Now what?

I’m torn, folks; I’m torn. For the last eight years, beginning with a crushing heartbreak in 2000 — Democrats, liberals and progressives, especially those as virulent as I am — have been marginalized and ignored. And we liberals have botched all our chances in the last eight years to make any kind of difference. We’ve screamed and screamed, or have become apathetic and closed off. Either way, we’re not used to getting what we want.

Last night, we got what we wanted… and now I don’t now know what to do.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m happy that I’m happy that Barack Obama won the presidential election. I don’t want to be perpetually unhappy with my country, though that is what’s cool. Up until Barack Obama came along, liking your country, and believing in it, was not cool. Last night, the country elected a rock star, a Beatle, and last night he played our favorite song.

But now what? I haven’t been this excited about anything since The Dark Knight. As soon as I saw the Caped Crusader in Imax, I began checking CNN.com daily for polling results. I need a new website. I still need something to be excited about. Now what?

Batman 3 is at least two years away. The country had this big, beautiful cathartic moment last night.

Now what?

Contentedness, happiness makes for bad art. Now there is nothing to dissent against. No signs to hold up, no mantras to scream at the other side.

I can’t remember whether it was Confucius, or Winston Churchill, or the back of a Snapple cap, but I once read that You should never be content with your government. If you are, you’re not looking hard enough, or, you’re not paying attention or something like that.

There is work to do. And there will be “buyer’s remorse” from many voters on the Obama bandwagon who awakened today, and will awaken on January 21 and find that the country will be, for the most part, the same.

“What do you mean? We elected Obama. Now the country is fixed. Good job, everybody?”

Obama and the American people will have to work to change the country from what it’s become into what we want it to be. Us, too. You hear that? Us, too. We’re not to give Obama the keys to the car and hope he doesn’t scratch it in the next four years. We saw how that turned out with George W. Bush. We have to keep voting, to keep believing and to keep screaming our mantra to make sure our voices will be heard.

We have to tear down the gold-encrusted poop statue that has risen high in Washington, and we need to make sure our mission is accomplished before we hang any banners, or else we’re no better than the cowboy we just ousted.

(By the by, if you’re one of the 20 percent of Americans that approve of the job President Bush has done, I don’t apologize for this. You’re wrong. But, you probably aren’t able to read anyway, so I’m safe.)

McCain on the other hand, would have been a better president than his Republican predecessor, because for all of the issues that we liberals disagreed with him upon, there was never any doubt, in my mind at least, that he loves this country. He loves this country. It was Governor Palin and the political despot behind her, pulling the strings, who really frightened me because she, like Bush, like Mitt Romney, smacked of smarminess, self aggrandizement and two Americas, and I wouldn’t trust any of them to house sit my country.

So, we get to congratulate ourselves and take the rest of the week off. Barack, you can take a couple weeks, but then we have to saddle up and ride again. We have to help push this country forward. We once led in social progress, thought and innovation, and now we are limping to catch up. Three states outlawed gay marriage last night. Arkansas put a ban on gay couples even attempting to adopt children. The country is not fixed. Friends and siblings are still dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our new president is going have to fight harder than any other against those that want to see him dead, and want to prove that America is just as backwoods as the rest of the world thinks she is. We still have 76 days of this president who could do all he can to void our warranty. We can’t snooze. We can’t get complacent. We must continuously knock on Barack Obama’s door, after his accomplishments and his failures and say, “Mr. President, now what?”