[hope]

This is the first time that an election result has actually left me physically injured. I woke up Wednesday morning with a horrific pain in my neck and left shoulder. By evening I had some visible swelling and my left side was obviously drooping when I looked at myself in the mirror (and not just because my apartment is a little slanty). I hadn’t done any heavy lifting, so I can only assume I was wounded by some combination of jaw-clenching stress and sleeping funny.It’s a bit better today, though. I’ll get better. We’ll get better. Last night I got an email from Moveon.org, which they have up on their website, and it made me feel hopeful.

This last election was obviously a dreadful failure for Democrats and liberals, but there were also some important developments that could be the seeds of a more successful future. Let’s make this our Goldwater ’64: a defeat in the present that revitalizes our side of the political spectrum and lays the groundwork for a generation of victories ahead. Fuck it: no more triangulation, no more DLC Liebermanesque Republicanism lite. We move right, they move further right and kick our asses. We need to go back to what the left has always been about: fairness, justice, and living up to our personal and collective responsibilities. And we need to fight hard.

I know, this is less a strategy than just an exhortation to come up with a strategy. But this country has drifted right for thirty years — we’re now well to the right of Nixon and Eisenhower on many issues — and it’s time to push it back the other way. I don’t know how, but we have to.