In 2007, things looked pretty bleak for America, bleaker than anyone could remember. President George W. Bush Jr. just presided over eight years of crusader like conquest of the middle east. He also oversaw what was at the time the worst economic crash since the great depression. Congress was pretty much a joke as well. The law making body seemed complete in line with the president, despite some pretty inspiring speeches about challenging the status quo. So it was with great excitement and relief that young people and old people, white people and black people, immigrants and citizens, Christians and Muslims, rich people and poor people, and those from all backgrounds flocked to the polls in 2008 to elect a candidate who would fix everything, a candidate who stoop up for change. That candidate was Barrack Hussein Obama, and it appeared, at the time, that he was everything that George W. Bush was not. Obama did not boast about his religious preferences as Bush the younger did. He was not prone to the same gaffes as his predecessor. He was not always talking about terrorism, but instead talked about real policies to change the landscape of America. He was going to take action to save America from the path to embarrassment it had been sent upon by the radical right. And so it was that Barrack Hussein Obama was sworn in as president in 2008. People wept. They hugged. They cheered. They applauded. Great joy spread amongst the land. It was as if something wonderful had been accomplished. It was as if we finally did something in America in the technocratic era. Finally, change had come to America. But it was not the change that everyone expected. Instead what happened was a new age of complicity and weakness. It was as if, after Barrack Obama had been elected president, the populous fell into a great stupor that I had never witnessed before. It was as if everyone had fallen in love with the idea of a black president. It was as if people were content with anything this man did. He waged the same wars. He saved the rich and let the poor starve as his predecessor had. He refused to even discuss a more progressive form of welfare that would actually get people out of poverty as his predecessor did. He even jump, skipped and hopped on down to the police union and gave them a nice pat on the ass, as his predecessor did. He was in bed with the pentagon and the elite bankers and the health insurance companies as his predecessor had been. Yet, for some odd reason, people were happier. They felt as if this man was actually doing something for them. But absolutely none of these promises were kept. Even the healthcare was not at all ambitious, and actually ended up being a watered down version of the bill the Clintons proposed in the nineties. This should have been a tremendous letdown, but many people refused to recognize it. And, even scarier, many of us who did recognize it went absolutely insane and defected to far right modes of thought. I mean, if it's everyman for himself in America, if the so-called liberals will not even fight for the poor, then why not just go ahead and be a dick conservative so you can get ahead in the world? Why not just become the thing you hate? Why not get revenge on the people who lied to you? Some people will never ask themselves these questions because they lead lives of comfort and comfort makes you ignorant to the storm that is coming, the war that is brewing, the end that is beginning. You can never get comfortable in American politics. You can never trust your candidate too much. It makes you look pompous and uninformed when you say, "well, at least he's better than the last guy." What if the people voting are not trying to be better? What if they are addicted to making things worse? You have to take action to save people from their own bad choices. You cannot sit aside and watch the world burn because the flames will eventually spread to your house too. In politics, you go big or you go home.