A country with a terrible history of racism and racist violence has elected a black president. Looking at the ecstatic crowd in Grant Park, Chicago, the moment Obama was declared the winner, one sees with vivid force that many Americans haven't had much of a chance to feel proud of their country for a long time. Young Americans, particularly blacks and Hispanics, yearned for all the affirmations that the Obama campaign has represented, and their joy was manifest and moving in Grant Park, Times Square and other venues across the country.

Equally striking was the rapidity with which one saw a new zeitgeist flaring into life on all the networks--America is a country eager to stand tall once more in the eyes of other nations. Not the nation of stolen elections, of Guantánamo, of renditions, but the nation electing a black man to the White House. The commentators fell over themselves to repeat the message that America is showing a new face to the world.

What sort of face? I was struck by the first reaction to Obama's victory speech by Rachel Maddow, MSNBC's rapidly rising left-liberal star, who seized on this line: "A new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down: we will defeat you."

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.