Living In Obamaland

Ah, Inaugural Eve, and all is quiet in this house....although D.C. seems to be rocking. As a Democrat in VERY Republican north Idaho, I just luxuriate in telling my Republican neighbors about how happy I am to be living in Obamaland. I can't help myself: the Republicans here are SOOO irritated, depressed and resigned to the overall world's end doom of this country. I pity them their ignorance and their blinded view. But I find it difficult to arouse any sympathy in myself.

Perhaps it's because at least one local county commissioner has boasted that he and the other incumbent commissioner, who had Democrats challenge them during the election, now have the "lists" of those who contributed to the Democrats' campaigns. I asked the person who told me this if the boast came because they planned revenge and the response was not what I expected, but should have, "Hell ya!" That's how it is up here. In politically divided families, spouses make the decision to not talk about politics at all, which, I must admit, is very foreign to me. However, if I want to make a difference as a Democrat, I guess I'd better try to understand these rigid, unyielding, and blindly biased ideologies. Wow, is that possible???

What really gets me is that Democrats are the supporters of the underdog, the downtrodden, the disenfranchised. So why don't why my Republican neighbors see this? Hmm, maybe I just answered my own question. Maybe they don't see themselves as the underdogs, maybe that's reserved for, and more equated to, people like the disabled, or immigrants, or "other races." And downtrodden? perhaps that's for the homeless, or immigrants, or welfare recipients of another "color." And disenfranchised, well, the Republican party disenfranchises no one who will support their wedge-issue, fundamentalist-in-word-but-not-deed, and anti-environmentalist, pro-union, abolish the right-to-work laws, and keep-moms-at-home ideologies. Wow, we Idaho Democrats certainly have our work cut out for us. I hope that the 50-State-Strategy doesn't end any time soon.....

So, on this pre-Obamaland eve, it is quiet in my house while we ponder how we can make change and what kinds of change an Obama administration might bring. I can promise this: I'll be keeping a close on the the Idaho Legislature and what kinds of frivolities they entertain as serious legislation.....