Obama’s Win: An Inflection Point

By Lawrence D. Bobo, The Root

Here’s why the president’s re-election is more important than his win in 2008

This election was not about Hurricane Sandy. It was not about birth certificates. It was not about who believed most in America.

The 2012 presidential election was about the direction of social policy across a whole host of critical issues: the economy, taxes, education, health care, the rights of women, the standing of immigrants and the position of gays and lesbians. It was a choice between trying to hold desperately on to a past that is clearly gone or moving confidently into an uncertain future that we all know, in our hearts of hearts, is the destiny of a great, but changing, nation. It was a vote in favor of Barack Obama and what he has been trying to do for four years.

History just took a decisive turn, I believe. The full meaning and breadth of that turn will depend on continuing the work this electoral outcome symbolizes.

This is why the Karl Roves, the Grover Norquists and the lunatic Donald Trumps of American politics are apoplectic in rage and disbelief. They do not want to accept that the basic makeup of the electorate does not and will not again sustain their agenda and their claims to power. People who have different outlooks and who look different from them are now going to set America’s policy agenda.

Read the full analysis here.

We can now look back on our first Black president.

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