Thursday, November 6, 2008

Return to normalcy

Two days after the election, and normal life has returned pretty quickly. I'm still buzzing every time I repeat those three words in my head, but everything else has returned to the regular routine. The political pundits are already critiquing Obama's transition decisions. A part of me is disappointed, because America should really have some kind of national holiday to celebrate this achievement.

But part of me welcomes the normalcy. Obama's administration will, in most ways, be a normal presidency, with all the successes and failures and support and criticism that this entails. But that's the beauty of it. Constructivists say that norms and ideas become institutionalized by progressing through stages, from seeming impossible at first, then hard-to-believe, to eventually becoming taken-for-granted. When talking about our center-left bi-racial president becomes boring, I'll take that as a sign of progress.

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