Requiem for my hope

It's the morning after the mid-term elections in the US, so I thought I would give a few gut shot reactions:

• The wave of Republican wins was expected, but I had hoped that the people who engaged with politics and community leadership in 2008 would stay invested in protecting the disenfranchised,  the poor and an optimistic view of the US future. I know OFA (the former Obama campaign) knocked on a lot of doors and made a lot of phone calls, but I find myself wondering how much 2008 engagement they have retained.
  
• Could have been worse: Democrats maintaining a majority in the Senate will likely help to maintain some of the progress the US has made. At the same time, and I have to check this, I'm not sure there's an African American in the senate anymore.
  
• Watching Republican victory speeches and candidate remarks after they won last night was completely disheartening. They claimed, among other things: A mandate to repeal health care reform, a desire to return spending to 2008 levels, that taxing the wealthiest 2% of Americans at 1996 levels will cause another depression, that Welfare should be rolled back, etc.
  
• More than anything else, I don't see the leadership that inspired me in 2007-2008. I didn't get the sense that democrats/progressives were effectively messaging that they prevented a depression, protected the sick, elderly and poor, and are on their way to making major strides in protecting the environment and dealing with the immigration problems.
  
• It seems like the best the democrats can hope for now is to find common issue with tea party congresspeople (maybe election finance reform? parts of immigration?) and take action on those. I don't see the way forward for the progressive agenda.

And why does this matter....

The average Canadian is likely exposed to American leadership more than Canadian leadership. What happens in the states affects how our perpetual next generation of leaders thinks. This election demonstrated that saying 'government bad' is a clear path to get elected. There was no story built in this election about neighbors getting together to say they believe in hope, optimism and that they can make a constructive difference. The scariest graphic I saw last night was a CNN analysis of social media, where all but two states demonstrated they were voting against something vs. for something.

We need to find leaders who give us reasons to be for something.