Why The Left Won

So, just like 2008, Obama took an expected win and did even better than most people expected. Indeed, plenty of Democrats did, including Elizabeth Warren and Claire McCaskill, though in the latter case, it’s more a result of her opponent losing. This election is, I really do believe, more evidence that this country is finally moving into its future. It’s in fits and starts, and there are plenty of setbacks. The liberal coalition has way more people in it, but conservatives continue to be much better at voting. That means we are often in serious danger of having a minority that hates the majority rule the country. This election once again proves that liberals have the hearts and minds of this country, and we just need to move asses to the polls. Bob Moser’s take is exactly right:

Until Tuesday night, it remained possible that a Republican Party supported almost exclusively by conservative white people could win one last time and could then proceed to dismantle the social-welfare system so thoroughly over the next four or eight years that it would take decades to rebuild it again.

But Americans didn’t let it happen. The president ran, and won, on the most resonant pro-government message Democrats have offered in four decades. They did it by assembling the most diverse political coalition in the nation’s history—huge majorities of young people, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, women, and highly-educated whites.

The road ahead, for liberals, is long and hard. Our social safety net and investment in ordinary working people who actually run this country is in tatters, decimated by years of Republican efforts and Democrats letting (or even making) it happen, incorrectly believing that’s what the country wants. The Affordable Care Act was saved last night, and it’s got a lot of good stuff in it, but it needs to be built upon. (But if we didn’t pass it, we couldn’t build on it, something that a lot of people who attack Obama from the left fail to understand.) We need to continue to push for a public option and lowering of the Medicare age to 55. We need to push for more government spending to get this economy healthy again. We need serious legislation to address climate change, and we need to start investing in infrastructure to protect ourselves against future disasters like Hurricane Sandy. We need to get serious about liberalizing our immigration laws. We need to help expand access to abortion and contraception. There’s a lot that needs to be done.

But last night proved—and I hope Democrats are paying attention—that this is what the country wants. We’re not a bunch of conservatives who only vote for Democrats by accident. This is aliberal nation. It’s only going to become more liberal. Democrats can move to the left and they will be rewarded at the polls. After all, conservatives have been calling Obama a “socialist” for four years now, and the public basically responded by saying, “Sounds good to me!” We’re liberals. Time to start governing like it.