excoriated Romney's lies and refusal to release his income tax returns. Our two newspapers of record only brought themselves to a principled editorial stand during this last week of the campaign, but we can hope that something of that sticks.

News coverage in general has slowly moved away from "both sides do it" to a recognition that one of our political parties has gone off the rails and has been willing to damage the United States if its leaders think that will help their party's electoral prospects. That party has also been willing to back the most misogynistic and science-misinformed of its members in the hopes of getting an "R" on one more House or Senate seat. Again, the news profession has moved only slightly toward reporting the real world, but we applaud them and hope they will continue.

That political party is in the throes of belief that it can order the universe to its preferences, back to the thrilling days of yesteryear, when men were men, America was tops, and, well, we won't point out that the top marginal tax rate in the 1950s, under Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, was 94%. Politics does not have the same capability as science for jerking out the illusion rug from under one's feet, but we can hope that a ringing defeat today will supply another incremental change.

I've said before that President Obama has been using community organizing techniques to move the country toward the realization that we all are responsible for how we're governed, and there have been gains there too. It's subjective, but I think I'm seeing a change in people's willingness to take responsibility in those areas.

Yes, I hope that Nate Silver and the other quantitative predictors are right. But if they're wrong, I hope that movement continues in these directions.

Cross-posted at The Agonist.