Four years ago, there were a lot of people who believed that Obama’s election heralded a material change in American politics. I would argue that it’s this one that’s the actual signifier of that change. Look: It’s one thing for a black man with a name like “Barack Hussein Obama” to win an election after eight years of a GOP presidency that culminated with two wars and the greatest economic crisis in eighty years. It’s another thing entirely for that same black man with a funny name to win a second term in the face of an unimpressive economic recovery and the full, uncontained and often unreasoned fury from his opposing side. For better or worse, Americans view one-term presidents as losers or historical flukes: See Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George HW Bush as examples of this. Barack Obama, whatever else you will say about him — and many will — can no longer be categorized as a loser or a fluke. He won both the electoral and over 50% of the popular vote twice, which is the first time since Reagan that any president managed that.
See, this is why you should let professional writers say things. I felt that Obama’s re-election would be a truer test of American voters’ willingness to ignore skin color and judge a candidate based on performance and competence, but I couldn’t possibly have said it as well as the esteemed Mr. Scalzi did.