Yet we continue to have hope, and millions of us will go to the polls in November and cast our ballots having faith that it will make a difference. For African-American voters, 85 percent believe this election will be a historical moment for them and their children, the surmounting of one of the last barriers to their full participation in the American Dream.
Barack Obama has raised the hopes of many that the stupidity of the Bush Administration will end; that he will be able to restore confidence in the government’s ability to protect our livelihoods, our freedoms, and our environment; that he will end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and that he will halt America’s march toward unrestrained militarism.
The failure of Barack Obama to be elected in November will be more, far more than a betrayal of the hopes, dreams and aspirations of millions of Americans. There is a great risk that the inauguration of his opponent will sound the death knell of America’s free and democratic society, and the Liberty Bell and all it has symbolized will be tarnished and forgotten.
Is John McCain capable of presiding over the United States government? A man so unintelligent, incurious, and unmotivated as to finish at the bottom of his Naval Academy class? A man so uncaring and disloyal that he continues to deny the existence of more than 600 other living POWs he left behind in Vietnam? A man of class privilege who has never had to work a real job in his life? A man so rich that he doesn’t even know how many homes he owns? A man so senile that he doesn’t know that Spain is an ally of the United States? A man so stupid that he chooses an unqualified, gun-toting, religious fanatic to be his vice president, even though the chances are he may not live out the term of his office? Most dangerously, a man with such barely suppressed rage that he regularly loses control of his explosive temper with little or no provocation?
What will McCain do if he becomes president next January? Will he surrender the extraordinary powers that George Bush and Dick Cheney have seized over the past eight years? Or will he use them in exactly the way he says he will – militarily to "defend" the country? From whom? From terrorists, or from other Americans who disagree with him?
What will the millions of disenfranchised, unemployed, homeless, sick and hungry, angry – yes very angry, and very well armed people, who have seen their dreams turn into nightmares, do? Go away quietly and not make a disturbance? Not on your life! Not on the lives of any of us.
The dozens of violent urban riots that burned through our cities in the Sixties and Seventies ended when disadvantaged people began to improve their lives and to get a bite of the American pie. The last two major riots, Miami in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1992, resulted from circumstances that should be instructive. They both resulted from the unpunished beatings of black men by white police officers.
The cities across America will not burn because an old white man fairly defeats a young black man. No, they will explode because the political, cultural and financial elite will have stolen another election from the poor and disenfranchised.
It will be ugly. It will be violent. Police helicopters will be equipped with machine guns and crowds will be mowed down without the legal benefit of arrest or trial. Military might will rule and the light of American freedom and democracy will be extinguished.
Or, the resilient strength of democracy may prevail. If elected, Barack Obama will have the opportunity to achieve the true greatness in times of crisis that has been afforded only a few of America’s presidents since the founding of our nation, perhaps only Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.
Will Obama be able to rise to the challenge, master the issues, articulate policies, display the richness of his intellect, and reveal the depth of his soul? We will never know unless we give him the chance.
The economy will not magically improve and the violence will not suddenly subside. To the contrary, the economy will get worse before it gets better, millions of bitter people made even more hateful by the disgusting and violence-inciting campaign conducted by the McCain-Rovian gang of political cutthroats will blame the new president for their plight.
Obama may become the most hated person in the country, and the risk is great that he will suffer the fate of Lincoln.
With the 2008 election becoming a referendum on the religions of the candidates and the faith of the electorate, perhaps we should all pray for Divine guidance and the wisdom of the ages to help us survive the extraordinary crisis that will surely confront our next president and those of us who elect him.
