One of the incidental pleasures of Barack Obama's victory is that it has made life more interesting - and I don't mean in the ironic sense of the Chinese curse, 'May you live in interesting times'. I just mean that it has disrupted the highly predictable lines into which political argument had everywhere settled, so that you knew not merely what various commentators had said last week but also what they were likely to say next week in the event of this or that development. Things are now shaken up a bit and the world has a refreshing look.
It is in this light that I see statements of incredulity at the fact of Obama's victory. Peter Singer says, 'Who would have believed, after the last two elections, that the American public was capable of electing such a candidate?' Slavoj Zizek asserts, 'In some sense, the unthinkable did happen, something that we really didn't believe could happen.'
Er... I make no boast and I claim no special credit, but I did in fact believe that Obama was going to win and I didn't find it at all unthinkable. That isn't a boast, because, first, I was in plenty of company, second, Obama had already won the Democratic nomination, third, the polls had been showing he was likely to win the election for some good while and, fourth, conventional dismissals of the possibilities of American democracy and of the level of intelligence of the US electorate reflected, mostly, the ignorance and prejudice of those responsible for them. To now make some kind of virtue out of such a failure of political foresight, though not impressive in itself, does add a little to the gaiety of nations. Especially when, alongside this celebration that the previously 'unthinkable' actually happened, we have the added ingredient of preparing to be disappointed. Impossible only yesterday and miraculous today, Obama's victory may turn out to amount to nothing much by the day after tomorrow. Of which more here. Interesting times.