Yes We Can? Nope....WE JUST DID!!!

Did they actually do it? Americans? The Americans who elected George W. Bush twice? The Americans who I have vilified as imperialists since I can remember knowing what "imperialist" meant? I find myself sitting here puzzled. They did it? America actually did it? Barack Obama is actually the 44th President of the United States?
I'm so used to major historical events involving the United States either being deplorable (Iraq) tragic (September 11th) or both (Katrina). But it feels like for the first time in my life, America truly rose to the occasion. They actually did it.
Americans got fed up with dishonest politicians. They got fed up of voting for the guy they'd want to have a beer with. They decided that the President of the Most Powerful Country in the World should be someone exceptional. And then they actually went ahead and voted en masse for the first African American President in history.
It almost doesn't make any sense. I've wanted to believe it was going to happen. I've told myself over and over again that it was going to happen. But it's sort of like being a girl who's dating a guy who constantly promises to make her dinner but always cancels....you get used to being disappointed. However, for the first time in my life, America delivered on its promise.
I think what makes it so special is that it feels as if my generation got the ball rolling on this one. We are so often criticized for being apolitical, but I think this is our victory. It was Facebook groups and Youtube videos that really made people stand up and pay attention to Obama. These are the tools of my generation. Would anyone have been able to watch Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention if it weren’t for people posting it all over the internet? How many students heard Obama’s name for the first time two years ago and then became inspired by his passionate words through Youtube?
These tools are different from organizing student protests like they did in the 1960s, but perhaps they are just as effective. Huge numbers of protesters showed up in 1999 to voice their discontent against the World Trade Organization in Seattle. In 2001, I joined tens of thousands of protesters in Quebec City to march the streets in protest of the Free Trade Area of the America. But these protests ultimately did not work. How could they inspire anybody when the mainstream media only showed the violent confrontations with riot police?
I genuinely believe that it was in response to this biased reporting that my generation turned to new-media. Through the Internet, we were able to communicate without the filters of CNN or FoxNews.
If you look at new-media in the last decade, it has evolved into a pretty powerful political instrument. Even "An Inconvenient Truth" was really nothing more than a Powerpoint Presentation. Al Gore is obviously not of my generation, but he represents the same phenomenon. When he could not spread his message through the conventional media, he informed the world about global warming through another outlet.
Between Youtube, Facebook, and the blogging community, I feel that the political left have become organized and are able to spread their message. Could Obama's campaign have happened four years ago? Or would FoxNews and CNN been too powerful? In 2004, John Kerry so brutally depicted as a coward in spite of being a war-hero with over 30 years of experience fighting for progressive social policies in the American Senate. Young Americans were not going to let that happen again. Bill O’Reilly’s criticisms of Barack Obama’s speeches and policies lost their power when millions of people are seeing those speeches first hand on Youtube.
It would be an exaggeration to claim that young people are entirely responsible for Obama’s presidency. But to say that we got the ball rolling is completely fair. His inspired words were delivered to computer screens around the country by a media-form that young people created and have used to give our political beliefs a voice.
The gut-wrenching disappointment of the 2004 election feels so long ago right now. I still am having a hard time believing this actually happened. Last night, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States of America. They did it. They actually did it!!!