My Obama Dividend

11/19/08

I’m ready to cash in whatever is left of my political engagement and start enjoying my Obama dividend.

I’m not talking about anything like the “peace dividend” of the early 1990’s when we stopped wasting tons of dough preparing for Armageddon vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. I’m not talking about money at all, although the thing has great value.

I’m talking about the great gobs of my own time I will be able to reclaim now that I no longer have to spend so much of my waking life in a panic, anticipating the next cliff the Bush administration might take us over. I have fretted and fumed for eight years. Many have done much more, but I have done my share of donating and marching, campaigning and canvassing, bitching and moaning. Now I am done.

Times are tough and are going to get tougher. My life may start to unravel financially, as will the lives of many friends and family. But I feel carefree, almost weightless.

I know that the ship of state will be in the hands of well- motivated men and women who are capable, smart, savvy and practical. I know a lot of smart people but I relish the thought that no one I know is anywhere near smart enough to get tapped for a position in the Obama administration. Those people are wicked smaaaht. So get out of the way and let them at it. I plan to kick back and free load off their brilliance and efficiency.

Of course, I reserve the right to bitch from the peanut gallery. I am an American.

My own small part of the cresting catastrophe will be enough for me to handle. I have two time-bomb mortgages and enough credit card debt to gag Donald Trump. If I can just save my own ass I will be doing my part for my country. No thanks necessary. You’re welcome. Don’t mention it.

Today came the news I was looking for to confirm me in my new complaisance. Obama gave an address yesterday in which he said something he was too careful to emphasize during the campaign. Basically, he said he was going full speed ahead on his climate change agenda, regardless of the economic conditions. With his head in the right place on saving the planet and with Al Gore watching him for any signs of backsliding, I feel comfortable checking out. See you in 2012. Make that 2016.

Since the election, I have truly appreciated the sentiments of those who exhorted us to remain engaged and energized. The Obama Campaign, we are told, was not just a run for a political office. It was a genuine mass movement for progress on a whole range of shared aspirations and hopes to make this a better country. Barack still needs us we are told. Everyone can find a way to help make this a better America.

I have always believed that I owe my country the greatest possible measure of my devotion. If I don’t have what it takes to teach under-privileged kids to read in some terrible urban school, then I can send out letters and make phone calls and maybe knock on doors to encourage other people, younger and more energetic than myself, to teach those kids in those lousy schools. And if I don’t have the stationary to send out those letters, or maybe my knuckles are raw from too much door knocking, or perhaps after too much phone canvassing I’ve developed a phobia; then I can still sit quietly in the corner with my tongue sticking out so somebody else can use it to moisten the stamps to put on those letters that persuade those tragically enthusiastic young American Heroes to teach those kids in those lousy schools. What I’m saying is we all have a role to play. Only my role is to roll.

My country needs me all right. It needs me to take a hike, away from the noise of the public square toward the silent sacred space of my own life. My country needs me to lower my hyper-inflated expectations, to learn to make do and enjoy things pretty much the way they are. My country calls me in a clear persistent voice, the voice of destiny: “Don’t take up too much space. Don’t demand too many goodies for yourself.” My country needs me to be quietly OK.

I am overjoyed that I have lived long enough to find myself in a nation in which 53% of the people are able to recognize the earnest solid virtue of a Barack Obama. I will learn to trust and feel secure in his leadership.

Meanwhile, I will do my part to restore the dignity and sanctity of private life. Someone has to do it. I will cultivate the subtle art of wasting time. I will fish. I will fiddle around. I will fascinate myself. I will have my hands full.