IRC-Galleria

... since the US election results became clear Wednesday morning here... people have been coming up to me congratulating me on the results... even people I've never even met, who hear me talking to someone in public, have come up to me to talk about the election.

Good thing I didn't vote for McCain, eh?

Anyway. I didn't vote this time out. There was no candidate that really stuck out to me. Yes, I wanted Obama to win more than I wanted McCain to win, but my party really is the Libertarian party (I've been a financial contributor to them in the past), and their candidate for President this time out was someone I don't believe in (he was a Congressman from the state I lived in when I lived in the US and... I can't support him). I don't believe in voting for "the least worst candidate," or feeling confined to the US' de facto two-party system. I vote for who I believe in, even if they belong to an insignificant party with no chance to even get publicity, let alone victory, in an election. No such candidate stood out to me this year.

But for the past three years, I've had numerous people speak to me about how awful America had become, how disgusting George Bush is (good thing I never voted for him, haha), and similar things. Amazing that feelings run so high about such things to approach a complete stanger like that, and it's certainly odd from an American perspective seeing so many people interested in a foreign election.

But the reaction - to me, of all people, in Finland, of all places - these past two days really made clear something that I'd known for some years now... America somewhere along the way, in my lifetime, became the bad guy. And Obama, for all the things he's going to do that I disagree with (just like Bush had done a great many things that I disagree with, with my greatest concern being his domestic policies, and just like McCain would have done things that I disagree with), now has people believing that the US can be the "good guy" again... a lot of Americans are more proud of their country than they've been for a long, long time, and everywhere on the internet that I frequent, people the world over are breathing a sigh of relief. And strangers are approaching me on the street to congratulate me.

It's a weird feeling. But a good one. I'm very glad Obama won. Right now, it's possible to believe that America is (or can be, at least) what America has always said it was supposed to be, without having to ignore a great many things in order to have that belief.