Barack Obama ushers in new progressive era
Eight years of neoconservative policies fade with historic election of the United States’ first African American president
Barack Obama waves to the crowd assembled in Grant Park in Chicago after delivering his acceptance speech following his election as the president of the United States on the night of November 4.
The history of the United States is now divided between pre-Obama and post-Obama.
The seemingly insurmountable barrier of race and the impregnable fortress of neo-conservatism that has controlled U.S. society for the past 30 years have come tumbling down in the face of Barack Hussein Obama. The first African American president produced in 232 years of history and the American voters have ushered in a new age of “neo-progressivism.”
For 30 years, it has been neo-conservative hegemony that has controlled the United States and the world. The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, sweeping 44 of the nation’s 50 states, was a signal flare for the neo-conservative age. While there was a hiatus in the form of the Clinton era, the two consecutive elections of George W. Bush, who presented a platform of economic policy for the rich and the arrogant foreign policy of a superpower, had many experts declaring the death of progressivism and the eternal triumph of conservatism. The U.S. Democratic Party was mocked as a sterile party unable to rise again. But on Tuesday, American voters lined up for hours in front of voting booths in the darkness of the early morning to make it clear that they want a new future. (262 words)
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