South Carolina Results Indicate a Paradigm Shift

Last night Barack Obama received 56%, Hillary Clinton 27%, and John Edwards 18% of the votes in the South Carolina primary. Finally, a return illustrating just how inaccurate the mainstream media was regarding this race, which was, until recently, widely presented to be: Rudy vs. Hillary. That secnario is changing rapidly, in large part because of the vast negative views America has about Team Clinton.

A Paradigm Shift

Once upon a time in the 60s young people, many of them floating on a haze of transcendental dreams, cried, "Peace," "Love," and "Stop the War." They were going to change the world, reach across racial boundaries, embrace the sick, care for the poor, love the loveless. But then, after Charlie Manson’s gang ruined the party, they exchanged their bell bottoms for glittery disco outfits, safe jobs, 401ks, suburban homes, refi’s, European cars, and a bit of Ayn Rand’s Me First happiness. many of you know them as your parents. Tom Wolfe made a fortune writing about their excesses.

Today, many of those people, clinging to a vestigial sense of liberalism support Team Clinton. On the other hand, without much fanfare, a new generation with an ability to smell the snake oil for what it is now looks for a much different, more realistically humane world. They aren’t high on the ephemeral aims that inspired the hippies; they’re more skeptical, yet not entirely cynical. They’ve been misunderstood, mislabeled, and mishandled by society and big business. But they’re not bitter or jaded; they still have hope. And there’s also a new generation of African Americans, many of them relatively young, who are similarly disposed. In SC they didn’t immediately align themselves with tribal unity but looked long and hard at the candidates, at times reluctant to vote for their own kind because it seemed wrong.

Together these factions - call them the Neoidealists - have united all across America to bolster Obama’s candidacy. Much has been made of the troops fighting the "War on Terror" and though it’s an illegal, immoral war, their devotion to America is remarkable and their sense of sacrifice commendable. But so too, these new factions fighting to make America a more humane society, and the world a better place in the process, should not be overlooked either. They’ve changed the zeitgeist.

There is the prospect of a major shift in the air akin to the sense that reverberated when MLK, Jr. spoke, unrelated to race. It’s the smell of unity. It’s the promise of peace and stability through pursuing common interests. It’s the sense that millions of Muslims, looking for a better life, won’t turn their backs on America and democracy because of all the "smart bombs" and depleted uranium dropped on their lands. It’s the hope that what happened in Selma in the 60s can happen on the world stage among factions currently in conflict. It’s the possibility that the Democrats could acknowledge the truly valuable and viable ideas put forth by the opposition without routinely resorting to demonization.

It’s the dream that Americans who have successfully integrated all creeds, all ethnic backgrounds, colliding political perspectives - in a way that’s never been done in the history of the world - can help the world do the same. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime - maybe the nation’s lifetime - to choose a candidate representative of the highest principles of American life - community, democracy, equality, and commonsensical wisdom - that will shine as a beacon for all the world to see that, indeed, America has not lost its way. America is still a truly great nation. And that the young generation coming along is fully prepared to accept the challenges of a conflicted world. Hats off to everyone who has kept this possibility possible.

From a traditionally progressive or liberal point of view this may not be the ideal outcome. Unfortunately the aims of Kucinich and Paul have been mostly overlooked in general. But it’s a considearbly better direction than the one Team Clinton and their Third Way politics are relying on as their compass.