As CNN projected Obama’s win and the results kept coming in, I started to realize the change in our country that was actually occurring.  And then as I began to read what people had to say about how Obama won last night, it began to dawn on me just how much change had occurred overnight in America.

The game that unfolded last night was not the same game that unfolded four years ago.  The Democrats that were battling the Republicans in 2004 were not the same people that stepped up to vote yesterday.  The electoral map changed significantly as red states went blue, but the issues that people are voting on and the people who are voting have changed significantly as well.  An article on Politico.com helped me realize the significant change that happened on election night:

If [Obama's] was the first 21st-century campaign, his victory was powered by a new face of America: made up of all ethnicities, hailing mostly from cities and suburbs, largely younger than 40, and among all income classes.

As they emphatically proved by obliterating the presidential color line, many of these voters are not guided by traditional cultural attachment to race, religion or region.

What makes his victory so resounding, and so daunting for Republicans, was that he combined support from African-Americans, Jews and young whites with other key groups. He also reversed Bush’s advances with Hispanic voters.

Further, and even more worrisome for the GOP, Obama was dominant among self-described “moderate” voters, a 60 percent swath of Americans larger than either self-described liberals or conservatives.

This 21st-century coalition allowed Obama to blow out McCain in cities and suburbs where Bush had narrowly won or lost by smaller margins four years ago, and to pull off narrow wins in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Indiana and Ohio.

He ran up huge margins in heavily-black cities and counties in each but was able to edge out McCain thanks to big wins in populous, racially mixed localities such as Virginia’s Fairfax County (59 percent), North Carolina’s Mecklenburg County (62 percent), Florida’s Orange County (59 percent), Indiana’s Marion County (64 percent) and Ohio’s Franklin County (59 percent).

The coalition underscored the theme that made Obama famous in 2004, and one that he returned to in his victory speech, citing his support from “young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled — Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of red states and blue states: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.”

The Obama campaign’s strategy, in hindsight, was remarkably genius for realizing that, as Obama put it many times, “our moment is now.”  The man behind the curtain, Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod, must have seen or guessed that the campaign could tap into a “new america” in order to get out the vote for Obama.  This “new america” allowed the campaign to play a larger and more ambitious map than other Democratic candidates.

The change that came about yesterday is thus more than a significant (although very important) power shift in Washington.  Its about the new face of America.  Its about the end of an era in America, and the beginning of a new one.  Another article on Politico.com pointed this out:

The 1960s are over — finally

For two generations, American politics has been dominated by issues and personalities that were shaped by the ideological and cultural conflicts of the Vietnam era.

The rest of the population may have been bored stiff, but the baby boomers continued their remorseless argument, as evidenced by Bush and Kerry partisans quarreling over Swift Boats and National Guard service in 2004.

Obama had not yet reached adolescence in the 1960s. He seems little interested in the cultural conflicts that preoccupy baby boomers. The fact that he admitted to using cocaine was hardly a factor in this election.

And this young president-elect exerted powerful appeal over even younger voters. They favored Obama by 34 percentage points, 66 percent to 32 percent — a trend with huge potential to echo for years to come.

Guns, God and gays will not disappear from our politics. But they are diminished as electoral weapons as the country confronts a new generation of disputes: global warming, mortgage meltdowns and the detention of terrorism suspects, to name a few.

Another genius foresight by the Obama campaign was to recognize that America was done with the 1960s.

Before Obama was elected last night, I remember the YouTube vidoes and other pro-Obama media in which people said that this was the first time they felt like someone in American politics was going to actually represent them; that this was the first time they felt like someone was going to be their president, the president of the people.  Not until late last night did I realize how fundamentally true that statement is to the America that I woke up in this morning.

She left on Wednesday morning, leaving me a “thank you” card on my desk.  Along with a gift certificate to dunkin donuts, she wrote a note which included a sentence about how her “patriotism was blooming like the violets that Illinois holds so dear.”  This sentence got me thinking about patriotism and the way that my generation thinks about the U.S.

Growing up as a white liberal in the 90’s and 00’s, I began to think about American politics at a time when it was a general rule among my parents, my parents’ friends, my friends, and my friends’ parents that patriotism was not a good thing.  If anything, America was a place, at least politically, that we were very ashamed of.  Patriotism was a sort of bad word, and it still brings to mind pictures of red-necked hillbillies sitting on their front porches with guns in their hands as an American flag flies on the front lawn.  The Bush presidency perpetuated this of course, but I think, for my parents, it was definitely a much more deep-seated view of American politics that began in the 60’s and with the Vietnam war.

Of course I got my first taste of political bias from my parents, they were the ones who taught me about politics first, and through their view on America I came to my own.  And so my parental-influenced view was one in which we felt ashamed for the wars our country was waging, for the laws our government was passing, and for the stupidity of our president.  It was not “cool” to like America.  It wasn’t “in” to talk about America in any sort of flattering way.  The view that my parents passed on was one in which we were smart, liberal people living in a stupid, conservative world.  “We” as a community were smart, progressive, forward-thinking, environmentally friendly.  “We” as a nation were stupid, reactionary, gas-guzzling, wasteful, and un-resourceful.

Of course, these views are still held, some of them by myself as well.  But I am referring to these views in the past tense because of a very recent rise in patriotism (the good kind) among liberals again.  A major force to this new view is, as you might guess, Barack Obama.  Obama and Hillary Clinton have changed the tides of liberal cynicism and political depression among liberals.  Now, for the first time in a long time, we can point at our politicians and say “Look!  Here are some people who don’t like the war in Iraq!  Here is someone who represents the America we want, the America we may already know!  Here is someone who all of Europe likes and who will better our image globally (and internally)!”

This new kind of Patriotism is something that many people, especially young people, are flocking towards.  It is a new found love for the country in which we live, it is a new found hope in American politics.  But it doesn’t necessarily fit into the “old” definition of patriotism:

New Oxford American Dictionary:
patriot |ˈpātrēət|
noun
1.  A person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors.

So maybe we don’t yet “vigorously” support our country, but we love it now when we used to be ashamed of it.  And maybe we aren’t prepared to defend it yet, but maybe we will argue with someone who calls Americans stupid, rather than nod sadly and say, “yeah, we are.”

I was watching a video on Politico the other day, and they were talking about Charlie Black’s political mistake, when he said that a terrorist attack inside the U.S. would provide a big advantage for John McCain in the election.  They were talking about how this was one of the mistakes politicians sometimes make when they accidentally speak the truth.  Of course he had to retract his comment, but what people are talking about is not how horrible it is that he said that, but that in reality, its the truth.  I think the same thing is true for that “political mistake” when Michelle Obama said that this was the first time she was proud of her country.  Of course she had to retract the remark, and she is still fighting to display a sense of patriotism because of that remark, but I think, especially for all of the liberals who were at the event at which she said the remark, what she said is ultimately true.  For people of my parents’ generation, and for people of my generation, this is the first time that we look at America and think “I’m kinda proud of this.”

So when my friend and I explored Chicago the other day, we explored it with a new pride.  We looked around and thought “I’m glad I live in this country.”  Our patriotism bloomed with each new neighborhood we visited, and with each new idea we heard.  I guess patriotism is the new black.