Uhm, other than crushing in the right in elections for the most powerful public offices in the world... ?
Ahem, I think the skepticism is highly warranted, if not the defeatist cynicism of the permanently-defeated. Obama's economic advisors are straight out of the clinton playbook, worryingly. The first few months of the administration will be an important time for those who want to make measurable, material changes to their world to be involved in pressure on the new prez. Will institutions that are mass employers, like states, auto companies and airlines get the same assistance the speculators got? Will some meaningful form of healthcare, labor law reform, Iraq withdrawal and green energy be proposed and won? If Obama comes along, then he's our new FDR and we can ride with him into a new political space where the left may mean something outside of the sects, subcultures and academes where it has been bunkered down in recent years. And if he doesn't come along, then we have to bring him along, by any means necessary. Probably it will be some mixture of the two. I intend to be as involved as pressuring and protesting Obama as I was in trying to elect him and defeat the right, and millions of working people will too. All I know is, this is the first time in my life I've voted for a winner, and if he passes something like his proposed healthcare plan then I would probably sign up for it, which would make it one of those rare times when the candidate you support in hopes of specific material reform not only wins but passes social legislation that benefits you personally. I am very into this idea.
But I feel like bigger stuff is on the horizon still. The recession has barely begun. It will be very bad, probably worse than anything in the lifetimes of most of the folks who voted for 'change' last week. If genuine lived material scarcity imposes itself on this generation, what sort of politics may emerge out of that? I fear expansions of the Palin-style right, of anti-immigrant hysteria, of Ron paul-wierdness, but I think just as likely is a move left for lots of people. Will we be ready?