“America the Conservative”

“America the Conservative”

So last night I tried really hard to write a post explaining how there needed to be two victories, one at the level of reality (being elected president) and one at the level of the symbolic. The latter ought to be understood in good-old Maoist terms as how we should “properly think” of this victory: what is its meaning? The forces of the Right, predicting a McCain defeat for some time, have already been mustering the resources to try and make it seem, as ridiculous as it sounds to those on the Left, that an Obama victory somehow “proves” the notion that America is a “conservative nation” at heart, whatever that means.

Anyhow, here is a great graphic David Sirota made over at Open Left, juxtaposing Newsweek’s most recent cover with the electoral map from last night:

Here’s a progressive take on the meaning of the victory.

(Via Matthew Yglesias.)