Keeping Score

It seems fatuous – presumptuous, even – to add any words to the deluge already occasioned by the election results. But perhaps a bit like wanting to linger a moment more to appreciate a particular scene, or fix it more firmly in memory, it seems worth the effort, however inconsequential.

At some rarely plunged level, I think we’ve seen a too-rare triumph of hope over fear. No one can say with any certainty what will come of the new political ordering. The tallying of the damage done in the past eight years alone will be a massive undertaking. What does seem certain, though, if just for this one brief to-be-savored instant, is that acknowledgment of the sheer overwhelming, pervasive wrongness of our past course has at last been sufficient to prompt a widespread, active consideration of meaningful remediation.

The ancestry of the President-elect and his wildly improbable life story by themselves suggest the country is making progress — however fitful and painfully languid -- in overcoming its tragic history of racial prejudice. Stripped of any political or future policy implications, this in itself is ample cause for celebration outlasting last nights revels – both those planned and those gratifyingly spontaneous.

Perhaps it’s a peculiarly human trait to remember our surroundings at moments deemed nationally historic -- political assassinations, the Columbia and Challenger disasters, 9/11. It feeds the cynic’s soul that so often these occasions are the stuff of tragedy rather than triumph.

But this time, the hope that ultimately sustains us has cast a beam in the darkness. Remember yesterday. It may turn out that something greatly good and lasting began. Score one for the better angels.